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<tt>Maning and Rally, I am very happy that you mentioned this problem!<br>
<br>
I have worked with addressing systems for years. Having made database
schemas and software for direct marketing companies, mail order
businesses and a world wide location search system, I have considerable
expertise in this area. I have also been annoyed with the complete mess
the Philippine addressing "system" is in, and have been wanting to do
something with it. This may be the kick I need to get going.<br>
Addressing systems look so easy when you just glance over them, but
when you dig deeper into the matter, like Rally has done here, you
discover that it's immensely complex. If the database schema holding
this information is not designed well, it's going to be a complete mess
forever after.<br>
I have analysed the situation in some other countries and found their
weaknesses:<br>
<br>
Norway (where I'm from): Postal codes are under the control of the
postal and telecommunications authority (which means government). This
is the first mistake. Anyone who has dealt with the government knows
that thay are utterly incapable of doing anything right. Result: small
towns have one post code, similar to the phils. Bigger (or randomly
selected small towns) have numerous postal codes which are assigned so
they fit the routes of the local post office! Completely useless to
anyone but themselves...<br>
Norway is also complicated, but not as messy as the Philippines. The
most complex addresses can be like this one:<br>
Leil 42, 2. etg, oppg. C<br>
Storebakken 12<br>
0123 OSLO<br>
The least complex one can be like the one of my Grand parents before:<br>
4760 BIRKELAND<br>
(that's it)<br>
The reason for this is that it's a small village, they live by the main
road, which has no name (only a road number which never is used in an
address) and the one delivering mail there knows everybody anyway. This
is still a valid address.<br>
The good thing about Norway is that the street name is unique within
the postal code - in fact within the municipality (which can have 1 or
more postal codes as explained above). This luxiru we don't have in the
Phils.<br>
<br>
Moving on the the UK, which has an excellent postal code system - in my
opinion even better than the US. Not perfect, but a good model.<br>
Their "post codes" consists of four sections:<br>
Postcode area<br>
Postcode district<br>
Sector<br>
Unit<br>
Examples:<br>
GU35 9NQ - GU = Guildford (the nearest big town), 35=district within
the Guildford area, 9 = Sector, NQ = Unit<br>
W2 6DB - W = West London, 2 = district, 6 = sector, DB = unit<br>
EC2R 8AY - EC = East Central London, 2R = district, etc.<br>
See <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_postcodes">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_postcodes</a> for full details.<br>
The addresses in the UK are also structured in a way:<br>
For example, my address is:<br>
Flat 12<br>
Cleveland House<br>
55 Cleveland Square<br>
London<br>
W2 6DB<br>
</tt><tt>Address explained:<br>
Flat 12 = flat number, apartment number, room number, etc (section of
building). Normally not included in address finder software.<br>
Cleveland House - House name. in this case redundant information, as
house number is specified below. A UK address can have a house name OR
house number, or both.<br>
55 Cleveland Square - House number + street name<br>
London - town/city (London is special as there is no need for county)<br>
W2 6DB - postcode<br>
</tt><tt>We used to rent a farm house earlier, the address was:<br>
</tt><tt> Sandybridge Farm, Main Road<br>
Kinglsey, Bordon, Hampshire<br>
GU35 9NQ<br>
Address explained:<br>
</tt><tt> Sandybridge Farm, Main Road - house name + street name
(basically the same as house number + street name)<br>
Kinglsey, Bordon, Hampshire - Area, Town, County<br>
GU35 9NQ - postcode<br>
<br>
I believe the US has s similar system to the UK, like Rally describes,
but their postcode system is based on numbers only, like 13745-1452
which is inherently difficult to remember. The UK system is much better
as it utilized letters as well as numbers. This makes the codes shorter
and easier to remember.<br>
<br>
What I propose that we do - before any government body or commercial
company does it, is to create a near perfect postal code system for the
Philippines. This could be a separate project form OSM, but closely
linked - so that OSM will always be the best and most updated map with
all postal codes included. The reason why I want to do it this way is
to ensure that the address, post code and geo coding information
remains free for all, unlike most othr countries where only companies
with a big enough budget can legally get hold of the data.<br>
<br>
Rally has gone into great detail already, which is immensely useful
information. With my experience of db design in this specific area, I
can solve a couple of the problems he is facing:<br>
He says people uses different ways to describe the same address. This
is and will always be a problem. The address db should therefore be
centered around points, not the address itself. A point can be either a
single X-Y coordinate or an area. Each point can have more than one
address attached to it. We can mark one address as "primary" or
"official" so that looking up any of the other address will give you
the official address in the end.<br>
So if "#245 Brgy Sta Cruz, Magalang, Pampanga" is the physical location
as "10 Rizal Rd, Puruk 1, Magalang, Pampanga" (it's not, I just made it
up), then so be it: add both address pointing to the same point.<br>
Also, addresses change. This is a fact, and it's unavoidable, so the
system should be prepared for it. Having "valid_from" and "valid_to"
dates on addresses is a good start. This way, no historical data gets
lost. In year 2045, we can look back and see what the address was
called in 2009.<br>
And don't worry about database space. You shouldn't need to feel sorry
for the computers, they're there to serve us, and disk space gets
cheaper every day (about half price every 18 months), so I wouldn't
worry too much about that.<br>
<br>
I agree that the Lot/blk/phase thing is a stupid system that should be
abandoned immediately, however, failing that, having a system that
allows more than one address per physical location (point) goes a long
way. When someone actually comes up with a good name for the streets
within a sub division and numbering the houses within it, we can add
them right away while still supporting the legacy lot/blk/phase style.<br>
If we assign postal codes with care - in other words if you have a
lot/blk/phase system, but you assign each postal code for one side of
the street in one block only, then you the lot number can act as house
number, as it will be unique.<br>
Better yet, as the system will have a "primary" address, say you're a
courier like Rally and you're printing the list of places to go - the
system can look up the address (postal code + house number/name being
unique) and print the "real" or official address rather than the one
given. So someone writes:<br>
Lot 12, blk 3, phase 2<br>
Diamond-gold-celebrity-life-buy-a-lot-here-and-be-happy-ever-after
Subdivision<br>
Sometown, Someprovince<br>
XX4X 1XX<br>
It's translated to<br>
59, 5th Avenue<br>
Diamond-etc subdivision<br>
</tt><tt>Sometown, Someprovince<br>
</tt><tt>XX4X 2XX<br>
<br>
I am prepared to design the database schema and direct the development
of a piece of software that can do all of this. I suggest that we
create an organization that holds the ownership of this software (which
will only be used on our web server anyway, and we don't want idiots
copying our server software to set up slightly modified alternative
versions all over the place) but release the data under an appropriate
open license, similar to OSM, available to everybody and easy to
update, so it will be kept up to date.<br>
Exchange of data between OSM and this system would be obvious, leading
to all addresses - and postal codes - in the entire Philippines being
available on OSM - down to house number/name and their exact location.<br>
<br>
Hopefully, the post office and all courier companies, mail order
companies, direct marketing companies, etc. will see the value of this
and adapt it as well.<br>
<br>
Well, this was a lot of stuff in one go, but if anyone will raise their
hands to say they want to be part of this (and also add what they plan
to contribute with), then please let me know. I will then set up a task
management system where we can enter all our requirements and start
moving towards development of a system for it.<br>
<br>
Ronny<br>
</tt><br>
maning sambale wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:f902f9840903181936kccc5069xcfd87209da4e5a4c@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Hi,
I have been discussing with rally about adding addresses to osm. We
all know it's messy here in the Philippines but rally outlined an even
more messy situation!
I hope we can pool our minds together to come-up with a sensible
addressing format for the Philippines.
I've started a wikipage to collect some notes
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Philippines/Philippine_addressing">http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Philippines/Philippine_addressing</a>
I suggest we adopt the Karlsruhe Schema and adopt all possible tags
that fit the Philippines.
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Address">http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Address</a>
here's the email from rally (background rally works in courier service
so he knows this stuff very well):
==============
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">housenumber : number or alphanumeric (eg 12-C, 5-A), or
LOT/BLK/PHASE no.
housename: for addresses on Avenues (eg. ortigas ave ext or
manila east
roads) that has no street number, but building names only
street: sometimes blank (for sitios with no streets; of for
subdivisions
with no streets - using Lot/Block/Phase)
state -- not applicable
for NCR:
postcode: zipcode
Note: In the US, "zipcode" combined with
"house number" and "street name"
are enough info for a package to be delivered.
because their expanded zipcode makes the equivalent
barangay, sitio, town,
city, state becomes redundant info.
a specific expanded ZIP points to a small specific area in
the country. So,
once a messenger reached that zipcode area, all he has to
do is look for the
street and house number. sometimes it includes APT or SPC
(apartment or
Space number). no need to specify condo or name of
townhouse (as they
consume extra space in the database).
The dream is for every filipino living in a specific area,
to know his/her
expanded zipcode. maybe, all he needs to do is dial his
landline on his
area, and the computer answers back with the correct
zipcode; or simply ask
the barangay tanod for their zipcode. then, there's no
need to memorize the
name of apartment, condo, building name, project
subdivision. that way, typo
error don't matter as long as the zipcode is correct.
according to wiki,
Taytay Rizal is 41square Km. yet the zip code is one
4-digit number for the
entire town. Now what's the use of this zipcode to a
messenger? no use.
my point is, after the tag "addr:street" we must
go to many other sub-levels
before going to city or town.
some barangays in the philppines are just too big for one
expanded zipcode,
so we further divide it into sitio or big village or big
subdivision...
wait, it's not that easy to teach and implement.
what complicates the address system is the inefficient use
of address fields
in paper forms: rural and city addresses need different
forms.
NCR have "districts" and barangays but don't
have provinces, and sitios and
puroks are not that many.
RURAL AREAS have provinces and barangays, but have lots of
sitios and
puroks, but practically no districts (except for
congressional districts
which is not used on Address system) - because
congressional district keeps
on changing very often.
since there are lots of "streetname duplication"
in a particular town, rural
addresses need to specify subdivision name, or sitio or
purok name or
neighborhood association name; else the mails get lost.
There are no laws
governing the "naming of streets". it's a
free-for-all system for LGU to
name it to any names they like.
if we use all fields (1) house number or Lot/Blk/Phase, (2)
Floor Number,
(3) building name or Apartment name, (4) streetname, (5)
sitio or purok, (6)
subdivision name (or project name), (7) barangay name, (8)
town or city
name, (9) province, (10) regions name, (11) country name,
(12) zip code...
gosh there's a lot of field that will be blank or be
filled up with a lot of
N/A's
because:
1. some don't have House number, but Lot/Blk/Phase ---
How do you search Lot
Block Phase? Doesn't make sense and creates logistical
nightmare. One block
normally covers 3-4 streets (on all sides) - not
environment friendly - lots
of fuel spent searching.
2. If Lot/Blk/Phase is used, then some don't use street
names (especially
for those subd given permit to sell even without naming
their streets), then
after a few years put names on the street and mess up the
address database.
3. if they don't live in a building, then what's
the use of Floor Number and
building name field? (imagine the precious terabytes wasted
on the harddrive
trying to reserved space for these unused space on a
typical database)
4. some buildings are condos, some office/residential (so
we use "building"
field to enter the condo name) when some would insist that
it should be on
the "Projects Name" --- same field reserved for
"Subdivision Name" so which-
which? what about a townhouse, since these are not
"buildings" but just a
"project". There are different impressions from
different people, so they
either put it on building (where they normally put condos),
while others
will put it on Subdivision (where they put the name of the
project). What
about warehouse factories with lots of building names
inside an industrial
subdivision? this is easy...
5. some subdivision such as beverly hills subd (antipolo)
is considered "one
whole barangay" by antipolo city; so where do we put
it? in "barangay" or
"subdivision" field? or both? if both, then what
happened if we print it to
the mailing envelope using mailmerge... we get
"beverly hills subd, beverly
hills subd, antipolo city --- let's you think there
must be a typo somewhere
(because of redundancy).
and to think that half of beverly hills subd is also part
of Taytay Rizal
and is just under Barangay Dolores of Taytay. (there's
boundary dispute)
6. some use sitio as another name for purok (in our town,
that is the case).
Sitio is the name, while that name has an assigned
"Purok #". Which one
should we put on the address field, the sitio name or the
purok number? so
stupid and confusing system, don't you think? you
can't have both if they
mean the same. but if you let people use either, your
database search gets
messed up.
7. some Neighborhood association (which should be in the
"subdivision" field
is assigned a "purok" number). While a
"subdivision" can also be assigned to
a "barangay" field (see number 5). So who is the
final arbiter which goes
where, when filling up an address form? Answer, an LGU
official registry of
verified address. If you're address don't appear on
the system, then you
apply for one, verfied by the tax mapping if such address
is under what
taxdeclaration number, and connected to the Address
Registry Office if a
street number, house number, building number, apartment
number etc is
already assigned to it, or if it does exist.
8. If it's a city within the province, then what do you
put in the province
field? blank? We normally dont put Antipolo City, Rizal
Province (because
antipolo has it's own congressional district)
9. if the city is in Metro Manila, then it would appear
like Makati City,
Metro Manila. In which case, what in what field do we put
"Metro Manila", in
the province field? (Metro Manila is not a province). If we
use NCR instead
of Metro Manila, then I guess, we need to put another field
for Region,
because NCR (or Metro Manila)
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.wowphilippines.com.ph/explore_phil/explore_main.asp">http://www.wowphilippines.com.ph/explore_phil/explore_main.asp</a>
Except for Metro Manila, Region was never a part of address
system. So why
put Metro Manila as an exception. It's a waste of
database field. gosh, we
need to teach all these stupid rules to all filipinos as
early as grade 3
else they mess up the database, mess up our mail
deliveries, as well as
those ambulance and police rescue, and pizza deliveries.
10. what about those vacant space in rural areas. No
problem in vacant
subdivision lots, because chances are, there's a
lot/block/phase number
assigned to it. In rural settings, rarely do an LGU assign
a SPACE number to
make it reacheable. Eg. what if you want a truckload of
panambak delivered
to it. Or you want to rent it for Perya or Bingo Tent
operations. In the US,
they lease these spaces to RV-truck houses. Mails and pizza
can actually be
delivered to these SPC (space).
we have lots of these confusing address cases. so where do
we start? let's
build a matrix kaya? i'll supply you with actual stupid
addresses made by
some people that are giving us headaches and eats up our
earnings because of
multiple failed delivery attempts.
let's crunch first the above puzzles above, and make a
fool-proof
idiot-proof efficient address system. :-) the resulting
databse field will
be the one used in data collection for our pilot project in
my area.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
</pre>
</blockquote>
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