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Geocode Intersections like "W First St/N Main Ave"

ShawnaErnst

Does anyone know how to customize a locator so it will geocode an intersection in the format:

W First St/N Main Ave or W First St&N Main Ave

It works if I enter the intersection this way:

W First St / N Main Ave or W First St & N Main Ave

But if I'm missing the spaces, then I get 0 results. I have users who consistently enter intersections without the spaces. I'd rather solve this myself than force them to change their data entry.

Thanks,
Shawna

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ctalleygreenville

Shawna,

What version were you having problems with (that was going to be fixed)?

We are experiencing the same issue with a 10.1 locator built on our street feature class (10.1 SDE/SQL ). It will NOT geocode street intersections if there are no spaces between the separators and the street names in our traffic collision table.

Yes, I even tried to apply the change to the .xml with no luck (the fix mentioned above).

However, running an old 9.3 sde locator to which I still had access will match the intersections without having to have spaces.

Has any one else found a solution to fix an existing 10.1 installation? Yea, I realize we *could* go through and scrub how the data was entered - but that shouldn't have to happen when the geocoding used to work with older versions!! (And we sure aren't going to go ask all the traffic officers to start entering differently than they have for years).

Thanks,
Carmen

ShawnaErnst

Good news! We were able to talk to the head developer for geocoding at the user conference and he said that the intersection issue from my original post is an oversight and he's going to fix the software so that both:

W First St/N Main Ave

and

W First St / N Main Ave

will geocode!

I'll post back when I hear more. Thanks everyone for your suggestions and ideas. Much appreciated.

JoeBorgione

Here's a little tidbit that came my way. If you try this, be sure to follow the line that mentions backing up your original file...

Copy your file C:\Program Files (x86)\ArcGIS\Desktop10.2\Locators\USAddress.lot.xml to a backup copy.

Start editing it with an XML editor.

Look for lines in the grammar section having this element (below), you are looking for entries in the multiline_grammar section under the supportsIntersections alternate and further down under the FullIntersection element.

<elt ref="intConnector" weight="40"/>

Replace these two entries with this:

<elt ref="intConnector" weight="40" pre_separator="optional" post_separator="optional"/>

Create new locators using the modified style.

Hold your breath hoping it works. If not revert the changes out;don't expect miracles.

JoeBorgione

Bridged intersections...

Sort of an oxymoron don't you think?

An over-pass or under-pass isn't an in intersection; at least, I wouldn't want to model my data as such. For example: Main St doesn't Intersect I-80, the on/off ramps do. Main St intersects the on/off ramps and passes over I-80, right?

What if you create a point feature class of your over/underpasses and create a naming convention for your users to follow? Be careful about how many different aliases you create. That will become a data maintenance night mare for you. (I like to call it this, but he likes to call it that, and so & so likes it called something else, and oh yeah, Billy Bobs great grandfather used to call it this...) I go two deep; tops.

You fail mention software version, but I've always indexed the join item in both the feature class AND alternative name table.

JoshuaLontz

I have also tried to match non-scrubbed intersections and have had the following results:
My street range file has taken care of most of the streets that actually intersect. Obviously, it cannot find intersections typed in that actually do not match. However, have had a tough time matching bridged intersections. I have created an intersection locator with all my intersections and even an alias field giving all types of re-spellings of the intersection.
Whats strange, even with dropping the match requirements to 0, some do not match or even show an alternative, except when I retype the address into the key field. It shows the intersection I want, with a score of greater than my allowable, so its weird why it would not find it in the first place.

Will follow this thread and let you know if i discover a solution.

Josh

ShawnaErnst

That is the difference. Locators built in ArcGIS 10 handle the intersection connector differently than locators built in 9.3.1.

I may give the blog post a shot.

Thanks, Joe.

JoeBorgione

Shawna- I'm using version 10.0 but..... I use the locators provide in 9.3.1; that may be the difference.

That blog post is pretty cool; almost makes the process interesting. I don't know how large in terms of centerlines your area of operations is, but you might try just test section to see how it goes.

ShawnaErnst

Joe - which version of ArcGIS are you using? What kind of geocoder? Mine fails every time... Interesting.

Also, I had considered a point feature class (following this example of how to create one http://blogs.esri.com/esri/arcgis/2013/02/11/streetintersectionlist/). That blog post about creating the intersections makes it less tedious and time consuming...

JoeBorgione

You might try creating a point feature class of your intersections and then name the point (keyfield) the intersection without spaces. Then you could have your street based locator and a point based locator in one composite locator. (If this seems horribly tedious and time consuming, it's because it probably would be.)

edited moments later.... I just tried leaving out the spaces between my intersection symbol and it works for me. What does not work is when I leave off pre-dir, suf-dir or street-type of either or both of the streets of the streets; this is just using the interactive geocoding toolbar, not a list.

ShawnaErnst

Thank you so much for all of your input, gmohler.

If anyone else knows how to customize the locator so that it will geocode without spaces around the intersection connector, I'd still appreciate the help.

gregmohler

Then why even bother with one a one step process since two is too many? Why not pay a geocoding service to get the data in point format? I think the time you spent replying to the thread was more than enough to complete a search and replace in excel or word. You cannot take raw data, run a locator, and expect magical results. Data integrity, in collection and analysis, is extremely important in achieving meaningful results in any project, even outside of the scope of GIS.

ShawnaErnst

You're correct, of course...but I'd rather not scrub the data beforehand. I want to customize a locator that can deal with this situation so I don't have a two-step process.

gregmohler

Scrub your data before you geocode. Simply, in excel: highlight the column and Replace, Ctrl+H. Replace "/" with " / " (no quotation marks, but notice the spaces around the replacing value). Or replace "&" with " & ". You could run a update cursor with python to replace the values as well.

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