MapMechanics fills in holes and links islands together

Does your postcode lie in the “wrong” postcode sector, geographically speaking? Up and down Britain , the physical location of many postcode addresses is inside a different postcode sector from the one that logic might suggest.

The reasons for this are various. The addresses could relate to a cluster of houses forming part of a development that falls largely in a different postcode sector, or buildings on a large site that spills into an adjacent sector. Often the anomaly has no adverse consequences. However, when postcodes are used to determine physical location, as often happens in geographical

analysis for strategic planning or marketing, such anomalies are potentially confusing, and can make it difficult to interpret the bigger picture, as well as impossible to produce meaningful, efficient territories.

Which is why MapMechanics, one of Britain ’s leading suppliers of mapping and geodemographic data, has launched a specially formatted version of Ordnance Survey’s Code-Point polygon file, in which “islands” or “holes” of postcodes in alien postcode sectors are merged with those in the geographical area in which they actually fall.

The result: analysis that relies on Code-Point Polygon postcode data is more consistent, and territories and thematic mapping based on Code-Point information is more logical. For companies using the data in exercises such as calculating very small delivery areas (perhaps when delivering mail, distributing leaflets or allocating franchises), this approach provides just the right combination of accuracy and operational practicality.

The special version of the data is now supplied free of charge to those buying standard Code-Point Polygon datasets from MapMechanics. Since they also get the unadorned version of the data, they can choose to use the enhanced version or the original version according to their requirements.

According to MapMechanics, the launch of this enhanced version of Code-Point data is just one example of the company’s response to a growing market demand for more proactive support in the supply of digital data.

In the words of General Manager Theresa Barlow: “Increasingly, we’re finding our customers don’t want to buy just ‘vanilla’ mapping and geodemographic data from us – they also want a range of customisation and data manipulation services.”

She explains: “Even when organisations have staff trained in geographic information systems, they’re realising it’s uneconomic to keep reinventing the wheel. They want their people to invest their time in actually doing the analysis, not constantly learning new methodologies and familiarising themselves with new products.”

Much of the thrust behind other recent data releases by MapMechanics has had this same objective. For instance, the company has taken daytime populations from the 2001 Census and employee counts from business data, and used these to determine the potential number of customers for daytime traders present in each section of street. This data can then be made into a shaded map; and streets which are likely to have the most lunchtime trade (for example) can be identified at a glance. This gives a far more useful picture of daytime activity than merely putting points on maps, which is what users would normally get by simply superimposing business data on street-level mapping.

“With the MapMechanics approach, site location analysis for coffee shops, bakeries or other lunchtime traders is made quicker and easier,” Theresa Barlow says. “No system makes the decision for you, but until now there has been no quick way to assess which potential sites warrant further investigation for these types of business.”

In the same way, MapMechanics now offers street-level digital map data that shows real-world traffic densities on given stretches of road. It has achieved this by integrating two new resources – the latest street-level map data from NAVTEQ, and a new traffic density dataset derived from ITIS real-world road speeds.

Such resources are invaluable for a wide range of users, including advertisers trying to establish the best sites for roadside posters; retailers or caterers assessing potential passing trade; and local or national authorities planning road network developments.

Rather than simply offering these and similar products “as is”, MapMechanics makes a point of tailoring the end product to suit individual users. “People can still buy standard datasets from us if that’s what they want,” Theresa Barlow emphasises, “or they can take on part of the data preparation work and leave us to do the rest. Or we can do the whole data preparation job, and leave them simply to do the analysis that it’s designed for. We aim to be completely flexible”.