TIGER/Line locator for alternate names AND alternate address ranges

[EricKauffman]

Before version 10, in order to create an address locator that would accomodate alternate address ranges, you had to create a custom locator.

With version 10, and the new locator types, is this still necessary?

Or, is there a "canned" v. 10 locator that will use TIGER/Line's alternative names AND alternate address ranges without the need for creating a custom locator?

Thanks a bunch!

[JoeBorgione]

Would it make sense to create a composite locator?  I'm not at all familiar with Tiger data any more (and I thank my lucky stars ) but from what you describe, it sounds like you have in one feature class, StreetName, StreetRange, AltName, AltRange, where StreetName and StreetRange go together and then AltName and AltRange go together.  If you create Street-Locator and Alt-Locator, referencing the the appropriate feilds and then composite them together, would that do the trick for you?

[DanMarrier]

There isn't a standard locator template in ArcGIS 10 (yet) that takes into account both an alternate name table and an alternate range table simultaneously.  I had the same question in 2010, and submitted repeated requests for such a thing, but have yet to see anything come to fruition.  Ultimately I ended up creating my own customized one that uses them both, though it's a little cludgy.  But the biggest problem is that the alternate address number range table that came with TIGER in early to mid 2010 does not have 4 separate fields differentiating left vs. right.  There is a single field that specifies "L" or "R" for any given record's range.  I had to reformat that table into the expected Left-from, Left-to, Right-from, Right-to scheme in order to get the customized locator to work.

Still waiting to see if ESRI will ever get around to putting together a more formal and official TIGER geocoding template.  Not holding my breath.

[EricKauffman]

Hi Dan,
I'm now having to revisit using TIGER 2010. Would you mind sharing the address locator you built?
Thanks!
-Eric

[DanMarrier]

Eric,

I've attached a zipfile to this post containing two Arc 9.3 locator files (.lot).  They each make use of a reference set of TIGER roads that exists in our SDE database, and the formatted version of the address range relationship table that I described in my previous post.  Only one of the locator files (Census TIGER2K9 with Zone and AltName.lot) tries to include code that accesses the alias street name table containing all known alternate names that were in the 2009 version of the Census data.  The only problem is that locator file doesn't work.  I couldn't figure out where in the code I was going wrong, and sent a copy of the file to my local ESRI office, but never heard back on a solution.  So the only thing that works is the locator service that makes use of the address range table, provided it has been created properly.  I haven't done much with these files in awhile, and it seemed kind of obsolete since Arc 10 is out now, aside from the fact that I'm far from fluent in the code used. (a lot of it was just trial and error)  But if anybody can fix the broken one, I certainly wouldn't discourage it.

Dan