[Talk-GB] Errors in Street Names in Addresses

[Will Phillips]

On 31/01/2018 09:07, Mark Goodge wrote:
> Which is the more correct usage here? Do we
>
> a) tag the dependent street as the addr:street, and the main street as 
> addr:parentstreet, or should we
>
> b) (following Royal Mail practice as found in the PAF), tag the 
> dependent street as a addr:substreet and the main street as addr:street?
>
> My personal preference would be the latter, it's not only consistent 
> with official addressing practice but it's also how most people 
> perceive these kind of addresses as well. But, on the other hand, most 
> map editors are likely to use addr:street for the dependent street, 
> simply because the editor UI doesn't make it obvious that 
> addr:substreet is a possibility. So it might be simpler to fix these 
> by adding addr:parentstreet as necessary rather than trying to get 
> everything pedantically correct.
>
> Mark

I favour using addr:parentstreet rather than addr:substreet for the 
following reasons:

1. The majority of OSM data users and tools/services using OSM data 
don't know that either addr:substreet or addr:parentstreet exist. They 
will recognise addr:housenumber and addr:street. Therefore I think the 
most important part of the address should use these tags, which is 
usually the dependent street and number. If someone is searching for an 
address, I think this is usually the part they will enter.

2. When mapping addresses I consider the addr:housenumber and 
addr:street to go together. Otherwise it is ambiguous, because there is 
no way of knowing whether the number relates to the dependent or parent 
street. This can get very confusing because the same numbers will often 
be used for addresses along the main part of the street and again on any 
subsidiary parts. If we wanted to use addr:substreet without any 
ambiguity, we would need something like addr:substreetnumber as well.

3. Using addr:substreet is just more confusing. New mappers aren't going 
to understand it. If a street has its own name and is separately 
numbered, it's intuitive to put this into the widely recognised 
addr:housenumber and addr:street tags. I know from surveying a lot of 
addresses that is difficult to guess whether Royal Mail considers a 
street to be dependent or not: such streets often don't look any 
different from other nearby streets that aren't. It's not something 
mappers should have to worry about in the majority of cases.


Just to add, I don't think addr:parentstreet it always the best 
approach. Where a 'dependent street' is say a block of flats without a 
physically separate street, using addr:housename and addr:flats is often 
simpler.

Regards,
Will