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Question:
Is there a way to speedup the geocoding process or an alternative approach like a diifferent Geocoding service people got good results from?

Background of question:
I have a dataset of 21.000 adresses and want to geocode them using the Geocoder.

Geocoding Service: OpenStreetMap
Mode: Foward

To run the first batch of 500 adresses took approx. 10 minute to run which is not that fast to be honest.

 

 

From the documentation - https://docs.safe.com/fme/html/FME-Form-Documentation/FME-Transformers/Transformers/geocoder-pkg.htm

OpenStreetMaps’s Nominatim server, while publicly available, is not intended for heavy use and has several usage restrictions which make it inappropriate for use with FME in almost all cases: https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/nominatim/.

 

What you’re likely experiencing is throttling/usage restrictions. The Geocoder does support a range of other services which may be faster, some of these however will have a cost associated with them to use.


Where (i.e. which country) are the addresses located? If it’s all in a single country and they have a free geocoding service that may be an alternative.

I’ve used OpenCage a bit in the past (always stayed under the free tier treshold), to be honest I can’t remember how fast it was, but again it may be worth looking into.


Where (i.e. which country) are the addresses located? If it’s all in a single country and they have a free geocoding service that may be an alternative.

I’ve used OpenCage a bit in the past (always stayed under the free tier treshold), to be honest I can’t remember how fast it was, but again it may be worth looking into.

Thanks! All adresses are in the Netherlands, I will dive into the OpenCage idea, found also some others but often there is a limit like 5000 requests a day for a free account.


From the documentation - https://docs.safe.com/fme/html/FME-Form-Documentation/FME-Transformers/Transformers/geocoder-pkg.htm

OpenStreetMaps’s Nominatim server, while publicly available, is not intended for heavy use and has several usage restrictions which make it inappropriate for use with FME in almost all cases: https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/nominatim/.

 

What you’re likely experiencing is throttling/usage restrictions. The Geocoder does support a range of other services which may be faster, some of these however will have a cost associated with them to use.

Thanks for your reply. As far as I understand the policy right it's allowed to download your stuff but then with restriction of 1 request per second. I will check whether are affordable alternatives between the other providers in the Geocoder transformer


Ah, in that case, check out the PDOKGeocoder: https://hub.safe.com/publishers/terralytics/transformers/pdokgeocoder

I don't know if it'll be faster, but it'll be cheaper for sure 😁