The Assign Streets To Points tool can be used to link Point Addresses to Streets data. The link is established by comparing the names of the point and street features as well as the distance between them. The best candidate has the most similarity between the names but is also expected to be close. Once the link is established, a street ID, Side of Street, and a new point near the street can be produced for the point address. Additional attributes can also be transferred from the Street to the Point Address. Some use cases for this tool include appending attributes from streets to point addresses or the alternate direction, generating points that are next to the same named street which can be used as a routing location, or producing fishbone diagrams illustrating the relationship between point addresses and their associated street feature. There are several reasons to use the Assign Streets To Points geoprocessing tool as part of the process for preparing data prior to building a locator, and some of these use cases are described below.
In the illustration above, the rooftop point address at 490 Main St is closer to the street segment for 5th Ave N, but is linked to the left side of the Main St segment because the point is on the left side of the street based on how the segment was digitized, the street name components match, and the house number is within the house number range of the street segment. The name of the street is prioritized over the location of the point to the street segment. The street side point for the rooftop address point is generated by the Assign Streets To Points tool when the Output Geometry parameter is set to Street Point Geometry and can be used for routing. The building for the address 1 5th Ave S is at the intersection of Main St and 5th Ave S and could be linked to either Main St or 5th Ave S street segments based on location. The entrance to the building is off of 5th Ave S, so the point address is correctly linked to the 5th Ave S segment because of the similar street name components and the house number is within the house number range of 1 to 99, which is on the left side of the street.
Build a locator that supports returning both rooftop and routing locations
Geocoding, as with the Geocode Addresses geoprocessing tool, supports returning either the location of a rooftop or a location on a street that's suitable for routing for matched addresses depending on what the locations are used for. For instance, you might need precise rooftop locations to analyze locations with higher accuracy, or you might need locations along the side of a street to facilitate routing. If you have both Point Address (rooftop) data and Street Address (line) data, you can build a multirole locator, but that locator will return either point or street addresses; it will not return a single address that optionally provides either location. To build a locator that will support the option of returning both, use the Assign Streets To Points geoprocessing tool to link the two datasets. If you select Street Point Geometry for your output geometry for the tool and map Display X and Display Y in the Create Locator geoprocessing tool to InputPoint_X and InputPoint_Y, the Point Address locator will support returning either rooftop or routing locations when geocoding. You can specify this option with the Preferred location type property on the Locator Properties dialog box.
Build a locator that supports alternate street names
If you are transitioning from building composite locators that support Point Address and Street Address role locators, where each locator has its own alternate street name table, to a multirole locator that supports alternate street names, you must have a single alternate name table that links the multiple roles together with a street name Join ID. Use the Assign Streets To Points geoprocessing tool to enhance a Point Address dataset with the street Join ID from a Street Address dataset by selecting it as one of the fields in the Street Field(s) parameter of the tool. After running the tool, both the point address features and street segments will have the same street Join ID to link both roles to a single alternate name table when building the locator. This will allow you to search for alternate street names and get results from either the Point Address role or Street Address role from the multirole locator, as well as, using the Preferred street name property to overwrite the default so that the primary street name is always returned instead of the matched street name.
Build a Point Address locator with additional attributes joined from a streets dataset
If you have both Point Address and Street Address data and you want to build a locator that supports only more precise Point Address geocoding but supports returning attributes (for instance, side of street data) that only exist in your Street Address data, you can use the Assign Streets To Points geoprocessing tool prior to building your Point Address locator. If you then use the output of the tool when building a locator using the Create Locator geoprocessing tool, the linked attributes, such as Side of Street, street segment ID field, or street material, will be included with your Point Address geocoding results.