What does a Global Address Framework look like?

Anthony Beck - Address Day - 2015-03-05

What does a Global Address Framework look like?

Unless states otherwise all content is under a CC-BY licence

You can access this presentation on github:

https://github.com/AntArch/20150305_AddressDay.git

Addresses

are part of everyday life

Kaye (2012)
Kaye (2012)

Economy and commerce

Governance

Appelo (2010)
Appelo (2010)
  • Without an address, it is harder for individuals to register as legal residents.
  • They are not citizens and are excluded from:
    • public services
    • formal institutions.
  • This impacts on democracy.

Urban Development

Crowley (2009)
Crowley (2009)
  • Key to managing the explosion of rural to urban migration.
    • Informal settlements housing the urban poor.
    • Poor infrastructure services.

Security

Pavliga (1992)
Pavliga (1992)
  • Addresses provide spatial structure.
    • This helps to identify, locate and access marginalized areas.

Sustainability and risk management

Huffman (2010)
Huffman (2010)
  • Addresses, geodemographics and spatial infrastructure support
    • sustainability
    • resilience
    • disaster management

Global Wellbeing

Cummings (2013)
Cummings (2013)

are a jolly good thing

Dystopos (2005)
Dystopos (2005)

The address disenfranchised?

It is almost impossible for individuals to be part of society without a legal identity.

4 billion people are excluded from the rule of law because they do not have a legal identity, and that establishing such an identity often depends on having an official address.

Addresses appear to be a key element in aiding the delivery of policies at national and international levels ....

UPU (2012) p. 6

... particularly with regard to:

  • governance
  • rule of law
  • poverty reduction
  • disease prevention
  • the provision of basic services such as:
    • electricity
    • sanitation
    • water.

UPU (2012) p. 6

In Africa

Beck (2015d)
Beck (2015d)

This century is witnessing a fundamental change in our way of life; for the first time in history, half of the world’s population lives in towns and cities.

Urban areas are growing faster in developing countries, mostly through informal settlements.

The lack of an address, particularly in informal settlements, can also mean the lack of legal identity, equal opportunities for employment and social integration.

UPU (2012) p. 6

Addresses are becoming a basic human right.

Does this mean we need a global addressing framework?

What will it look like?

Characteristics of a Global Addressing Framework

A global addressing framework will come from one of two directions:

  1. a set of standards and associated semantics that allows different national addressing systems to interoperate and be aggregated and generalised into a global entity.
  2. an independent global system which is either:
    1. communally adopted (i.e. open).
    2. imposed by a monopoly player with a ubiquitous service for operational efficiency (i.e. Google, Apple, Facebook or Amazon).

Standards based

A global standards based system does not exist.

A vision is detailed in UPU (2012):

Addressing the world: an address for everyone

describes potential avenues to a global system.

advocates Address infrastructure

Beck (2015e)
Beck (2015e)

National addresses

are the basis for a standards driven approach.

What are they like at a global level?

are biased and simply may not exist

Bauschardt (2015)
Bauschardt (2015)

A global addressing framework should meet the needs of the rural, urban, formal and informal communities equally.

to reiterate - In Africa

Beck (2015d)
Beck (2015d)

are bureaucratic and costly

Schnettelker (2013)
Schnettelker (2013)

Severely protracted when formal/informal issues are encountered.

A global addressing framework needs to be lightweight and cheap so it can be implemented in a timely manner.

can be opaque

Beck (2015b)
Beck (2015b)

A global addressing framework needs to be transparent and reproducible.

tend to lack implicit spatial referencing

Address infrastructure is a relative referencing system that does not implicitly provide an accurate spatial location.

Official and third party geocoding and reverse geocoding services are required to find out the spatial reference of the address.

It is rare to see nations adopting the strategy described in the Danish case study (UPU 2012, p.52):

Note that the addressing system is first and foremost defined as a spatial reference system, which should enable safe “navigation” in the real world.

A global addressing framework should be based on a spatial reference system.

are not always open

The situation is best summarised in the Danish case study (UPU 2012, p.54):

Address data should be available for all users with as few barriers as possible.

If this is not the case, the use of addresses as a common reference will not yield the otherwise significant benefits.

A global addressing framework will be a Core Reference data set and should therefore be open or available with as few barriers as possible.

The Department for Business Innovation and Skills and Jeni Tennison at the Open Data Institute have described the need for Open Addressing in the UK (BIS 2014, Tennison (2014)).

are heterogeneous

van Staveren (2013)
van Staveren (2013)

requiring representations to be openly harmonised within the semantic web.

So.......

A global address framework needs to be born global

Rain (2007)
Rain (2007)

But.......

A global address framework must be credible

Beck (2013b)
Beck (2013b)

How do we do this?

fit for purpose?

DAIS

Determining Addresses which are Independent of infrastructure using a Spatial algorithm

. .

Requirements for a Global Address Framework

. .

DAIS Core

WGS84 algorithmic address minting

Addison (2009)
Addison (2009)

A global addressing framework needs to be transparent and reproducible.

A global addressing framework should be based on a spatial reference system.

A global addressing framework needs to be lightweight and cheap so it can be implemented in a timely manner.

Small footprint

Terwolbeck (2012)
Terwolbeck (2012)

Ubiquitous access across platforms.

No dependency on internet access.

Short/memorable

Munroe ()
Munroe ()

Self checking

Levine (2014)
Levine (2014)

Improving validity and credibility of downstream business processes.

Unlimited spatial recording

Petersen (2007)
Petersen (2007)

Manila has a population density of 42,857 people per km2. What are the spatial requirements for the range of addressing options?

A global addressing framework should meet the needs of the rural, urban, formal and informal communities equally.

Open and interoperable

Open and interoperable

the lack of a consistent and transparent legal and policy framework for sharing spatial data continues to be an additional roadblock.

Pomfret & Ramage (2010)

A global addressing framework should be open or available with as few barriers as possible.

DAIS +

Things that would be nice to have so that....

A global addressing framework should meet the needs of the rural, urban, formal and informal communities equally.

Indoor use and 3D

Arup (2013)
Arup (2013)

Incorporating wifi-triangulation - individual room addressing and navigation.

Inherent geo-statistical aggregation (spatially scalable)

Petersen (2007)
Petersen (2007)

GIS free multi-scale analysis and reporting during disaster scenarios.

Area representation based on a regular tessellation

Petersen (2007)
Petersen (2007)

It is still useable within traditional GIS.

Spatial adjacency relations within the encoding

Beck (2013a)
Beck (2013a)

Understanding localised connectivity relations.

DAIS can ....

be used as a benchmark to evaluate technology candidates

BCS examples (in alphabetical order):

be a tool to shape future addressing needs

Beck (2015a)
Beck (2015a)

be a vehicle to encourage tool development

Gray (2011)
Gray (2011)

support core reference geographies

Bob Barr has described core reference geographies as geographic data which:

  • Are definitive
  • Should be collected and maintained once and used many times
  • Are Natural monopolies (which addresses are)
  • Have variable value in different applications
  • Have highly elastic demand

Global addresses are a core reference geography.

be used to get buy-in and build trust and credibility

Miemis (2010)
Miemis (2010)

DAIS - evolving

Gray (2014)
Gray (2014)

These criteria need to change to reflect need.

. .

DAIS is a platform which can be built upon.

So what next......

Sane (2010)
Sane (2010)

Community

  • What to do?
  • How to collaborate effectively?
  • How to build a community and consensus?
  • Fit for what purposes?
  • How to achieve credibility?

Any help greatfully appreciated.

Swoboda (2011)
Swoboda (2011)

ant.beck@gmail.com

Thanks

Reid (2009)
Reid (2009)

You can access this presentation on github:

https://github.com/AntArch/20150305_AddressDay.git

References

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