III.4 Partial Street Names

It is a common informal practice to refer to streets using partial versions of ‘full’ street names. For example, the intersection of Nassau Street and Broad Street in Manhattan might be specified as the intersection of “'Nassau Street and Broad”. To accommodate this practice, Geosupport is designed to accept such partial street names as input street names whenever feasible. In this section, a precise definition and some examples of partial street names are given, and the circumstances under which Geosupport accepts a partial street name as an input street name are described.

A partial street name is a character string that is not itself a valid ‘full’ street name, and that is formed from a valid full street name by deleting one or more entire words from the end of the full street name. Note that, according to this definition, forming a partial street name involves the deletion of words only from the end of a full street name, not from the beginning or middle, and the deletion only of entire words, not portions of words. The following examples illustrate the definition.

  • READE is a Manhattan partial street name for the valid Manhattan full street name READE STREET. READE STRE and READ are not partial street names, since they are formed by deleting portions of words rather than entire words.

  • Both KATHARINE and KATHARINE HEPBURN are Manhattan partial street names for the valid Manhattan full street name KATHARINE HEPBURN PLACE, which exists on East 49 Street between Second Avenue and Third Avenue

  • PARK AVENUE is not considered a Manhattan partial street name, because it is a valid Manhattan full street name in its own right, even though it can be formed by deleting the last word from a valid Manhattan full street name, PARK AVENUE SOUTH.

  • PARK is a Manhattan partial street name that can be formed from several valid Manhattan full street names, including PARK AVENUE, PARK AVENUE SOUTH, PARK ROW and PARK PLACE

Geosupport accepts a partial street name as an input street name only if it unambiguously represents (i.e., if it can be formed only from) a single valid full street name in the specified input borough. If a partial street name can be formed from more than one full street name in the given borough, it is ambiguous and Geosupport rejects it. A partial street name cannot also be a front-truncated street name. Consider the following examples:

  • Several valid Manhattan full street names begin with the word PARK, as noted above. Therefore PARK is an ambiguous partial street name, and Geosupport does not accept it as an input street name for Manhattan. Similarly, two valid Manhattan full street names begin with the word YORK, namely YORK AVENUE and YORK STREET. Therefore, YORK is an ambiguous partial street name, and Geosupport does not accept it as an input street name for Manhattan.

  • There is only one Manhattan street name that begins with the word READE, namely READE STREET. Therefore, Geosupport accepts the partial street name READE as a Manhattan input street name unambiguously representing the Manhattan full street name READE STREET.

  • Geosupport accepts both KATHARINE and KATHARINE HEPBURN as Manhattan input street names, since they are unambiguous partial street names for the Manhattan full street name KATHARINE HEPBURN PLACE.

  • A partial street name cannot also be a front-truncated street name. For example, 65 STREET in Manhattan would seem to be a partial street name of 65 STREET TRANSVERSE, but it is also a front-truncated street name of EAST 65 STREET and WEST 65 STREET. Geosupport accepts 65 STREET as a front-truncated street name, but not as a partial street name. If 65 STREET is not successful as a front-truncated street name, 65 STREET TRANSVERSE will appear in the list of Similar Names, e.g. Function 1, 80 65 STREET in Manhattan.

  • Some partial street names are accepted as input street names in some boroughs but not in others. For example, Geosupport accepts BROAD as an unambiguous partial street name for BROAD STREET in Manhattan and in Staten Island. However, in Queens, BROAD is rejected as an ambiguous partial street name, since it can be formed from a number of different valid full Queens street names, including BROAD STREET and BROAD CHANNEL. In the Bronx and Brooklyn, BROAD is not a partial street name at all, and is rejected accordingly, since in those boroughs there are no full street names that begin with the word BROAD.

Note: Since street names may be added or deleted with each Geosupport release, the acceptability of partial street names may also change.

Partial Street names and SNL: If a partial street name is accepted as an input street name, Geosupport returns the normalized version of the corresponding full street name in the WA1 output street name field, provided that the length of the normalized full street name does not exceed the SNL value that is in effect. If the length of the normalized full street name does exceed the SNL value in effect, Geosupport attempts to normalize the partial street name to fit within the SNL value; if that is successful, the normalized partial street name is returned in WA1. If neither the normalized full street name nor the normalized partial street name fits, Geosupport rejects the input as a street name that cannot be normalized within the SNL value in effect. If the SNL value in effect is 32 (the default value), it is certain that the normalized full street name will fit.

The following example illustrates the effect that varying the SNL value can have on street name normalizing. Suppose the input street name is CHAMBERS and the borough is specified as Manhattan. In this borough, CHAMBERS is accepted as an unambiguous partial street name for the full street name CHAMBERS STREET. If the SNL value in effect is 15 or greater, the output normalized street name is returned as CHAMBERS STREET. If the SNL is between 11 and 14 inclusive, the output street name is returned as CHAMBERS ST (the result of normalizing the full street name CHAMBERS STREET with an SNL of 11, 12, 13, or 14). If the SNL is between 8 and 10 inclusive, the partial street name CHAMBERS is returned. If the SNL is smaller than 8, the input is rejected as a street name that cannot be normalized within the current SNL value.

Optimizing the choice of partial street names: In order to allow users to have partial street names accepted as much as possible, Geosupport will not consider roadbed street names when processing generic calls. Roadbed street names will be considered only when processing roadbed calls. As an example, if a user inputs 1830 ‘A C P’ for a generic call in Manhattan, ‘A C P’ will be accepted as a partial street name for A C P Boulevard. However, if the user inputs a Roadbed Request, ‘A C P’ will not be recognized because of similar roadbed names.

In addition, since Non-Addressable Place Names (NAPs) and Addressable Place Names (APs) are not valid for Function 2, 3, 3C or 3S calls, Geosupport does not consider them when attempting to resolve an input partial street name; this too allows more partial street names to be recognized.