topic Re: Using Alternate Street Names For Beginners in Data Management Questions

Using Alternate Street Names For Beginners

ChrisHagwood — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 18:35:06 GMT

I am working on a project in which the data set uses alternate names than my centerlines file. So, I assume there's a fix for this using ALTNAME geocoding. However, I have not yet found a help topic that tells me how to create the table of alternate names. I've seen this (http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisdesktop/9.3/index.cfm?TopicName=Alternative_searches) but I still don't understand how to go about creating the two parts that match street names in the centerline to alternate names.

I have generally worked around this in the past, but now I'm facing 15% or more of my data that uses alternate street names, so I need to learn how to do this.

I'm using 9.3.

Thanks!

Re: Using Alternate Street Names For Beginners

MichelleLewis — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 22:21:10 GMT

Hi Chris,

If you can explain a little more specifically about what you're trying to do, I might (big might there) be able to help. At my office, I'm responsible for a statewide roadway network - every road in the state. We have been using alias/alt names with our roads right from the beginning, but we had to create them, they didn't just come to us this way. In our road centerline file we have a primary name & up to 3 alias names. In our milepost layer, we have a primary name and up to 26 alias names.

I'd be happy to help you if I can.

Re: Using Alternate Street Names For Beginners

JoeBorgione — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 22:21:37 GMT

Chris- the key to alt names is a join item. Here is how I've done it:

All the streets I have are either alpha or numeric in name. Every alpha street has a numeric value that I use for an alias. The numeric value of each alpha street is stored as an attribute in the original feature class. I also add a unique identifier other than the OID or GUID. To make an alias table I simply select those streets where alias_field is not null or <> ' ', and write the records to a stand alone table. The join item goes with them, so you are good to go.

If you don't have your centerlines set up as I do, you can start from scratch; just be sure to add an item to the original street feature class that you can join to. Develop your table in such a manner that it has the proper fields you'll need like Pre Dir, Suf Dir, Type etc. The address ranges will be taken care of in the original data.

Michelle- you are much nicer than me when it comes to aliases. I'll go two, maybe three deep, but 26!? Your dispatchers had better treat you like a saint!

Hope this helps-

Re: Using Alternate Street Names For Beginners

ChrisHagwood — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 13:00:46 GMT

Thanks for the offers of help. I did attempt to create an altname table and I thought I had it figured out to some extent, but it fails when it tries to create the locator.

I have a centerlines file with a streets with many segments. I created a JOINID field on each segment. For example, segment JOINID 36 is called FAYETTEVILLE RD, but it's also known as US 401 HWY.

So I have a matching ALTNAME table with JOINID 36 and it's street name is US 401.
STREET_ID DIR_PRE STNAME STYPE DIR_SUF joinid
465 US 401 HWY 36

The ALTNAMES table I'm creating is a DBF file. The centerlines file table I used was also a DBF table. Is that what I should be doing?

Re: Using Alternate Street Names For Beginners

JoeBorgione — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 18:09:23 GMT

Thanks for the offers of help. I did attempt to create an altname table and I thought I had it figured out to some extent, but it fails when it tries to create the locator.

I have a centerlines file with a streets with many segments. I created a JOINID field on each segment. For example, segment JOINID 36 is called FAYETTEVILLE RD, but it's also known as US 401 HWY.

So I have a matching ALTNAME table with JOINID 36 and it's street name is US 401.
STREET_ID DIR_PRE STNAME STYPE DIR_SUF joinid
465 US 401 HWY 36

The ALTNAMES table I'm creating is a DBF file. The centerlines file table I used was also a DBF table. Is that what I should be doing?

Your streets need to be in the form of a feature class, not a file. When you geocode, you are turning an address that you and I recognize into a pair of X,Y coordinates that the GIS recognizes; the coordinate system of your street feature class is the basis of those x-y pairs.

I'm a big fan of personal geodatabases since I'm a big fan of access, so I'll store both my streets feature class as well as my alt-names table there. I like to keep the addresses in there too, and write my geocoded output there as well. However, I write my locators to a directory, typically the one that holds the pgdb.

Take a look here; it may help you out a bit.

Re: Using Alternate Street Names For Beginners

ChrisHagwood — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 15:18:26 GMT

Your streets need to be in the form of a feature class, not a file. When you geocode, you are turning an address that you and I recognize into a pair of X,Y coordinates that the GIS recognizes; the coordinate system of your street feature class is the basis of those x-y pairs.

I'm not familiar with geodatabases and feature classes yet. I have worked almost exclusively in shapefiles. I see a tool for featureclass to shapefile, but not the other way around.

I opened the centerlines shapefile dbf table and added the JOINID field. I was not working with just a dbf of street names, if that matters.

I felt like I was following all the steps, but when it tries to build the locator, it would fail with a very general error.

Re: Using Alternate Street Names For Beginners

JoeBorgione — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 14:33:23 GMT

I'm not familiar with geodatabases and feature classes yet. I have worked almost exclusively in shapefiles. I see a tool for featureclass to shapefile, but not the other way around.

I opened the centerlines shapefile dbf table and added the JOINID field. I was not working with just a dbf of street names, if that matters.

I felt like I was following all the steps, but when it tries to build the locator, it would fail with a very general error.

Chris- I had responded earlier this morning, but apparently didn't click the 'post' button....

Your original post mentioned a 'centerlines file' which I took literally. To get a shapefile into a geodatabase is pretty easy. Take a look here to start. That said, you can use shapefiles, I just prefer geodatabases.

Without taking a look at your data, I really can't comment on what the problem is that tosses the error. If you can post some of your data here, I'd be happy to give it a go, or you can contact me via pm and we can take this off-forum if you prefer.