topic Re: Locator won't match close street number in single address locator in Data Management Questions

Locator won't match close street number in single address locator

PeterHanmore — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 14:49:52 GMT

We have built a locator in ArcGIS 10 SP5 which is based on the US Street - Single Address style.
We have been able to tweak most other settings but are still having issues with street number scoring.
Basically, we would like the locator to rank similar house numbers on the same street/town with a high score.
The default action (from my testing and based on one other forum thread) seems to indicate that the locator is VERY strict about the house number matching - to the point that it will give a high ranking to an address that matches the house number and street in a town hundreds of miles away, but fail to even score the address 100' away.
We have tried playing with the scoring of the FullNormalAddress, NormalAddress and House components but nothing seems to allow addresses with close house numbers in the desired city to be ranked higher than exact house number matches in a different city.

For example:
Search for 100 Main Street, Mytown

Geocoder responds with:
Score: 90, Address: 100 Main Street, Yourtown (could be large distance away from Mytown and therefore totally wrong location).

Yet 98 Main Street, Mytown is only two house numbers away from the desired address. I would like the locator to return something like:

Score: 98, Address: 98 Main Street, MyTown
Score: 50, Address: 100 Main Street, Yourtown

Has anyone found a solution for this? Any workarounds? Apparently this worked as desired in 9.3.1 but was "improved" in 10.0?

Re: Locator won't match close street number in single address locator

JoeBorgione — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 15:36:58 GMT

We have built a locator in ArcGIS 10 SP5 which is based on the US Street - Single Address style.
We have been able to tweak most other settings but are still having issues with street number scoring.
Basically, we would like the locator to rank similar house numbers on the same street/town with a high score.
The default action (from my testing and based on one other forum thread) seems to indicate that the locator is VERY strict about the house number matching - to the point that it will give a high ranking to an address that matches the house number and street in a town hundreds of miles away, but fail to even score the address 100' away.
We have tried playing with the scoring of the FullNormalAddress, NormalAddress and House components but nothing seems to allow addresses with close house numbers in the desired city to be ranked higher than exact house number matches in a different city.

For example:
Search for 100 Main Street, Mytown

Geocoder responds with:
Score: 90, Address: 100 Main Street, Yourtown (could be large distance away from Mytown and therefore totally wrong location).

Yet 98 Main Street, Mytown is only two house numbers away from the desired address. I would like the locator to return something like:

Score: 98, Address: 98 Main Street, MyTown
Score: 50, Address: 100 Main Street, Yourtown

Has anyone found a solution for this? Any workarounds? Apparently this worked as desired in 9.3.1 but was "improved" in 10.0?

I'm a little confused with your term "US Street - Single Address " style of locator. I'm familiar with the US Address One range and the US Address Single House. That latter of which is a point or polygon type of locator. Perhaps you could clarify.

see: http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help../index.html#/Commonly_used_address_locator_styles/00250000000v000000/

Re: Locator won't match close street number in single address locator

PeterHanmore — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 15:44:35 GMT

Sorry for the confusion... I didn't have the style list in front of me and went by memory (which obviously wasn't a good idea).
We did use the Single House locator style and used our parcel polygon layer for the data.

Re: Locator won't match close street number in single address locator

JoeBorgione — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 16:19:53 GMT

Phew... Thought I was having a flash back from the 60s... Again...

All seriousness aside: do both the address data and the parcel data have the correct city identifier?

Re: Locator won't match close street number in single address locator

PeterHanmore — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 16:45:20 GMT

Yes,
The city is correct in both the input address and the data from which the locator was generated.
We also use an extensive alias list for city names which is working just fine.

Here's a specific example:
The source data has a polygon for house_number = 15, street = Barwick, street_type = road, city = TOWNSHIP OF CHAPPLE

If you query for 15 Barwick Road, Chapple you get a score of 100, which is correct (first attached image)
If you query for 13 Barwick Road, Chapple you get a score of 43, matched to 13 Barwick Drive, Barrie (second attached image)

Ideally, I would have gotten a hit on 15 Barwick Road, Chapple with a score close to 100 because it's at least on the right street in the right town and close to the right house number, but it fails to get any kind of score at all. Instead I get a match (albeit lower score) to the right house number but with a different street type and a totally different city.
It seems that for Single House locators, the house number trumps all other address components - meaning it will force matches to the requested house number even if it has to pick the wrong street/town.

Phew... Thought I was having a flash back from the 60s... Again...

All seriousness aside: do both the address data and the parcel data have the correct city identifier?

Re: Locator won't match close street number in single address locator

JoeBorgione — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 17:11:48 GMT

Yes,
The city is correct in both the input address and the data from which the locator was generated.
We also use an extensive alias list for city names which is working just fine.

Here's a specific example:
The source data has a polygon for house_number = 15, street = Barwick, street_type = road, city = TOWNSHIP OF CHAPPLE

If you query for 15 Barwick Road, Chapple you get a score of 100, which is correct (first attached image)
If you query for 13 Barwick Road, Chapple you get a score of 43, matched to 13 Barwick Drive, Barrie (second attached image)

Ideally, I would have gotten a hit on 15 Barwick Road, Chapple with a score close to 100 because it's at least on the right street in the right town and close to the right house number, but it fails to get any kind of score at all. Instead I get a match (albeit lower score) to the right house number but with a different street type and a totally different city.
It seems that for Single House locators, the house number trumps all other address components - meaning it will force matches to the requested house number even if it has to pick the wrong street/town.

As far back as I can remember, the single address locator styles are pretty unforgiving. I take it that there is no house number 13 on Barwick Rd in Chapple, right? If I'm correct, you are getting dinged first because there is no 13 house number in Chapple; after that you get double dinged in the street type and city.

Re: Locator won't match close street number in single address locator

PeterHanmore — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 18:11:37 GMT

You're correct - there is no 13 Barwick Road...... but 15 is RIGHT THERE.... I can see it 😉
I'm not as concerned about the 'double ding' for street type and city - we actually prefer that since it makes it more obvious that those candidates are not very similar to what was requested. The first ding on the house number is a bit of a show stopper though. It's especially annoying that it worked as desired in 9.3.1 and now it's 'broken' in 10.

Re: Locator won't match close street number in single address locator

JoeBorgione — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 19:37:38 GMT

You're correct - there is no 13 Barwick Road...... but 15 is RIGHT THERE.... I can see it 😉
I'm not as concerned about the 'double ding' for street type and city - we actually prefer that since it makes it more obvious that those candidates are not very similar to what was requested. The first ding on the house number is a bit of a show stopper though. It's especially annoying that it worked as desired in 9.3.1 and now it's 'broken' in 10.

To me it's working. Since there is no 13 Barick Rd in Chapple, it can't make a match there. But it gives you a low scoring partial match elsewhere. The single address types of locators are just that; single address. It either hits or it dosen't; there's no range involved. I'm not second guessing you, it just seems very odd that it worked earlier.

If you use a US streets type of locator that provides for a range of addresses you can expect partial hits. For example if you have an address of 1234 Main St, but the range only goes to 1230, you'll get a partial hit at 1230. I look at that as suggestion. It's almost like the locator is saying 'Hey, I don't have exactly what you entered, but I do have this. Will it do?'

Re: Locator won't match close street number in single address locator

PeterHanmore — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 19:43:41 GMT

For example if you have an address of 1234 Main St, but the range only goes to 1230, you'll get a partial hit at 1230. I look at that as suggestion. It's almost like the locator is saying 'Hey, I don't have exactly what you entered, but I do have this. Will it do?'

This is exactly what I'd like the single house locator to do. To me it makes sense that if the locator gives ANY candidate matches back, they should be on the same street and city as what I asked for - even if the house # is incorrect, not some other street name/city with the correct house #.
Whether the locator is based on single address or a range of addresses, it should be able to to give scoring preference to those candidates that exactly match all other address components except the house number.

Re: Locator won't match close street number in single address locator

DanMcCoy — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 01:40:51 GMT

Peter,

I agree with you.... It would make sense to me that you should be able to get a partial match to an address with a similar street number (13 -> 15), but I don't know if it's possible with ArcGIS locators.

Were you ever able to find any way of tweaking the scoring or match rules?

Dan

Re: Locator won't match close street number in single address locator

DanMcCoy — Wed, 01 Jul 2015 19:31:58 GMT

Please vote for this idea:

ArcGIS Idea - Candidates for point address locators

Re: Locator won't match close street number in single address locator

BradNiemand — Wed, 01 Jul 2015 23:38:13 GMT

Peter,

The reason we don't allow incorrect house number is because this locator type is supposed to be the most accurate type of match that you can obtain. Generally we would suggest that you create a Dual Ranges locator as well and add the 2 locators to a composite locator instead. If you don't have this data, there is a way to customize the locator style template file to build a locator without requiring the house number to be correct.

What you would do is the following.

1. Open the USAddress.lot.xml file with a XML editor or text editor like Notpad++.

2. Search for "<mapping_schema ref="SingleAddressSearch" />"

3. Replace with "<mapping_schema ref="SingleAddressPolygonCentroid" />".

4. Build the locator again.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Brad

Re: Locator won't match close street number in single address locator

JoeBorgione — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 01:58:07 GMT

Gotta go with Brad on this one: A single address locator is just that. I have address points that I am now incorporating into my 9-1-1 dispatch locators. Sometimes a parcel or other physical address is not right along the street it is addressed to; a point is absolute.

Consequently, I'm big fan of address points for my use in geocoding and single address locators for them. I composite them with a US Streets locator so if I don't have a point or the incident is in an intersection, I'm good to go.

(Between the two 9-1-1 call centers I contract to, I'm responsible for addressing about 3,000 9-1-1 calls a day, every day. Probably a bunch more this holiday weekend. Please stay safe out there!)

Re: Locator won't match close street number in single address locator

DanMcCoy — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 18:13:50 GMT

Brad Niemand:
there is a way to customize the locator style template file to build a locator without requiring the house number to be correct.
What you would do is the following.
1. Open the USAddress.lot.xml file with a XML editor or text editor like Notpad++.
2. Search for "<mapping_schema ref="SingleAddressSearch" />"
3. Replace with "<mapping_schema ref="SingleAddressPolygonCentroid" />".
4. Build the locator again.

We tried changing the mapping_schema ref and rebuilding the locator, but did not see any change. Are there any addtional steps needed to change the scoring weight of the house number component?

Thanks,

Dan

Re: Locator won't match close street number in single address locator

BradNiemand — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 18:23:05 GMT

You might need to reduce the MinimumMatchScore and/or MinimumCandidateScore for the locator.

Brad

Re: Locator won't match close street number in single address locator

DanMcCoy — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 18:24:32 GMT

Peter Hanmore:
It's especially annoying that it worked as desired in 9.3.1 and now it's 'broken' in 10.

I just wanted to confirm that 9.x style locators using "one address" behave as Peter mentions. It will match to a house number that is close, but it does drop the score.

Dan

Re: Locator won't match close street number in single address locator

DanMcCoy — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 18:51:37 GMT

Sure, reducing the min match/candidate scores will show more low-scoring matches, but the issue is how do we increase the score of a candidate that has a house number that is closer to the input address than some other random house number on the same street.

For exmaple, if I enter "916 I ST", get back all of the addresses on I ST with the same score...

101 I ST, score 55

1609 I ST, score 55

2322 I ST, score 55

915 I ST, score 55

910 I ST, score 55

401 I ST, score 55

+ many, many more

We should be able to adjust the scoring rules to promote 910 & 915 to have higher scores than the rest. Obviously, we don't want these scores to be 100, because they don't match. However, 910 & 915 are closer to 916 than the others, so the scoring should reflect that.

I hope that a 10.x locator style can be customized to change the way that the house number matches to behave more like it did with 9.x style locators.

Thanks,

Dan

Re: Locator won't match close street number in single address locator

BradNiemand — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 20:22:17 GMT

Search for the following:

<mapping_schema name="SingleAddress" geom_type="point">

Under this section you will see a field defined for "House" It will look like this:

<desc>House number</desc>

<preferred_name>HN</preferred_name>

<preferred_name>ADDRESS</preferred_name>

</field>

Replace it with this and you will get the functionality you want:

<desc>House number</desc>

<preferred_name>HN</preferred_name>

<preferred_name>ADDRESS</preferred_name>

<scoring_method ref="match_house_to_range">

<init_properties>

<prop name="MatchHouseToRange:DistanceScoring:Method">Linear</prop>

</init_properties>

<input_value/>

</parameter>

<field_value ref="House"/>

</parameter>

<field_value ref="House"/>

</parameter>

</parameter>

</scoring_method>

</field>

Brad

Re: Locator won't match close street number in single address locator

DanMcCoy — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 20:43:42 GMT

Thanks Brad. Would this be in addition to .... or instead of .... the "mapping_schema ref" change suggested previously?

Re: Locator won't match close street number in single address locator

BradNiemand — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 20:45:21 GMT

This would be in addition to the mapping_schema ref changes mentioned before.

Brad