BRINGING

ADDRESSES INTO

THE NSDI Martha McCart Wells, GISP

October 20, 2014

WHY ADDRESSES?

One of the most commonly used ways to locate people, places and

events

Addresses form a fourth spatial reference system, along with coordinate reference

systems, linear reference systems, and geographic names (gazetteer references).

Address Reference Systems are the only spatial reference system with visible

guidance on the landscape: street signs and building numbers

Address Reference Systems are used by citizens and businesses to navigate through

their environment.

WHY ADDRESSES WORK

Logical

Consistent

Organized in a system

Visible on the landscape

Street signs

Numbers on buildings

WHAT IS AN ADDRESS REFERENCE

SYSTEM?

An address reference system describes the rules and organization of

addresses within a given area.

An ARS functions as a spatial reference system.

Describe location based on a system of street names and individual numbers for

buildings and other features

Typically local

Different from coordinate reference systems, linear reference systems,

and gazetteers in the way in which they describe a spatial position.

ADDRESSES ARE CREATED AT THE LOCAL

GOVERNMENT LEVEL

Created at the local level

Geography is known

Address Reference System provides logic and consistency

Used at local level

Services (emergency response, ordinary business)

Licenses, permits, school assignments, routing for buses, trash pickup, inspections,

meter reading, voting, entitlements for services

A citizen knows his/her address

Guidance is visible: street signs, building numbers

ADDRESSES ARE USED AT REGIONAL,

STATE, FEDERAL LEVELS

Regional governments: planning, analysis

State governments: voter registration/elections, emergency

management, vehicle licenses, state permits, broadband

Federal: Census, FEMA, Homeland Security, HUD, Federal Mortgage

Insurance, Postal Service

PRIVATE SECTOR VALUE

Virtually all of the mapping services, Google, Bing,

MapQuest, Apple, and others, have been gathering addresses

throughout the US and posting them publicly.

Initially they posted block ranges

Now, increasingly, individual address numbers on individual building

footprints.

Delivery services (Fedex, UPS, pizza, couriers, groceries,

local businesses require addresses

WHAT DOES THIS ADD UP TO?

12,000 municipal governments

3,500 counties/county equivalents

Federal and state owned landowners

All addressing things “their own way”

Address data held in multiple, mutually-unintelligible formats

Confusion for service providers

Costs to public and private sector

BUILDING A NATIONAL ADDRESS

REPOSITORY

Why it matters:

There are thousands of different address databases in different

formats

Addresses are assigned by different methods by local governments

This will not change

Aggregation of address data is difficult but necessary

Census and other federal datasets are not open to the public, or to

any other users

CREATING A NATIONAL ADDRESS

REPOSITORY

Requires a data standard that can manage the

diversity of address data available

Requires open exchanges of data at all levels.

Requires participation and commitment

Requires capacity to serve address data to a wide

variety of users at all levels

WHY AN ADDRESS STANDARD?

Addresses and how they work are little understood by

most people.

A standard for reporting address information consistently

makes sharing of information and the use of addresses to

identify specific locations possible.

Standardized address information, with metadata, provides

consistent information on specific locations

A standard provides the opportunity to create the data

once, and use it, reliably, in many other situations.

EXISTING STANDARDS

Types of standards:

Single purpose:

USPS Publication 28: Formatting standard for mail pieces, no data model, no data dictionary

NENA (National Emergency Number Association): standards for address data in call records

Local ordinances setting forth rules for addressing in the local area

Multi-Purpose

FGDC incorporates data content, data classification, data quality and data exchange

Designed to support multiple business needs

Consistent with major single purpose standards such as USPS and NENA

The FGDC United States

Thoroughfare, Landmark and

Postal Address Data Standard

• Created by a URISA-led volunteer

committee, using a grass-roots

methodology

• Designed to support address

formats in use throughout the U.S.

and territories

• Endorsed by FGDC in 2011

• Adopted by numerous states and

local governments, used by many

federal agencies

ABOUT THE FGDC STANDARD

Includes classes of addresses: thoroughfare, landmark and postal types

Incorporates testing protocols for address data quality

Provides a full protocol for data exchange in XML

Defines over 60 address elements and attributes

Creates the Address Reference System framework, defining the

elements of Address Reference Systems

Provides a way to document how addresses have been and should be assigned

systematically

Provides the “rules” used in data quality testing

Census is the Maintenance Authority for the Standard

ADDRESSES AS A BASE FOR

DEMOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS

While individual addresses have been collected by local,

state and federal agencies for many years, there are no

public address datasets at the national level

Census, IRS, USPS and others are covered by US laws maintaining the

confidentiality of the information collected or used

Much address data has not been mapped, as the geographic information

needed to support it has not been available, or because the data managers

have not seen a need to display it in the form of a map

Aggregation of addresses from multiple local sources in multiple formats

has proved daunting to state and federal agencies

CURRENT INITIATIVES

Census looking at ways of creating a national address database outside of Title 13

NGAC has endorsed the idea of building a national address database

Broadband and Next-Generation 911 initiatives have created the need for robust, point-based address data at the state and local levels

Management of disaster recovery efforts by FEMA has highlighted many of the issues with inadequate address data (as of 2011, still trying to verify claims from Katrina as address data is incomplete and incorrect)

URISA and NSGIC have endorsed including Addresses in the NSDI Framework Data as the 8th theme.

ISO Working Group looking at ways to create an International Standard

CREATING AN OPEN

NATIONAL ADDRESS DATABASE

What are the requirements for such a database?

What is the best way to create it?

Who would manage it?

How would it be updated?

How would data be provided to contributors and to non-contributing

users?

What is the likely cost?

Other issues: security, privacy, competition, resolution of conflicting

data