Preface
In flat areas with perpendicular roads, we should use grid coordinates to assign addresses. However in mountain and other twisty road areas we can also make reliable addresses. Using Taiwan's traditional lane and alley numbering system, along with a steady house number per distance ratio, and sufficient signs, I am confident that even during typhoon night, barehanded (no maps or computer), one can still find that mountain shack by address alone.
"Mountain area address planning" is perhaps better called tree structured address planning, so as to include irregular roads of flat areas.
Goals
Ambulances and the general public, not carrying maps or computers, using just an address, get reliably to a mountain location. The numbers shall not experience "growing pains" and need to be renumbered.
Methods
Example:
![[ Image: Zhendong St.]](images/zhendong.png)
Image: theoretical Zhendong St., only a short part of which is visible, entering from the bottom and leaving from the left.
On the image we see we use a steady 400 addresses per kilometer ratio (200 on each side of the road). Centerline number samples are shown to aid field workers estimate the proper final (right even, left odd) assignment. At forks we split off lanes, and then further alleys, as is the custom in Taiwan.
Currently there are only two houses on the map, Numbers 14 and 15. but we have reserved numbers along both sides of all roads, and indeed of all the white space in between as future branches penetrate.
Road signs
Signs needed at road fork points on the above map:
- Lane 324 Zhendong St.
- Alley 64 Lane 324 Zhendong St.
- Lane 326 Zhendong St.
Note only one plate (for the branch) is needed at each fork. One can determine the name of the parent road from the name of the branch. Note savings over the two plates needed at the corner of e.g., Penelope St. and Marr Lane! However we still use up as much metal or more with our lane and alley numbers being added to the signs, so perhaps we only save some screws.
However the mental savings beats the metal savings as now the two roads in question now have a systematic naming relationship that one need not be versed in e.g., old battleship names to figure out.
Direct calculation of distance
We note that just looking at the address 14 Alley 64 Lane 324 Zhendong St., we can calculate the distance from the origin point of Zhendong St., i.e., the point next to 1 Zhendong St.,
(324+64+14) * 1000/400 = 1017.5 meters
The distance needed to travel can be obtained directly from the address. Addresses assigned in the field via a odometer also incorporate slope, although slope's influence is rarely large.
Can there be a same numbered lane or alley and house?
Yes, e.g., Lane 38 passes directly under floor 2 of house number 38.
How everlasting?
After addresses have been issued, it appears the main possibility for changing them would be construction of a major road across the original pattern. The more deep the mountains, the less likely this is to occur.
Depth problem
Rooting the tree
Care must be taken as to where one defines the root point of the named road from which all the numbered lanes extend from. Too big a tree and we will need to branch too deep, beyond alley. Too small a tree and and the hills will be filled with many hard to remember road names.
What if smaller than alley?
If one day a there is a fork road from an alley, the fork having need for addresses, we then are forced beyond the usual Taiwan sub-street numbering system. We simply don't have a good name to call this new even smaller road. (The Post Office translation table has a "sub-alley", but its pronunciation in Chinese is the same as "alley".)
Perhaps use numbered streets: 11 Alley 22 Lane 33 Street 44 Whatever Road, to add another level. (But what about road width/name rules? To be called a "street" a road must be within a certain width, etc.)
Road, lane, alley... if extended to an unlimited system, we then are able to describe infinitely small places, and can deal with infinite road forks! How to write such addresses is an area for further study.
Comparison with utility pole name plates
Utility poles are customarily numbered in sequence with no "even on right, odd on left." (Indeed they hop across the road often.)
One notes telephone pole name plates' "Zhendong branch 54 right 5 right 18 left 3..." indeed have unlimited depth. However there is not constant distance between poles...
Electric pole numbers are a whole other story. As far as their non grid portion, here we see one that just says Yaokeng branch 11 branch 14. (Probably what fits on the sign is the tail end of more complete name that begins with the name of the pole, e.g., Ruanbi Zhi 56, that the current power line has sprung from. Zhi being a bigger branch than fen.)
As they don't use right/left naming, one cannot tell which side the branch is on without being at the scene, nor can one have more than one branch per pole before having to come up with better names. At least with right/left indication, one can have two branches per pole.
I wish somebody would tell me what part of graph theory all this naming stuff is called.
English order of writing
If making the first time choice for an entire country, on can consider if one wants to fix the English order of writing from inner to outer, as above, or match the Chinese order from outer to inner. But then one needs to add "number" (No.): Zhendong St. Lane 324 Alley 64 No. 14.
Also one can standardize abbreviation usage as some governments' post offices do, alley: ALY, lane: LN, all capitals.
Loops
Taizhong County Road 46 (Dongshi Township Qingfu St.) is a "P" shaped road 13+ kilometers long that loops back upon itself. To get to proposed house number 5200, one would turn left at 800, instead of going up the mountain and back down again needlessly. (But one shouldn't blindly follow any road. E.g., from Taizhong County's Shicheng to Fengyuan, one should go over the Changgeng Bridge, instead of just staying on Highway 3, needlessly going through the Dongshi business district.)
So just as there could be a sign "Fengyuan 10 km." with an arrow, perhaps there could be a sign with arrows: "800~3035 Qingfu St. go straight; 3036~5272 St. turn left." At least from the point of view of the government, we can say "yes, we told you so".
(5272=13.18*400; 3036=800+(5272-800)/2.)
Conclusion
It is hoped that we have created ideal addresses for areas where grids are not appropriate, with built-in capacity for all future population growth.
References
Georgia USA addressing (page 25) is much different.