Locatable Address Conversion System (LACS)
The LACS was developed to help emergency services – such as paramedics, fire, and police – identify address locations as quickly and accurately as possible. It converts non-specific rural addresses (e.g., Rural Route 7, Box 52), to street addresses. Towns and counties use the LACS to make these address changes and supply the local post office with a list of address conversions. This information is then given to the USPS, which creates a LACS database.
LACS is occasionally used to avoid address duplication by sequentially renumbering entire streets, or to differentiate street locations by changing a street suffix (e.g., Street, Avenue, Lane).