Address points of landmarks and paratransit services as a credible reference database for geocoding

Abstract Address and location challenges are global, yet sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA) is the most poorly referenced geographically due to poor spatial referencing of mobility infrastructure and landmarks, poor road layout, and informal settlements. But there is a widespread use of informal geographic referencing especially for paratransit service, and landmarks including schools, hospitals, and markets, which are not mapped. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to generate a reference database for geocoding purposes by taking advantage of address points of landmarks and paratransit (trotro) services. The reference database was generated for the Oforikrom municipality of the Ashanti region in Ghana, and validated by geocoding 108 preprocessed local addresses. The results show a 100% match rate between the 108 addresses and the reference database, with 10% of those matches determined by qualitative and approximate spatial relations. The match‐rate was 88% with no preprocessing of the input addresses. Point‐based geocoding was found to be the most practicable approach to develop a reference database for geocoding addresses in SSA, or areas characterized by lack of geographical referencing. The widespread usage of landmarks and paratransit for geographic referencing in SSA provides the potential to adapt this study to countries/areas with informal settlements and poor geographic referencing.