Overview
MassGIS is working very closely with the State 911 Department in the state’s Executive Office of Public Safety and Security on the Next Generation 911 Emergency Call System. MassGIS developed and is maintaining the map and address information that are at the heart of this new system. Statewide deployment of this new 9-1-1 call routing system was completed in 2018.
Address sources include the Voter Registration List from the Secretary of the Commonwealth, site addresses from municipal departments (primarily assessors), and customer address lists from utilities. Addresses from utilities were “anonymized” to protect customer privacy. The MAD was also validated for completeness using the Emergency Service List (a list of telephone land line addresses) from Verizon.
The MAD contains both tabular and spatial data, with addresses being mapped as point features. At present, the MAD contains 3.2 million address records and 2.2 million address points. As the database is very dynamic with changes being made daily, the data available for download will be refreshed weekly.
A Statewide Addressing Standard for Municipalities is another useful asset that has been created as part of this ongoing project. It is a best practices guide for the creation and storage of addresses for Massachusetts Municipalities.
Data Products
Data exports from the MAD available for download include:
1a) Basic Address List - A tabular listing of addresses without units or MassGIS’ master address ID.
1b) Advanced Address List - A tabular listing of all addresses to the building/floor/unit level, when that information is available; the street name is parsed to its various parts. This export includes the MassGIS master address ID and the site name. A geographic community name is appended to the street name field when a neighborhood OR sub-community value exists due to multiple MSAG communities or an address community name.
2) Basic Address Points - Points features with each point having an address to the building/floor/unit level, when that information is available. Where more than one address is located at a single location multiple points are included (i.e. "stacked points"). The points for the most part represent building centroids. Other points are located as assessor parcel centroids.
3) Statewide Address Points for Geocoding - Basic address points with fields added to facilitate geocoding inside ArcMap. Includes a statewide file geodatabase and address locators.
Click on the product name in the list above to view more detailed metadata and access data download links.