Talk:Abbreviations and Acronyms View history

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Relevant Standards

AS/NZS 4819:2011 covers naming of roads and localities, and recording and mapping the related information. Thus, AS4819 is the appropriate recognised standard for Waze mapping to use. It contains an Appendix A with a list of "Road Types" and the associated abbreviations.

AS 4590.1:2017, "Interchange of Client Information" provides standard data elements and formats for computer data storage and interchange. It has been aligned with AS/NZS 4819, and contains Table C1, "Road Abbreviations", which is the same as Appendix A of AS/NZS 4819:2011 except that it omits "Ct" for "Court".

AS 1742 is the Manual Of Uniform Traffic Control Devices. Part 5 specifies requirements for the design and use of street name and community facility name signs on all types of roads except expressway type roads. It contains an Appendix D with a list of "Street Types" and the associated abbreviations. It contains a Note: "These abbreviations for street types are for use on street name signs, displayed on streets. When abbreviating street types in any digital exchange or storage system, the abbreviations in AS/NZS 4819 and AS 4590 shall be adhered to."


The AS4819 entries for LANE, LOOP, MALL, MEWS, PATH, RAMP, RISE, VIEW, WALK, and WAY have been omitted from our table of abbreviations, as their "abbreviation" is the same as the full word, and they are covered by the advice "If no abbreviation is given in this table, then spell out the word in full".

The Google Geocoding API specifies (https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/geocoding/intro#GeocodingResponses) that addresses should be in the format used by the national postal service of the country concerned. For Australia, that would be Australia Post. Their convention, described at /content/dam/auspost_corp/media/documents/australia-post-addressing-standards-1999.pdf says it is based on the (superseded) AS4590:1999 standard. It contains just 18 street type abbreviations, of which Ave and Cres are the only ones that conflict with AS 4819.

St meaning Saint or Street

The TTS currently pronounces "St" as "Street" if it is the last element in a sentence, or is immediately followed by one of North/South/East/West at the end of a sentence. Otherwise it is pronounced as "Saint". This appears to be be the best compromise, bearing in mind the following requirements of AS/NS 4819:2011:

  • (4.3) Every road name shall consist of a name element followed by a road type. (4.4.11) A road type shall not be included in the name part of a road name. [This means that "St" meaning Street should not be part of the name element]
  • (3.5.2) A locality name shall not be abbreviated or contain an abbreviation [...] except that "St" shall be used for "Saint". (4.7.2) A road name shall not be abbreviated or contain an abbreviation [...] except that "St" shall be used for "Saint". [This means that "St" in a name element or locality name means "Saint".]
  • (3.5.5) A locality name shall not include a full stop. (4.7.6) A road name shall not include a full stop. [This means that using a full stop to distinguish between the different meanings of "St" is undesirable.]

(Observation from stevethompson49(3) - Steve in Discord 14 Feb 2019 at 5:10 PM "This Street v Saint thing in TTS has been going on, on and off, for as long as I've been using Waze. #JustSaying")

On the frequency of road suffixes:

We may not need to have official abbreviations for every conceivable road suffix. The old list (prior to Dec 2018) contained about 170 abbreviations. Based on SA road names, the 10 suffixes Road, Street, Avenue, Highway, Drive, Terrace, Track, Court, Lane and Crescent cover 95.3% of all segments. Adding another 10 (Way, Place, Parade, Grove, Circuit, Close, Boulevard, Freeway, Walk and Expressway) brings the total to 99.2%. If we provided a rule saying "suffixes not appearing in the table should be spelled out in full", we could cut the table down from 170 entries to 18. ("Walk" and "Lane" don't have abbreviations.) If editors followed that rule, we would cut down the incidents of people making up non-standard abbreviations but still get 99% of the benefit of shortened names

3. Other abbreviations

MOVED FROM WIKI AS SOME ABBREVIATIONS NO LONGER APPLY

Island (Is.), Quay (Qy), Reserve (Res) and Tunnel (Tunl).

These are acceptable to be used when they are a suffix, but not acceptable when they are place names. Therefore "King-Tunnel Road" should have tunnel spelt in full, as it refers to a tunnel. While "Queen Tunnel-Road" could have tunnel abbreviated, as tunnel refers to the type of roadway, and is a part of the suffix. Likewise an Island named "Island Island" would be abbreviated to Island Is.