Geocoding with Buffer Distance to Reduce False Negatives
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional geocoding systems fail when users are unsure about the city of an address or intersection, leading to incorrect location findings due to proximity of cities and large geographic subdivisions, resulting in 'false positives' or missed results ('false negatives').
Innovation Solution
A system that allows for a buffer distance to be specified around a city, enabling the search for streets or intersections within that distance, ensuring no instances are missed while reducing false positives by intersecting city and street index keys and verifying candidates within the specified region.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If conventional geocoding systems use exact city matching, then precision is improved, but reliability deteriorates when users are unsure about the city
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies partial action by performing geocoding in two stages: first attempting exact city matching, then falling back to buffer-distance matching only when the exact match fails. This ensures precision is maintained when possible while reliability is improved when users are uncertain about the city. The buffer distance parameter allows searching a larger area only when necessary, balancing both precision and reliability.
2Reliability
If the search area is expanded to include nearby cities, then reliability is improved, but false positives increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by creating different search strategies for different locations: exact city matching for the specified city, and buffer-distance matching for nearby cities within the specified radius. This localized approach ensures that the search is comprehensive within the buffer zone while maintaining precision by using exact matching where applicable, thereby reducing false positives while improving reliability.
3Reliability
If buffer distance search is implemented, then reliability is improved, but computational complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies segmentation by dividing the geocoding process into distinct modules: exact city matching module, buffer distance calculation module, and candidate filtering module. This segmentation allows each component to be optimized independently and makes the overall system more manageable and maintainable, reducing computational complexity while preserving the reliability benefits of buffer distance searching.
4Reliability
If all cities within buffer distance are searched, then false negatives are reduced, but search time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies partial action by performing buffer distance calculations and expanded searches only for cities that are candidates based on the buffer distance criterion, rather than all cities in the database. This selective approach ensures that false negatives are reduced by searching relevant areas while minimizing search time by avoiding unnecessary computations for distant or irrelevant cities.
Data Source
AI summary
Specified streets or intersections that are within a specified distance of a specified city can be found by a search, even when they are not actually in that city. For computational efficiency, some addresses are included in search results even when they exceed the specified distance from the specified city by a small amount (“false positives”). The search method guarantees that no instance of the street name within the specified distance of the specified city is erroneously missed (“false negatives”).