Address locator with multiple alternate name tables

[LucasMurray]

I have a street file with 5 alternative name fields for each street.  I'd like to use all 5 alternatives for the street-range address locator I'm building.  However, it looks like the Create Address Locator tool only allows me to use 1 alternative name.  One workaround I could do is create multiple address locators using the alternative name fields and combine them using a composite address locator but I thought there may be an easier way.

[JoeBorgione]

I have a street file with 5 alternative name fields for each street.  I'd like to use all 5 alternatives for the street-range address locator I'm building.  However, it looks like the Create Address Locator tool only allows me to use 1 alternative name.  One workaround I could do is create multiple address locators using the alternative name fields and combine them using a composite address locator but I thought there may be an easier way.

5 alias names for a given street? Uggh.  At some point everybody forgets the real name, right?

I would recommend that you merge all the aliases into one file, and have a unique "joinitem" for the 'real name' that appears in the alias table records.   It'll be some short term pain, but with the long term gain of just having to manage one alias table, I'm pretty sure you'll thank me later. But don't use the OID or a GUID as your unique joinitem; you'll curse me later if you do....

Hope this helps.

[KimOllivier]

How can there be 5 different names for a street? I think you must have missed the key features of a locator that can match alternative abbreviations and spellings for prefixes and suffixes. It can handle a lot of variation for a street name.
Are you also including alternative locations as a different street name? These can be added as alias list for the same street name.
You can edit the XML configuration file to add more alternatives to handle the combinations.

What about posting a few examples so we can see if they are really different?

[PeterHanmore]

I have a similar question.  I have an alias table for city names which has 6 possible alternate names for the city (upper tier, lower tier, geographic name, township, pre-amalgamation municipality and settlement names).  There seems that you can only have an alias table for street names, not city names.  Does anyone know if it's possible to have city aliases?

[RobertBorchert]

I believe the poster is saying that the name of the attribute to distinguish the name of the street field varies.

i.e. Street  or Street Name or Address1, or StNam etc...

How can there be 5 different names for a street? I think you must have missed the key features of a locator that can match alternative abbreviations and spellings for prefixes and suffixes. It can handle a lot of variation for a street name.
Are you also including alternative locations as a different street name? These can be added as alias list for the same street name.
You can edit the XML configuration file to add more alternatives to handle the combinations.

What about posting a few examples so we can see if they are really different?

[JoeBorgione]

Peter-  I've never seen one.  In the classic sense, alt names refers to the street names only.  I suppose you could create a series of locators each using the variation of the city name and then composite them.

Kim- I work in a couple of 9-1-1 call centers, and I'm asked all the time to add an alias for street names for every iteration under the sun.  Drives me nuts and I don't do it.  One of the areas we dispatch for has no naming conventions at all; even different county departments can't decide on the 'official' street name.  Here's an example; we may have three houses, all along the same street.  Jim, Bill, Jon live in each of the houses respectively.  Jim says he lives at 1234 Jims Ln; Bill says he lives at 1236 Bills Ave and Jon says he lives at 1238 Jon ST.

In the GIS, I have the 'official' name as Jims LN, and the other two are aliases. When Bill dials 9-1-1 he gives his address as 1236 Bills Ave, and the dispatcher replies with I show that as 1236 Jims Ln.. to which he replies I've lived here for 25 years, it's Bills Ave!!. And it goes back and forth. In the mean time, grandma is having a heart attack...

I might go two deep with a street name: official and one alias.  Maybe three if they catch me on a good day (official, alias1, alias2).  I'm not a fan of aliases!