Road Atlas of BC

MSAG Notes

GIS Innovations Ltd. is co-operating with a number of BC 9-1-1 administrators and Telus (9-1-1 Address Control) to improve the consistency and quality of all 9-1-1 related data, including the MSAG.

MSAG Road Naming Conventions

The format of MSAG street name is: Name and Vector (hereafter referred to MsagName and MsagVector). As a legacy issue, the MSAG name has a relatively short character length limit. This has lead Telus to use both standard abbreviations and other conventions to generally shorten names, and if more length shortening is required, non-standard abbreviations. After discussion with Telus and others the following describes the best practices Telus wants to apply to the MSAG. These typically apply to “key” words. In order of precedence, we understand these best practices to be:

1. Every street name must have one core word (theNoun), and that core word will not be abbreviated (shortening excepted). In the GIS Innovations MSAG analyzer the only time rule 1 is reported is if the only word would have qualified as either thePrefix or theBeginning, and those determinations were over-ridden by the need for one whole word.

2. Every directional suffix will be part of the MsagName field (theSuffix), and WILL always be abbreviated.

3. Every Road Type will be abbreviated as per the MSAGtypes. Note: the Road Type is right most word of the MsagName (second most right if theSuffix is present).

4. Every directional prefix will be abbreviated into the MsagVector for all communities listed below (Vancouver Area).

5. Every directional prefix will be fully spelt into the MsagName (thePrefix) for all communities except those in the Vancouver Area.

6. Every MsagName beginning with “key” words (as defined in the “key” table) will have that “key” word abbreviated where so indicated as per the “IF FirstWord” column of the table. Examples: PR x, ST x, NB x. NOTE: this rule applies even if thePrefix is present.

7. Every MsagName beginning with “key” words will have that “key” word fully spelt were so indicated as per the “IF FirstWord” column of the table. Examples: North x, River x, Lake x. NOTE: this rule applies even if thePrefix is present.

8. Every MsagName after the beginning and then containing “key” words will have that “key” word abbreviated as per the “abbreviations” column of the table. For example: x N x, x Riv, x Lk, x PR x.

MSAG Parsing Examples

Rules		MsagName				MsagVector	community
	thePrefix	theBeginning	theNoun	theType	theSuffix
13	NORTH			RD
13		RIVER		RD
3			NICE	RD
123		RIVER		RD	N
23			NICE	HWY	N
6		HWY	99
34			12^TH	AVE		W	Vancouver
35	WEST		12^TH	AVE			elsewhere
36		PR	JOHN	CRT
356	NORTH	PR	JOHN	CRT
135	NORTH	RIVER		RD
3568	NORTH	PR	JOHN LK	RD
368		PR	JOHN LK	RD
378		LAKE	PR JOHN	RD
38			NICE RIV	RD
3			A NICE	RD
			THATS IT

Note a “key” word can be more than one word, such as “North Bound”, or “Right Of Way”.

MSAG Analyzer

GIS Innovations will perform a test any MSAG provided to analyze the conformance to the above rules, and the special cases. The results are reported back to the MSAG provider. The results returned are the original record plus:

theRules	A list of all the rules and special cases successfully applied
theRulesFailed	A list of all the rules and special cases not applied as per the standards
streetOut	The MsagName as per the standards applied
vectorOut	The MsagVector as per the standards applied
errFound	A description of the error/fault found, concatenated as required

MSAG special cases

In addition to the Road Naming Convention tests, the GIS Innovations MSAG analyzer also tests for

· Y the ampersand “&”, if present no other test is performed other than a rest to see if the name contains both an ampersand and address ranging.

· P punctuation. The characters quote (‘), dash (-), dot (.) are considered valid. Any other character is considered a reportable fault.

· Z the special name “SA EARS” is reported as a Z, and no other testing is applied.

Msag Analyzer Error Descriptions

In addition to reporting which rules were successfully parsed, the GIS Innovations MSAG Analyzer will report any non-conformance to the above rules, and the special cases. All non-conforming rules are reported as described below along with the non-conforming word(s) (where applicable).

RulesFailed	ErrFound	Remarks
1	StreetIsNull	No MsagName provided
1	OneWordAbbr=**	Only one core word found, and it was abbreviated
2	SuffixNotAbbr=**	An entry for theSuffix must be in the abbreviated form (eg E instead of EAST)
3	TypeNotAbbr=**	An entry for theType must be abbreviated as per the standards (eg ROAD instead of RD)
4 or 5	BadVector	An entry in MsagVector is not a directional abbreviation (N,S,E,W,NE,NW,SE,SW)
5	PrefixAbbr=**	An entry parsed as thePrefix was abbreviated (eg E instead of EAST)
6 or 7	LeadNot1stWd=**	MsagName was found to have a beginning with “key” words, and the entry did not match the FirstWord format (eg PRINCE instead of PR)
8	KeyWdNotAbbr=**	A “key” word was found in the fully spelt out form and it should be abbreviated (eg RIVER when RIVER is not the beginning).
P	unknPunct=*	A punctuation character other than the recognized list (.’-“ “) was found
Y	Ampersand Addressed	An entry containing an ampersand (&) and with address ranges was found

MsagVector Communities

The Vancouver Area is defined as: Vancouver, New Westminster.

Concluding Remarks

This is a work in progress – please raise any of your issues with Bob at GIS Innovations.