[Tagging] Street and Sub-Street in Address Tagging

[Paul Allen]

On Sat, 16 Jan 2021 at 15:51, Colin Smale <colin.smale at xs4all.nl> wrote:


This is why RM say that if you only have room for one street name, use the
> Dependent Thoroughfare ("Bar Court") as this will be unique within a
> postcode.
>

Theoretically the house name/number is unique within a postcode
and nothing but the house name/number and postcode are needed.
A little redundancy helps with error detection and correction, though.


> There are two sorts of house names: Firstly (particularly in rural
> settings) where a house does not actually have a number. In these cases the
> name is managed by the local authority together with Royal Mail and can't
> be changed at a whim.
>

According to Royal Mail, it is solely the purview of the local authority
and any changes must be approved by the local authority.


> Secondly there are "vanity names" that people add to a house that has a
> number. In that case the number must still always be displayed on the
> property and used as part of the address, and the house name is "optional".
>

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice.  In
practise, there is.  I've surveyed houses that display neither name
nor number.  I've surveyed houses that display only a name but
are between two numbered houses in a range of numbered houses
and the number can be inferred (and confirmed by other means).
And I've encountered houses that may once have had a number in
the distant past but it is not displayed nor can I find anything to
say what it might have been, nor can it be inferred (when only
only one house of three on a dependent thoroughfare has the number
2, it's impossible to tell which 1 and 3 were).


Because "Foo Towers" is a Dependant Thoroughfare and not part of the house
> name/number perhaps? Or maybe it is a "Building Name"?
>

Dependent thoroughfare if it has multiple occupants, building
name if it has a single occupant.  Probably.


We have partial kluges for all three categories, but none work
well.  A field for dependent thoroughfare would be a full solution
for all of them (but there are probably weirder examples that not
even that would fix).


Indeed, the suggestion of addr:street mapping to the Dependent Thoroughfare
> and addr:parentstreet mapping to the Thoroughfare fixes this, and because
> it is a direct mapping to the address model used by RM in the PAF, it is
> likely to accommodate the "thoroughfare" part of all official addresses in
> the UK.
>

I think I would have preferred addr:sub-street for the dependent
thoroughfare.  I think it a better fit to how people (I'm using a sample
size of 1 for "people") think about things.  But maybe a slightly worse
fit for tower blocks.  But I'm losing the will to live, so parentstreet is
looking good.


> A slightly nerdy explanation of all these data elements can be found here:
> https://ideal-postcodes.co.uk/documentation/paf-data#thoroughfare
>

It started well enough, though I noted it didn't explain why a
thoroughfare might be split into more than one postcode (it seems
to be because the postcode corresponds to the route a postperson
uses).  But as I read further it completely sapped my will to live.

-- 
Paul
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/tagging/attachments/20210116/5e591adb/attachment.htm>