Addressing Standards
Guide
Prepared by
State of New Hampshire
Department of Safety
Division of Emergency Services
Bureau of Emergency Communications
May 2005
Updated April 8, 2009
Table of Contents
Purpose 3
Recommendations 3
Streets 4
Street Naming 5
Address Ranges 6
Increment 7
Street Numbering 7
Island Addressing 10
ESN 10
Road Classification 11
Driveways 11
Addressable Structures 13
Multi-unit Structures 15
Landmarks 16
Interstates and Freeway Addressing 17
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Purpose
A central goal of the New Hampshire Bureau of Emergency
Communications (BEC) Mapping Department is to eliminate possible
confusion for all emergency personnel when responding to an emergency
call.
The intention of this document is to clearly catalogue for all parties involved in the
addressing process, the standards used by the BEC when formulating addressing
recommendations. Time is a critical factor in the delivery of emergency services, and
can mean the difference between life and death. A confusing, misleading or ambiguous
addressing system could slow response times, possibly with disastrous consequences.
To help ensure that New Hampshire emergency calls receive the fastest emergency
response possible, the BEC has developed the following addressing standards, because
a clear, rational, and unambiguous addressing system will help minimize both response
time and errors.
All of the standards found in this document have been adapted from the addressing
standards of the National Emergency Number Association (NENA). Many of these
standards have been expanded upon to meet the needs of New Hampshire, with its
mixture of urban and rural settings, and its sometimes irregular road network. These
standards will not address every situation encountered in a given municipality; instead
they are intended to serve as a guide through which Bureau personnel will evaluate both
typical and atypical situations.
Recommendations
The recommendations the BEC makes using these standards are not binding upon any
municipality. In the State of New Hampshire each city or town is responsible for the
naming of the roads and the addressing of the buildings within its jurisdiction (RSA
231:133 and RSA 231:133-a). As the naming and addressing authority, the municipality
can adopt any naming or addressing system it chooses that does not conflict with the
pertinent RSA’s. Because the naming of streets and the addressing of buildings are a
municipality’s responsibility, the BEC can only make addressing recommendations to the
municipality. The municipality can then choose to adopt those recommendations or
institute some other system of their own devising
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Streets
• Roads or road segments that are impassable to vehicular traffic will not be collected
and displayed as roads. If a section of road is impassable, creating two separate
segments each of which is mutually independent, the BEC recommends that each of
these disconnected sections receive its own unique road name
• The BEC recommends that any road, either publicly or privately maintained, which
may be traversed by an emergency service vehicle, and provides access to three or
more addressable structures, be named and assigned address ranges.
• The BEC recommends that any road which may, through future development,
provide access to three or more structures, be named and assigned address ranges.
• Short drives and shared parking areas providing access to three or more structures
that are all clearly visible from the main road, and which present no questions regarding
the sequence of the structures may be addressed from the main road.
The BEC recommends that roads within developments that meet the definition
discussed above all be named, and that the structures accessed from those roads be
addressed on them. Examples of such developments include: industrial parks,
condominium developments, apartment complexes, trailer parks, and campgrounds with
year round residents.
In urban areas, driveways providing access to structures that do not have their own
road frontage, and which are located behind other addressable structures, should be
named and addressed as streets.
If a road continues through an intersection into diverse directions, the road may only
continue in one of these directions. The other road, or potentially roads, would be their
own entities requiring separate, unique identifying names.
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Street Naming
The BEC recommends that each street within a municipality, meeting the standards
discussed previously, be given its own unique road name. If duplicate or confusingly
similar street names currently exist in a municipality, the BEC recommends that new
names be assigned to prevent confusion on the part of emergency responders.
• Eliminate like sounding, similar sounding, or duplicate road names.
• Avoid family names or individual’s names, especially living persons and politicians.
• If the road is continuous, avoid changing names at an intersection or a curve or
some other point.
• Do not use the same name with a different suffix (e.g. SMITH RD, SMITH LN).
• A duplicate street name is one in which the main part of the name is shared by more
than one street, even if the designators, or directional information is different. Road
names can be duplicate even if they are spelled differently when they are phonetically
identical. SMITH ST, SMYTH ST, SMITH RD, NORTH SMITH ST, SMITH ST SOUTH,
SMITH ST EXT are all duplicate road names.
• A confusingly similar street name is one in which either a large part of the name is
shared by more than one street, or the names of more than one street are phonetically
similar. OLD COUNTRY RD and COUNTRY LN would be similar sounding road names,
as would COUNTRY LN and COUNTY LN and LAUREL AV and LAUREN AV.
• Street names should not contain any special characters such as hyphens,
apostrophes, or dashes.
• Street names should not contain any abbreviations. Abbreviations are only
appropriate at the end of a street name in the street suffix or designator. RD, ST, and
AVE, are examples of acceptable street suffixes or designators. Please refer to the
United States Postal Service document entitled Postal Addressing Standards;
Publication 28 for a complete list of NENA approved designators.
• The BEC recommends that continuous streets be assigned only one name for the
entire length of the street.
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• Avoid the use of directionals and USPS standard suffixes as road/street names (e.g.
EAST ST, NORTH BLVD,KEARSARGE MTN RD, COURT ST, AVENUE OF THE
PINES).
• All words within the main body of a street name should be spelled out completely
and not abbreviated. This includes valid street suffixes and cardinal directions which are
part of the main body of the name, rather than modifiers of the street name. Examples
of street names which meet this criteria include WEST ALTON MARINA RD (west in this
street name refers to the locality of West Alton, rather than the western section of
ALTON MARINA RD), FIRE LANE 24 (LANE is not a designator in this situation),
KEARSARGE MTN RD (MOUNTAIN should be spelled out).
• Avoid the use of nonstandard street name suffixes which may be confused with
subdivisions or commercial developments (e.g. Example Plaza, Example Place).
Address Ranges
Address ranges describe the valid addresses on each side of the street for a given road
or segment of road. These are both the addresses which have already been assigned
and those which could potentially be assigned in the future. For example, PINE HILL
RD has a range of 1 / 2 to 167 / 168. According to this address range the lowest
possible addresses are 1 on the left side of the street, and 2 on the right side of the
street; the highest possible addresses are 167 on the left side of the street and 168 on
the right side of the street. For this range, any numbers between 1 and 168 are valid,
but only odd numbers are valid on the left side of the street, and only even numbers are
valid on the right side of the street. The side of the street is determined by the direction
in which addresses increase (line direction).
Address ranges are a critical component of an addressing system not only because they
describe which addresses can exist on a street, but also because they help to form the
Master Street Address Guide (MSAG). The MSAG is a data set containing all of the
street names in a community, with each street’s address range and associated
Emergency Service Number (ESN). Accurate and up to date address ranges will help to
ensure that the appropriate emergency service agency is dispatched to a street when
the need arises there.
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Increment
The BEC recommends that address ranges be created through the use of a distance-
based system in which one address is generated on each side of the street for every
distance interval (increment). The BEC recommends the use of a fifty (50) foot
increment in New Hampshire municipalities.
Using a 50-foot increment, a road 4173 feet in length would yield a range of 1 / 2 to 167 /
168. This range was arrived at through a series of simple calculations. First, the length
of the road was divided by the increment, 4173 / 50 = 83.46. The quotient arrived at
through this calculation describes how many 50 foot increments exist on the road
segment. Because there either is another increment or there is not, the quotient, 83.46,
must be rounded up to the next whole number, in this case 84. Each increment of road
has two sides, an even side and an odd side. To provide each of these sides with its
own address, the number of increments, 84, must be multiplied by 2. The product of this
calculation, 84 * 2 = 168, is the total number addresses generated for the road.
• In high-density areas where a fifty (50) foot increment will not generate an adequate
number of addresses for the number of structures, the BEC recommends the use of a
ten (10) foot increment.
Street Numbering
When possible, addressing will radiate out from the center of town, with numbers
increasing on a given street as one approaches the municipality’s borders. To
determine the line direction of any given street, the following process will be used. First,
streets will be selected that will form perpendicular axes, called baselines, from which
the line direction of many other streets will be determined. If the baselines are two main
thoroughfares which cross from one end of the municipality to the other and intersect in
the center of town (at a location referred to as the reference point), the BEC would
recommend that each thoroughfare be addressed with numbering starting at one border
and continuing straight through town to the opposite border. If four separate streets
intersect in the center of town to form the baselines with one street extending off in each
cardinal direction, the BEC would recommend that addressing radiate out from the point
of intersection (reference point). Line directions for each of these streets would run from
the center of town out to the border in each cardinal direction.
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In the process of selecting the baselines, a point of intersection where the baselines
meet, referred to as the reference point, will be selected. The reference point should
occur at a main intersection in the center of the municipality. This point will help to
determine the line direction in complicated situations.
Once baselines and a reference point have been selected, each street in the
municipality will be placed into a hierarchy. The baselines, which are called first order
streets, are located at the top of the hierarchy. The next level of the hierarchy consists
of roads that originate at or intersect with one of the first order streets. These roads are
called second order streets. Any street intersecting with a second order street, that is
not a first order street or another second order street, is placed into the next level of the
hierarchy, third order streets. This process of placing streets in a hierarchy will continue
until each road has been placed into an appropriate level of the hierarchy.
Each street in a municipality will then be assigned a single parent street. The parent
street is used to determine the line direction of each of its children. Each child street will
begin its numbering at the parent street with the addresses 1 / 2; numbering will then
increase away from the parent street. If more than one street could be the parent to a
road, then the actual parent will be selected based upon distance from the reference
point. The potential parent street that intersects closest to the reference point, using a
straight-line distance and not a road distance, will be selected as the actual parent
street. However, if one of the potential parents is a US Route or NH Route and the other
potential parent is not, then that US or NH Route should be selected as the parent.
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Please keep in mind that this process for determining line direction may not be
applicable in every town. For example, in some New Hampshire communities the
existing network of roads will not support the selection of perpendicular baselines,
because most of the roads in the municipality are oriented in only one direction, either
north/south or east/west. In situations like these, the process discussed above will be
adapted to meet the needs of the community in question.
Main thoroughfares which cross a municipality will be numbered from one border to
another as some baselines are.
Whenever possible, addressing conflicts will be minimized on roads that continue
from one municipality to another, including the continuation of addressing when
necessary.
The BEC recommends that roads beginning in one municipality and terminating in
another municipality be named and addressed consistently. The two municipalities
should agree upon a single name for the road, and addressing should continue from the
municipality where the road originates to the municipality where the road terminates.
Streets which form the border between municipalities, or which closely parallel the
border will be numbered to prevent the assignment of conflicting or confusing addresses.
The street will be addressed as a single unit with the direction of addressing consistent
on both sides of the street, one side generating odd addresses, the other side
generating even addresses.
Cul-de-sacs are numbered in a counter clockwise direction.
Semicircular streets are addressed with numbers increasing in the same direction as
numbers on the main street that the semicircular street intersects.
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Roads that split around a central median, park, or common area with traffic traveling
in only one direction on either side of park will be numbered and addressed as a single
unified road (example: parkway).
Islands
Islands are considered to be land masses that are completely surrounded by water.
Each island will be individually drawn and addressed. Addressing for islands can fall into
2 (two) categories:
• If there is only 1 access point to the island the BEC recommends that the
main access point to the island be addressed as #2.
• For more 2 or more access points, the BEC recommends that the
numbering start at the northern most point and continue counter clock
wise around the island in 50 foot increments.
ESN
Emergency Service Numbers are unique three digit codes that identify the dispatch
agency or agencies which serve a community. The actual geographic area that an ESN
represents is known as an Emergency Service Zone (ESZ). In New Hampshire ESN’s
do not define which emergency service provider will respond to an emergency; instead
the ESN dictates what agency will dispatch calls in a given ESZ. The dispatch agency is
then responsible for ensuring that the correct emergency service provider (fire, police, or
ambulance service) is sent to an emergency. Because ESZ’s and ESN’s do not identify
the particular emergency service providers responding to an area, they cannot be used
to clarify confusing response jurisdictions. It is the responsibility of local dispatch
agencies and the municipalities involved to resolve these problems.
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Road Classification
The BEC uses its own system of street classification, the purpose of which is to
communicate the level of accessibility provided by roads within a municipality. This
system does not communicate road maintenance responsibilities.
Driveway Roads with out either names or ranges displayed
solely to clarify access.
Forest Forest access road.
Interstate All divided highways regardless of whether they are
part of the interstate highway system or not.
Limited Roads that may be impassable or difficult to access
for emergency service vehicles.
NH Route Any non-divided highway classified as a NH-Route.
US Route Any non-divided highway classified as a US-Route.
If a single road is both a US-Route and NH-Route,
it will be classified as a US-Route.
Private Roads that have been designated as private by a
municipality
Public All roads within a municipality not already
designated with another road class
Unclassed Roads whose classification is unknown, or that
have not yet been classified.
Driveways
Driveways are intended solely to communicate the location of addressable structures.
Driveways do not have their own address ranges. Structures accessed from driveways
must obtain their addresses from the street with which the driveway intersects. If only
one structure is accessed from a driveway, that structure will derive its address from the
increment where the driveway intersects the street. For each additional structure
accessed from a driveway an additional address on the main street will be consumed,
either above or below the point of intersection. These addresses will no longer be
available for assignment to structures with road frontage. This could result in addressing
conflicts between structures accessed from the driveway and structures accessed
directly from the road. Because driveways do not have any range, they will not be
included in a town’s MSAG.
The BEC recommends that any road, either publicly or privately maintained, which
may be traversed by an emergency service vehicle, and provides access to three or
more addressable structures, be named and assigned address ranges. Despite the
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BEC’s recommendations, if a municipality chooses not to name a road meeting this
standard, the BEC will display this road as driveway and address the structures on it as
discussed above.
If development could occur on a shared driveway in the foreseeable future, bringing
the total number of structures on that driveway to three or greater, the BEC recommends
that the driveway be named as a road, and that addresses be issued from this newly
named road.
Driveways providing access to either one or two structures will be collected and
displayed on the map set at the discretion of the cartographer. Normally these
driveways will be collected in confusing areas where access is difficult to determine, or in
the case of unusually long driveways.
When the address range of a road is unable to support the number of structures that
are accessed from it due to the presence of driveways with multiple addressable
structures, the BEC recommends that the driveways be named and that the structures
be addressed from the newly named road.
Structures accessed from a driveway will be numbered with addresses increasing
away from the intersecting street from which the addresses have been derived.
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Addressable Structures
Addressable structures are any buildings currently occupied, or which may in the future
be occupied, to which emergency services may be dispatched.
Structures meeting the definition above derive their addresses from the increment
where the structure’s primary access intersects the road. In most situations, the primary
access is the point where the structure’s driveway meets the road. In densely populated
areas such as town and city centers, the primary access is the front door of the structure
being addressed.
Structures on corner lots that are visible and accessible from two intersecting roads
should be addressed from the front door of the building, even when a driveway or side
entrance is present on the other intersecting street.
Structures on corner lots that are visible from only one of the two intersecting roads,
but which are accessible from both roads, should be addressed from the road where the
structure is visible.
Structures on corner lots that are not visible from either intersecting road but which
can be accessed via driveway from both streets should be addressed from the road
higher up the road hierarchy discussed in the roads section of this document.
Structures accessed from semicircular driveways are addressed at the midpoint
between the two driveway accesses, assuming that there are no buildings or build able
lots between the structure being addressed and the road.
Structures are considered to be in the city/town where the building is actually
located, even if the access point falls in a neighboring city/town. In these cases,
structures geographically located in one municipality but accessed in another
neighboring municipality will receive a street address consistent with the addressing
system in use where the access point is located. Even though the structure will be
addressed using the neighboring town’s numbering system, the data for the structure will
have the name of the city/town where the structure is located and will receive that
municipality’s ESN (Emergency Service Number). Even though the street where the
building is located lies in a neighboring city/town, a Road segment, a Road Name
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record, and an MSAG record must be generated in the city/town where the structure is
located for the street providing access.
Additionally, if the neighboring municipality’s road name is duplicate or confusingly
similar to a road name in the city/town where the structure is located, we recommend
that the driveway be given a road name that is unique to both communities. The
structures will then be addressed off the new road name.
Individual structures within campgrounds, or hotel\motel complexes, will be
considered addressable if the structure has a telephone line independent of the main
office or building, or the structure is permanently inhabited much like a rental home. If a
building within a camp ground, or hotel\motel complex meets one of these criteria, then
all individual structures will be collected and addressed using the standards that apply to
all addressable structures.
Addresses should not contain either fractional numbers or letters. The BEC
recommends that addresses containing either of these be reassigned a numeric
address.
Types of Addressable Structures
Addressable Structures
Airport
Ambulance
Business
Campground
Cell Tower
Church
Fire
Government
Hospital
Pay Phone
Phone Box
Police
Residence
School
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Multi-unit Structures
Structures containing multiple units within one discrete building, regardless of whether
the building is residential, commercial, industrial, or governmental, will receive a single
address, with each unit within that structure receiving a unit letter designation. Unit
letters should increase away from the point of primary access. In large multi-unit
structures with more than 10 Apartments, unit designations should be numeric with the
first number in the designation indicating the floor of the apartment or at a minimum,
some other type of floor designator. For example, in these buildings apartments on the
first floor would receive addresses between 101 and 199; apartments on the second
floor would receive addresses between 201 and 299.
Each discrete building in a townhouse development is treated as a multi-unit
structure in which a single address is generated for the building, and each unit receives
a unit number.
On a case by case exception, row houses, strip malls, or downtown congested store
fronts are addressed at the front door of each adjoining unit, and each unit is treated as
its own independent building rather than as a part of a multi-unit structure.
Duplexes are multi-unit structures in which a single address will be generated for the
building, and each unit will receive a letter unit designation.
Within multi-building complexes, each building which meets the definition of an
addressable structure should receive its own individual address. The BEC recommends
that multiple structures sharing a single address each be reassigned separate addresses
(please refer to the next bullet for an exception to this rule).
Within multi-building complexes, the entire complex will receive a single address
when there is a central building or office, upon which all other structures are dependent
(hotel with cottages, business with outbuildings). When collecting a complex meeting
this description, the cartographer will always collect the main building or office in order to
assign a street address. The cartographer may collect the dependent buildings as
outbuildings accessed via driveways at the discretion of the cartographer. Collecting
outbuildings is recommended if the dependent buildings are not readily visible or if the
route used to access dependent buildings is unclear.
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Each addressable structure should receive a single address. In the event that a
single structure has received multiple addresses, the BEC recommends that the
structure be reassigned a single address with unit numbers issued for each unit within
that structure.
Single discrete structures, which have units that can only be accessed from separate
streets with no internal connecting hall, will be treated as though each access is a
separate structure receiving its own unique address.
Landmarks
The following features will be collected during the course of field-work. These features
will not automatically receive an address by the BEC. They primarily serve to provide a
greater context for emergency responders traveling to the scene of an incident.
Features Not Requiring Subtypes
Addresses
Back Country Campsite, Hut, Shelter, Other
Boat Launch Private, Public
Boundary Country, County, State, Town
Bridge
Cemetery
Crossover
Gate Private, Public
Helipad
Hydrant Draft, Dry, Pressure
Intersection
Mountain Peak
Outbuilding Barn, Garage, Workshop, Other
Recreation Area
Rest Area Normal, Park & Ride, Scenic
Tower Cell, Water, Radio, Fire, Other
Trail head Foot, ORV, Snowmobile
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Interstate and Freeway Addressing
Interstates and Freeways, defined as roads that do not have “at-grade
interactions”, are generally exempt from other addressing standards discussed in this
guide.
Interstates and Freeways can only be accessed through interchanges, utilizing
on-ramps and off-ramps. They cannot be accessed from adjacent properties or cross
roads, and under most circumstances have no stoplights or stop signs.
• If an address for a structure is needed, one will be derived from the mile marker
at the access point or the start of the off ramp to which the structure is located.
• If there are multiple structures at a location, each structure will share the same
address and receive a unique address suffix. The suffix will start with the letter
“A” and increment with each additional structure.
• The street name for the address will be the name of the highway followed by the
direction.
• The additional location field in the ALI (Automatic Location Identification) record
will hold the exact mile marker as well as the highway name and direction.
• Examples of structures needing an address
would include rest areas or visitor
information centers.
A rest area structure located on I-93 North with an
off ramp starting at mile marker 43.4 will have an
address of: 43 Interstate 93 N.
If there are multiple structures at this location, they
would be addressed as 43A, 43B, 43C, etc…
In the example, all four structures would have an
Additional Location Field entry of: I-93 N - Mile
Marker 43.4
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