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Background:

The U.S. Census Bureau presented a draft Address Data Content Standard in November, 2000. After multiple cycles of review, comment, and revision, the draft standard was neither accepted nor approved for adoption. At this point, the standard had evolved into an Address Data Transfer Standard and was stalled. The URISA (Urban and Regional Information Systems Association) organization offered to take the lead in developing an Address Standard. This standard will encompass more aspects of address databases including content, classification and quality as well as transfer issues. The Census Bureau will be the maintenance authority for the Standard.

Objectives:

Creation of an overarching Address Standard with subparts to include data content, classification, transfer, and quality standards for street addresses. The data standard will build on the Address Data Content Standard previously proposed by the FGDC (Public Review Draft, April 17, 2003). Some modifications may be proposed based on the content standard that is developed.

Benefits or Justification/Legal Mandate:

Street addresses are the location identifiers most often used by state and local government and the public. Street addresses are critical information for administrative, emergency response, research, marketing, mapping, GIS, routing and navigation, as well as many other purposes. In sponsoring the creation of a Street Address Data Standard, the FGDC has an important opportunity to fulfill to its broader mandate by convening a local, state, and federal agency forum wherein these issues may be resolved, thereby helping to make our spatial data infrastructure truly national. Because they have evolved over many decades, under the control of thousands of local jurisdictions, in many different record and database formats, serving many purposes, different address formats and types pose a number of complex geoprocessing and modeling issues. As a consequence, government agencies struggle with these issues as they seek to integrate large, mission-critical files into master address repositories.

Scope of Work:

The standard will cover physical and postal addresses. We propose to create a Street Address Data Standard that extends the work done on the FGDC’s existing draft Address Data Content Standard (Public Review Draft, April 17, 2003), and:

Milestones, Schedule, and Budget

Identification of funding sources or requests:

Human resources:
The core volunteer working group consists of about 10 persons. Additionally, a larger volunteer review group will provide up to 20 more people. Core group members will take primary responsibility for drafting the standards. Reviewers will review and comment on the draft. All members will keep their organizations appraised and communicate any concerns from their boards or members. We expect core group members to spend about 60 hours on this effort, and review group members to spend about 40 hours.

Financial resources: Financial support of in the amount of approximately $20,000 is needed to cover modest travel stipends for in-person meetings, and teleconference and administrative support to be provided by URISA.

Costs are estimated as follows:

1. Travel: Three in-person meetings of about 15 people, [at] $300/person

2. Teleconference calls: 12 one-hour calls (15 persons) [at] $100 each, based on typical URISA per-minute, per-person conference call costs

3. Coordination and administrative support: about $5,000

Points of Contact:

Martha Lombard, mlombard [at] spatialfocus.com, 205-616-0205, Lead for Standard
ed.wells [at] att.net, 202-727-0552, Support for lead
hilary.perkins [at] jacobs.com, Support for Lead
randy.j.fusaro [at] census.gov, 301-763-1056, Chair, Subcommittee for Cultural, Demographic and Statistical Data anne.v.o.connor [at] census.gov, 301-763-1056, Subcommittee support for standard