Search on Street Name Only

Stanley_Tweedle · Regular Visitor Joined: Jul 10, 2005 Posts: 207

Is it possible to search on Street only, ie if you don't happen to know the actual city the road is listed under, can I search the whole country and then select from a list?

rkm_hm · Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 11:59 pm Post subject:

No, but you can search on postcode if you know that.

If you don't know which city the road is in, how will you know you have the right one, anyway?
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Stanley_Tweedle · Regular Visitor Joined: Jul 10, 2005 Posts: 207

I think it would be useful, it might not always be clear which City a particular road is registered under, out in the sticks it could be a matter of opinion (ie you have been given the wrong city). It is possible that you may have been given just a road name and no city at all.

As to how you'd know you had the correct one I think the general locallity when selecting from a list would confirm in most cases.

rkm_hm · Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2005 8:35 pm Post subject:

OK, just imagine telling it to navigate to "High Street".

How are you going to sort through the literally thousands of possibilites in order to select the one you want?
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Stanley_Tweedle · Regular Visitor Joined: Jul 10, 2005 Posts: 207

Yes in some cases it would not be practical that's why I said most cases.

rkm_hm · Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2005 10:11 pm Post subject:

I suspect that it wouldn't be practical in most cases - and that there are too few instances where it would be useful for TT to consider implementing it.
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Stanley_Tweedle · Regular Visitor Joined: Jul 10, 2005 Posts: 207

Well I suppose my question was answered in that it isn't implemented. Thanks for the replies everyone.

lbendlin · Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2005 11:32 pm Post subject:

Just to throw in the american perspective. Over here searching by street name is the preferred method, and most american users are very irritated that TomTom does not offer that feature when most of the competition does have it.

With Suburbia spreading and no obvious town or city borders it is extremely difficult to know the city name or zip code.

Granted, we don't have High Streets over here...
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Stanley_Tweedle · Regular Visitor Joined: Jul 10, 2005 Posts: 207

That's interesting indeed. I know infomap navigator allows it and I wondered about other systems too. In USA there must be a huge no of streets.

I thought of one idea that may make things easier in that the street list could be sorted by distance (I think POI's are already handled this way?) from the current position or another specified location. That may take an unreasonable amount of CPU time, not sure (maybe straight line distances would do).

I suppose for some reason I have the impression that I will get stuck not knowing the correct city; I have seen other posts mentioning that there are differences between local authority boundaries and postal areas etc.

TT have probably found it is not worth implementing; I suppose I would feel happier if it was there even if it turned out to be useless!

rkm_hm · Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2005 1:29 am Post subject:

It's also a real problem in UK - particularly in large cities like London, where a road may be listed as belonging to London or to any one of several adjacent suburbs. But you've got to know more or less where a road is if you are to have any chance of navigating to it. Just wind the clock back a bit, and think how you'd navigate to somewhere using a paper map if all you knew was a road name which could be anywhere in the country.

You may not have too many High Streets in USA - but you've probably got a lot of West 42nd Streets or somesuch!

In UK we have a Postcode system - broadly similar to ZIP codes but with much finer granularity - such that a full 7-character postcode pinpoints a location to within a hundred metres or so. In my view, the only reliable way to navigate to an address in the UK is to use this postcode - because it is unique to a very small area and eliminates all the uncertainties and ambiguities of street names.

The latest TT maps let you do just that - without needing to know city, etc.
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Roger
TomTom via135

Satmap Active 10+ v1.50 with full UK 1:50k map and 1:25k/1:10k County maps of Hampshire & Warwickshire

Daggers · Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2005 2:37 pm Post subject:

Some years ago, while working for a large UK utility company, I had to conduct an analysis of its customer addresses. Many errors were found, mainly due to inaccuracies in the information supplied by the customers. The main problems were:
1. Incomplete addresses
2. No postcode provided
3. The address containing the wrong town (or no town at all)

This last issue tended to be caused by a certain amount of snobbery ("I don't live in xxxxx, I live in yyyyy - it's a much nicer place"). It was particularly prevalent in large conurbations where suburbs run into one another, or in villages situated just outside larger towns.

My point is that in many cases, if you are trying to navigate to a place, and you haven't been given the correct information, then you are going to have difficulties. Being able to searching by street name would be a useful addition to the TomTom software, although it may not necessarily be the most frequently used.

However, just to add more confusion, be aware that it is not unknown for there to be two streets with the same name within one town - or even within the same postcode area!

rkm_hm · Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2005 10:04 pm Post subject:

Daggers · Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2005 1:24 am Post subject:

rkm_hm · Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2005 11:35 pm Post subject:

Stanley_Tweedle · Regular Visitor Joined: Jul 10, 2005 Posts: 207

Yes we are part of the way there with town names that seem to be linked back to the city name. All we need now is to remove the city name barrier.

I enter my best guess at the city/town name, enter a street name and I get a sorted list (by distance from that city), maybe have a limit as to how many streets will be displayed, possibly 10, 15 or whatever is practical . If I don't enter a city the list can be sorted from my present location.

Postcodes are suberb but there are cases when they won't be available (taxi customers for example). Also they are not supported for most countries.

It 's not a great idea to set off somewhere if you aren't totally sure you have the correct destination; all I'm suggesting is a tool to help us find that; the human brain is very good at picking up on any additional information available; just browsing the surrounding area on the map may be enough to confirm it is Out in the Sticks Road A as opposed to Out in the Sticks Road B.

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