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

[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.

[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]

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]

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.

[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]

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]

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]

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.

[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