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Street address errors in Google Maps

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Re: Street address errors in Google Maps

#21

Post by cozzyd »

brucedawson wrote: post #2

Google Maps' database contains nonsensically placed addresses of non-existent buildings. Worse, however, is that it also contains entries for real buildings that are mapped blocks or kilometers away from their actual location, leading to real-life consequences. After two weeks of failing to fix the most significant error that I found I decided to blog about the issue in hopes of getting the attention of the Google Ma…

I've noticed that Google maps now tries sometimes to incorporate building entrances into walking directions. I wonder if misplaced building entrances may be part of the explanation.

Re: Street address errors in Google Maps

#22

Post by reaperman »

aethr wrote: post #17

In the logistics industry the commonly held wisdom is that there really isn't any accepted system for "how street addresses work". Different countries have completely different systems, and even within a country there are often many different conventions. The thing that really matters in delivery is whether the address on the consignment has enough information for an operator to complete the next leg. By the time an…

Your comments reminds me of “ Falsehoods programmers believe about addresses”

https://gist.github.com/almereyda/85fa289bfc668777fe3619298b...

Re: Street address errors in Google Maps

#23

Post by Loughla »

brucedawson wrote: post #2

Google Maps' database contains nonsensically placed addresses of non-existent buildings. Worse, however, is that it also contains entries for real buildings that are mapped blocks or kilometers away from their actual location, leading to real-life consequences. After two weeks of failing to fix the most significant error that I found I decided to blog about the issue in hopes of getting the attention of the Google Ma…

Google maps also includes towns in rural areas that don't exist.

There are 4 listed within 20 miles of my house that haven't existed for well over 100 years. They're not incorporated anymore, and they don't exist on any other maps, just Google.

It's weird.

Re: Street address errors in Google Maps

#24

Post by Loughla »

bombcar wrote: post #4

I wonder if trying to support strange international address styles (like cities where the numbers on the street are in order of building permit issued, not ordinal from a center point) and/or trying to scan imagery for addresses is confusing it. The fact it gets the street wrong indicates a tokenization issue somewhere. Any evidence it happens to non-numeric streets like Main Street or Martin Luther Blvd, or is it on…

>like cities where the numbers on the street are in order of building permit issued

Holy shit what an absolutely needless nightmare of a system. How do you expect people to find anything like that?

Re: Street address errors in Google Maps

#25

Post by standardUser »

I'm shocked at how bad Google handles street addresses in Europe and Latin America. I'll concede that some regions have bizzaro numbering conventions, but Google Maps has been around a long time now and those formats have stayed the same. If anything, the situation seems even worse on recent trips.

Re: Street address errors in Google Maps

#26

Post by Dylan16807 »

aethr wrote: post #17

In the logistics industry the commonly held wisdom is that there really isn't any accepted system for "how street addresses work". Different countries have completely different systems, and even within a country there are often many different conventions. The thing that really matters in delivery is whether the address on the consignment has enough information for an operator to complete the next leg. By the time an…

You're making the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Making sure buildings are near the street listed, in the right range of numbers, is a system that works in most regions and should be encoded and used for checking data.

Re: Street address errors in Google Maps

#28

Post by kccqzy »

If the author can use the Google Maps feedback tool to get the errors fixed, I'm pretty sure somewhere on the internet someone with malice can also use the same feedback tool to place the address at the wrong location. The only safeguard is probably a low-paid contractor in India reviewing these manual suggestions.

One year ago the Elizabeth line disappeared from the maps in London. There are many Reddit posts about this such as https://www.reddit.com/r/LondonUnderground/comments/1be01n3/... and https://www.reddit.com/r/LondonUnderground/comments/1b0xxb0/.... I asked a friend who worked at Google and they said that it was because some poor workers in India accidentally hid it while fixing something else.

Re: Street address errors in Google Maps

#29

Post by mcooley »

aethr wrote: post #17

In the logistics industry the commonly held wisdom is that there really isn't any accepted system for "how street addresses work". Different countries have completely different systems, and even within a country there are often many different conventions. The thing that really matters in delivery is whether the address on the consignment has enough information for an operator to complete the next leg. By the time an…

I worked on a global consumer mapping app once. Among that team, the idea that address schemes were too inconsistent to be useful was also conventional wisdom.

Re: Street address errors in Google Maps

#30

Post by dpkirchner »

7e wrote: post #3

Google Maps has declined remarkably two or three years. It’s now an ML-brained mess. Like the rest of Google. Apple Maps is actually better now! That’s incredible.

Google maps are definitely bad. I think maybe Apple, as underdog in this space, has more motivation to curate the data better.
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