Geocoding

Geocoding is the process of transforming a description location to a location of the earth’s surface. This can be done by entering one location at a time or by providing many locations at once in a table.

In this exercise, I geocoded tabular data showing attendees to an art exhibition workshop by zip codes and street names. This was done to analyze the areas where there was less attendance so effective marketing recommendations can be made within these areas to get more attendees.

Exercise Procedure

Geocoding by Zip Code;

Address locators were created (Using the Zip 5 digit address locator style) and linked to the zip codes) layers. The address locator created was then activated and a batch geocoding process was used to match attendee’s zip codes to the zip code layer file. Some of the zip codes were not matched and using the USPS site, I matched the unmatched zip codes.

Workflow showing geocoding by zip-code(Click to enlarge)

Table showing attendees(click to enlarge)

Creating Address Locator using the Zip 5 digit Address Style(click to enlarge)

Map showing geocoding by zip-codes(click to enlarge)

Geocoding by Addresses/Streets;

Address locator was also created using the US Dual Address ranges style. The attendees table was then re-modified so that street names and address would be in one field as this this the only way that a batch geocoding process would run since I was using the dual ranges address locator style. After modifying the table, I then run the batch geocoding process which match addresses from the attendees table to the streets shape file. This returned matched and unmatched address. The unmatched address was fixed by looking for misspelled address and spelling the right.

Workflow showing geocoding by streets(click to enlarge)

Batch Geocoding of addresses(click to enlarge)

Map showing geocoding by addresses(click to enlarge)

It can be seen that the result from geocoding by streets yields more details on the attendees than the results from zip codes. This is because zip codes are more generalized, there are made up of streets and geocoding by zip codes would not give you attendees in a zip code as a whole, not per street.

Application and reflection;

Apart from helping the sponsors locate where to optimize their marketing strategies, geocoding tabular data can also be used to create route maps and directions. It also shows spatial/consumer pattern analysis which could be used in commercial planning by knowing why there are so many customers in a particular place compared to another.

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