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
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