User feedback - 'nearest road' can be confusing to councils

[MyfanwyNixon]

" I think that you should either remove (or make optional to the
 person reporting the fault) the text which says"Nearest road to
 the pin placed on the map (automatically generated by Bing
 Maps): nn xxxxx Road" I submitted a report and the LA were
 confused because  there was not actually a street light
 immediately outside the automatically generated address - and
 they thought that there should be!!  The address given was
 equidistant from two street lights.  The latitude and longitude
 identified the position quite acculturate and all that was
 needed"

[dracos]

Suggestions for making the text clearer welcome.

[MyfanwyNixon]

These details currently look like this:

Perhaps we could add some pointers:

Location

For highest accuracy, use: Easting/northing 488850/251285 Latitude/longitude (52.15271, -0.702767)

Further location details Nearest road to the pin placed on the map (automatically generated by Bing Maps): blah blah Nearest postcode to the pin placed on the map (automatically generated): XX11 1XX (xx m away) Please note that these do not indicate the precise position of the report: learn more.

The 'learn more' link could lead to an additional FAQ (or guidance for councils if we act on #1593) which would be along the lines of:

I'm from a council. How can I make best use of the location data included in the report?

The most precise positioning of the report location will always be gained from the latitude and longitude or easting and northing, which you'll find in the bottom right hand corner of the report.

We also include automatically-generated data giving the nearest road, and the nearest postcode. These give an at-a-glance indication of the rough location of the problem, but should not be used to try to pinpoint it exactly.

Don't forget that you can also visit the report page on FixMyStreet, by clicking 'show full report'. Here, you'll be able to zoom in to see the exact spot where the user has placed a pin, and also read any additional location details they have given in the body of their report.

As I'm looking at a report email, I notice that I'd expect to be able to click on the map to be taken to the report page, but actually it (or maybe gmail does?) invites me to download the small map picture in a format that's not very useful (eg I can't zoom into it; it becomes pixelated). I'll open another ticket about that.

[davidw65]

The other side to this is that users should be strongly encouraged to provide addresses and not just place the pin. Bing can get things badly wrong if there is a secondary street (terrace or set of maisonettes), in that it can report the number on the secondary street as though it was on the primary street (I always had this on Love Clean Streets, when reporting incidents outside some local maisonettes). It can also get things wrong when properties are unevenly spaced (side walls from joining streets) because it is doing even address interpolation. (Google has a similar problem with maisonettes; I've had to submit a lot of address corrections because of that.)

I'm not sure that councils like using the maps. Although my council is using FMSPro, not the email interface, I see their highways department rejecting reports for lack of house numbers, rather than assuming the pin gives the location. I'm guessing they don't get the Bing reverse geocoding.

Maybe users should be given the Bing reverse geocoding as starting point, so they can copy and paste, rather than keying a cull address.