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by pesoneto
267 days ago
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My understanding of the Google algorithm is that it is based on named streets. By convention in Utah, the first tuple element is the house number and the second element is the street. But because each element has a post-fix identifier, the order does not matter except for the convention. So maps will first try to match the entire string entered by the user. Typically, it show a list of possible matches and allows the user to choose one. If there is no match, then the second element of the tuple is chosen and an attempt is made to find this as a name in the street database. But if this fails, maps says what the heck, order does not matter, maybe the first element is the street and looks this up. In many places, streets are long sections that cross many cities. So Google's street database kind of tosses the city information. So it can end up picking any street that matches either number in the tuple. Maybe someone has a better knowledge of the algorithm, but this is my best take on it. For Utah, the result is madness. |
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So I learned something about this when I bought my house. If the second element is a named street, then you're expected to omit the cardinal direction from the first element. So, taking the address in the OP as an example, if 630 S was a street named Foo Boulevard, then the address is correctly written (from USPS' POV) as either 716 Foo Boulevard or 716 W 630 S. Before learning that, I would certainly have written 716 W Foo Boulevard and, indeed, that's what many if not most Utahans expect. (And, actually, including the cardinal direction disambiguates some cases, e.g., State Street. There's a donut shop (best glazed donuts in the valley) at 2699 State Street and the Capitol Building is at 350 State Street. Except the first is S and the second is N, so they're 3049 units away, not 2349.)
Anyway, it's kinda interesting to me because, if I use the former notation of specifying my home address, some navigation systems will put people a couple miles away at some church but it always (so far) works if I use the latter notation. It most recently confused the navigation system a local towing company uses until I gave them the address in the latter notation.