Puerto Rico Address Database Operations Support (PRADOS)
The team behind ZIPDatum, an address validation tool for Puerto Rican style addresses, worked with the U.S. Census Bureau & the U.S. Department of Transportation to assist the government of Puerto Rico in the process of validating, maintaining and sharing address point data. We created the Puerto Rico Address Database Operations Support (PRADOS) to support the creation of authoritative address datasets for Puerto Rico that preserve our cultural heritage and comply with Federal Standards. A more robust address infrastructure in Puerto Rico will help the process of reconstruction, improve emergency response and service delivery, and foster a more dynamic and resilient future.
About the Opportunity Project
The U.S. Census Bureau & the U.S. Department of Transportation recognize the issues facing tribal, State and local governments concerning local address data collection efforts. These federal agencies recognize that many local governments do not have the resources to plan, implement, and maintain address point data or the expertise to standardize and improve the quality of their addresses. The Opportunity Project seeks to foster the creation of tools that can be used to collect, validate, maintain, share and create “seed” data that can serve as a starting point for ongoing data collection efforts with an ability to share addresses openly.
The Data Governance Challenge
We worked with the The Opportunity Project to create a tool specifically designed for the unique particularities of Puerto Rico style addresses and the culture of the island in order to help municipalities improve their addresses to serve the needs of emergency responders. Our tool also was designed to help municipal authorities and address aggregators produce authoritative datasets that preserve local cultural practices and maintain compatibility with federal standards. This tool will support pre-disaster plans and help ensure the long-term recovery of communities.
The Puerto Rico Address Data Governance Platform (PRADOS)
A collaboration platform that helps Puerto Rico authorities translate local addressing practices to datasets that comply with federal standards by combining high level data governance functions with “address dictionary/spell checker” functionality. This tool incorporated datasets from the Census Bureau, U.S. Postal Service and the National Address Database (NAD) schema. PRADOS can help organizations understand their communities by empowering them to make better decisions using simple address data management tools to answer questions like “Does this street name exist in our ZIP Code or “municipio”?” and “What are the standard names of the streets in my community?” The platform can be used as a stand-alone tool, or as an integrated add-on module with any field data collection tool or address management system.
Address Validation
Address element validation to normalize local municipal data with Federal datasets from USPS and the US Census.
Address Governance
Tools to perform effective address governance, providing easy-to-use resources to improve address quality with Federal regulations.
Remote Encoding
Remote data encoding that use centralized staff with decades of experience working with Puerto Rican style addresses.
Open Data Formats
The platform uses the National Address Database (NAD) scheme to help local municipal entities to share data with other agencies.
Better reconstruction through better address data.
Our vision is to help state, local municipalities and communities in Puerto Rico preserve their local cultural heritage and practices and, at the same time, align and enhance their addresses to federal standards, assist the process of reconstruction, improve emergency response service delivery, and foster a more dynamic and resilient future for the Island. We want to inspire breakthroughs in the way we tackle the issue of “data invisibility” affecting communities in Puerto Rico
About iCASAPR
Puerto Rican communities and individuals have been at a disadvantage for decades because of the lack of reliable address data. The Initiative for Civic Address Systems Assessment in Puerto Rico (iCASAPR) is committed to help communities overcome the problems of data invisibility by studying and improving their civic addresses. This problem affects the ability of the local municipal entities, the State and the Federal government to meet critical societal needs. After the devastation of Hurricane Irma and Maria in Puerto Rico, the lack of a robust and transparent address infrastructure affected the assessment, emergency preparedness, rescue and reconstruction operations on the island.