Improving an open source geocoding service

Abstract

There are many map providers on the market today. Anyone who wishes to use a licensed map-service in an application has to pay a license fee. This fee can become a big expense and affect the price that the end costumer has to pay.This thesis has investigated in how to set up and improve an open source geocoding service for it to measure against a licensed map-service. Geocoding is the technique of having an input address and returning a position which consists of a latitude and a longitude coordinate. The investigation has been done by implementing an open source solution as a proof of concept with the goal to answer the question to which extent is it feasible to develop an open source geocoding service to be as fast accurate and complete as a licensed map service.The open source solution has been developed in collaboration with TaxiCaller Nordic AB. In the implementation the Pelias project has been used as a geocoder together with map data from the datasets of OpenStreetMap and Who’s On First and Elasticsearch as the search engine. The work is based on functional, data and performance requirements set by TaxiCaller.The evaluation has shown that most of the requirements set for this work are achieved with the implemented open source geocoding service solution. Examples of these requirements are correctness of the search results and that the address, street, venue or intersection in the search results should be fully specified.The functional requirement to convert an intersection to coordinates is not achieved when the intersection can not be uniquely identified. The performance requirement to search for a venue is not. Also, the data requirement that the postal code in the search results should be fully specified is not achieved.Sometimes but not always a licensed map-service can provide better data. 目前市场上有许多地图提供商。任何希望在应用程序中使用许可地图服务的人都必须支付许可费。这笔费用可能会成为一笔巨大的费用，并影响最终客户必须支付的价格。 本文研究了如何建立和改进开源地理编码服务，以便对许可的地图服务进行测量。地理编码是具有输入地址并返回由纬度和经度坐标组成的位置的技术。调查是通过实施开源解决方案作为概念证明来完成的，其目的是回答开发开源地理编码服务的可行程度，以及与许可地图服务一样快速准确和完整的问题。 开源解决方案是与TaxiCaller Nordic AB合作开发的。在实现中，Pelias项目已被用作地理编码器以及来自OpenStreetMap和Who's On First以及Elasticsearch数据集的地图数据作为搜索引擎。这项工作基于TaxiCaller设定的功能，数据和性能要求。 评估表明，通过实施的开源地理编码服务解决方案，可以实现为此项工作设置的大部分要求。这些要求的示例是搜索结果的正确性，并且应完全指定搜索结果中的地址，街道，地点或交叉点。 当无法唯一地识别交叉点时，不能实现将交叉点转换为坐标的功能要求。搜索场地的性能要求不是。此外，未实现搜索结果中的邮政编码应完全指定的数据要求。 有时但并非总是获得许可的地图服务可以提供更好的数据。

Original document

The different versions of the original document can be found in:

• http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-152229