[OSM-talk] Address ranges / Using OSM data in a geocoder

[Sebastian Benthall]

Hi!  New here.  My name is Sebastian Benthall.  I'm investigating the
possibility of using OSM data to back a geocoding application on behalf of
OpenGeo, which does a number of open source geospatial software projects.  I
have a couple questions.

It looks like the two options for US geocoding are TIGER line data and OSM.
OSM is appealing to us because it already provides an interface for
correcting inaccurate address data.  But it looks from some of my
investigation like much of the TIGER data that has been pulled into OSM has
not had the address ranges added.  Is that generally true?

If so, how hard would it be to put that data in, say if we wanted to
automate as much of the work as possible.  It looks like some of the TIGER
data still has its tiger:tlid attribute, but I've read that in many places
it is no longer there.  How good is the coverage on that?

Would it work to sweep through the data and add address ranges to it based
on which TLID's matched?  Are those changes this community would support?
Is there a smarter way to do it?

Sorry to be such a newbie.  I appreciate your time and any answers you might
have about this,

Sebastian
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