INTELLIGENT GEOCODER DESIGN FOR PAKISTAN

Abstract

The recent advances in location based services (LBS) require a sophisticated structure which could support geospatial services like digital routing, vehicle navigation and emergency response systems. Geocoding offers a platform for the implementation of LBS. Pakistan lags behind in the field of geocoding because of the diversity of postal addresses in different parts of the country. This diversity is yet to be studied thoroughly to use the current postal address system for geocoding. This study on the postal addresses will help in developing geocoding services for Pakistan, and later on the use of geocoding services particularly in organizations such as rescue service providers, law enforcement agencies, utilities network installation and management projects, urban planning, traffic management and so forth.

This research conducts a much needed study on the diversity of postal addresses of Pakistan and attempts to develop an intelligent geocoder which can cater the diversity in postal addresses nationwide. This geocoding system is based on a comprehensive understanding of postal addresses and is called address locator style. This comprehensive address locator style is designed in a way that can support and process maximum diversity of postal addresses. The address locator style designed in this research has the capability of incorporating maximum diversity of postal addresses. To prove the applicability of the address locator style, an intelligent geocoder as a standalone application has been developed using open source software and technologies. This software application has been tested on three pilot study areas of Pakistan, namely E-block Gulshan Ravi, Lahore district, G-9/1, Islamabad and WassanPura, Lahore district

Research on the diversity of postal addresses of Pakistan reveals that there are two basic classes of postal addresses: first one is the hierarchical basic postal address which normally carries sufficient information for geocoding. The other class of postal address carries some local identification elements ie. nearby landmarks called ancillary I information. It is concluded that in order to geocode, the geocoding algorithm requires a unique hierarchical basic postal address up to the required precision level. Ancillary information plays no part in spatially locating a particular parcel and plays no role in geocoding. It is also concluded that this ancillary information is added by local residents and is a major reason for the diversity of postal addresses of Pakistan. Intelligent geocoder for Pakistan (IGP) has been assessed on the available standards such as completeness, positional accuracy and repeatability to measure geocoding quality. This reveals the fact that it provides one hundred per cent match rate and sufficient parcel level positional accuracy. IGP has the capability of geocoding a postal address up to an individual parcel level precision