PSMA Australia has released the latest May 2013 updates to its suite of national address and mapping information datasets. Updates to PSMA Australia’s seven major product datasets occur in November, February, May and August each year, and for some datasets, occur fortnightly to key clients.

Detailed Release Report information is distributed to PSMA’s diverse Reseller network and clients who in turn add value to the datasets for Australian spatial industries, businesses and communities.

Cadlite®

The flagship Cadlite® (cadastral and property) dataset now contains more than 14.7 million land parcels (up from 14 million in the February release). The datasets now contains parcels representing easements, roads, crossings, rail and water in addition to the traditional view of land and strata based information. Click here for general information on Cadlite.

G-NAF®

The May 2013 update to the flagship G-NAF® dataset includes improved processing of Australia Post contributor records, and significant cleaning of unofficial and topographic suburbs/localities data. G-NAF now exceeds 13 million physical geocoded addresses, with 97.51% as principle addresses. Click here for general information on G-NAF.

Administrative Boundaries

The May 2013 update to the Administrative Boundaries dataset includes a complete update nationally of Commonwealth Electoral Boundaries, providing a consistent national representation. Click here for general information on Administrative Boundaries.

Other National Datasets

Other national datasets which are regularly updated include the location-rich Transport and Topography™ and Features of Interest, as well as Land Tenure and Postcode Boundaries.

Transport and Topography contains over 2.7million kilometres of road centreline data, and 30 feature types from rail to hydrology and greenspace.

Features of Interest dataset is a location-rich resource which combines authoritative mapping data with an expansive set of places and features including churches, schools, hospitals, parks, water storages and camping grounds.

Land Tenure is another location-rich dataset containing 8 million land parcels types, such as freehold , leasehold and reserve, and utilised in government planning and strategic business-intelligence.

These authoritative, valuable, national location information datasets make spatial industries and businesses in Australia more profitable, sustainable and more market efficient and internationally competitive. Australian taxpayers gain numerous benefits and functionality, through distribution of these trusted national assets, for their online maps, personal navigation and routing products.

Disclaimer: PSMA Australia believes this data release information to be correct at the time of online publishing and does not accept responsibility for any consequences arising from the use of information herein. Readers should rely on their own skill and judgement to apply information to particular issues.

G-NAF, CadLite and PSMA Australia are registered trademarks of PSMA Australia Limited. Transport and Topography is a trademark of PSMA Australia Limited. PSMA Data, PSMA Distribution and PSMA Systems logos are trademarked images. PSMA Data, PSMA Distribution and PSMA Systems (and other associated imagery) are trademarked and undergoing registration.

NatStats 2013 built on the enthusiasm and passion generated throughout the previous two NatStats conferences held in 2010 and 2008. The conference provided a unique opportunity for key stakeholders from across the statistical community to collaborate and network for building a strong and vibrant National Statistical Service in Australia.

“A better informed Australia: the role of statistics in building the nation”.

Magenta Technologies is focused on developing partnerships with its customers. We have found working together throughout the design and integration the only way to ensure customer satisfaction and facilitate change management within the organisation.

How PSMA Data is used

Intech’s flagship product, IQ Office, consists of a suite of products to address and resolve information quality issues. Among other functionality, this includes address validation and geographic coding software for both real-time and batch scenarios. Optimised for flexibility in both cross-platform implementations and end user functionality, the solution allows validation against numerous multinational address reference files, including Australia Post’s Postal Address File and PSMA Australia’s Geocoded National Address File (G-NAF®).

Intech has been successful in its endeavours to maintain Australia’s most advanced, flexible and functional address management solution. Testament to this commitment is the fact that Intech Solutions has maintained full access data licenses for both Postal Address File data and G-NAF® data since the inception of these programs. Intech currently supports many of Australia’s largest implementations of G-NAF® in both the government and private sectors.

2012 is the National Year of Reading.

PSMA Australia’s CEO Dan Paull was proud to be an ACT Reading Hour Champion, supporting Libraries ACT in promoting the benefits of reading for pleasure.

To support the 2012 Reading Hour on 25 August, the PSMA team developed the following list of our favourite fiction, non-fiction and children’s books—as well as a few that rocked our world!

Fiction

• 1984 – George Orwell
• Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
• Breaking Dawn- Stephanie Meyer
• Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister –  Gregory Maguire
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – J K Rowlings
• Ice Station  –  Matthew Reilly
• Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
• Millennium–trilogy by Stieg Larsson (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo etc)
• Mr Golightly’s Holiday – Sally Vicker
• Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
• Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
• Pillars of the Earth – Ken Follett
• PS I Love You – Cecelia Ahern
• Shantaram –  Gregory David Roberts
• The Alchemist – Paulo Coehlo
• The Fog Garden – Marion Halligan
• The Hand that First Held Mine – Maggie O’Farrell
• The Help – Kathryn Stockett
• The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
• The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
• The Memory Keeper’s Daughter – Kim Edwards
• The Memory Keepers Daughter – Kim Edwards
• The Road – Cormac McCarthy
• The Tiger’s Wife – Téa Obreht
• The True History of the Kelly Gang – Peter Carey
• To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee
• Twilight – Stephanie Meyer
• Two on a Tower, Thomas Hardy
• Wolf Hall – Hilary Mantel

Non–Fiction

• A Room Of One’s Own – Virginia Woolf
• Boomerang – Michael Lewis
• Eat, Pray, Love – Elizabeth Gilbert
• Lazarus Rising – John Howard
• Mao’s Last Dancer – Li Cunxin
• Mawson – Peter Fitzsimons
• Me Cheeta, My Life in Hollywood – Cheeta
• One Fourteenth of an elephant – Ian Denys Peek
• One Way Road: The Autobiography of Robbie McEwen – Robbie McEwan
• Speak – Laurie Halse Anderson
• Stasiland – Anna Funder
• The Adventure of Food: True Stories of Eating Everything –, Richard Sterling (ed)
• The Art of the Soluble – P B Medawar
• The Cook’s Companion – Stephanie Alexander
• The Diary of Anne Frank – Anne Frank
• The Gangster We Were All Looking For – Le Thi Diem Thuy
• The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East – Robert Fisk
• The Happiest Refugee: My Journey From Tragedy To Comedy – Anh Do
• The Places in Between – Rory Stewart
• The poems of Robert Service
• The Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book
• The Worst Date Ever – Jane Bussmann

Children’s

• 365 days January – Gabrielle Lord
• Allie Finkles: Rules for girls, the new girl – Meg Cabot
• Belinda the Cow – Pamela Allen
• Brown Bear, Brown Bear – What Do You See, Eric Carle
• Charilie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
• Conspiracy 365 book series – Gabrielle Lord
• Eloise – Kay Thompson
• Harry the Dirty Dog – Gene Zion
• James and the Giant Peach – Roald Dahl
• Lila Pirate –, Georgie Birkett
• Nancy Drew Series – Carolyn Keene
• Oh Dear – Rod Campbell
• Old Pig – Margaret Wild
• Playing Beatie Bow – Ruth Park
• Possum Magic – Mem Fox
• Rupert The Bear – Stuart Trotter
• Say Please Louise – Phil Roxbee Cox
• Seven Little Australians – Ethel Turner
• Skulduggery Pleasant Series – Derek Landy (10–14 age group)
• The diary of Meine Martin – Carol Waston
• The Phantom Tollbooth – Norton Juster
• The Silver Sword – Ian Serraillier
• The Tiger Who Came to Tea – Judith Kerr
• The Witches – Roald Dahl
• Who Sank the Boat? – Pamela Allen

Books that rocked our world

• In Patagonia – Bruce Chatwin
• Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You: A Guide to the Universe!  – Marcus Chown
• Tell Me No Lies– John Pilger (ed)
• The Harry Potter Series – J K Rowlings
• Why Do We Do What We Do – Edward L Deci & Richard Flaste

Australia’s authoritative national address reference file for addressing the nation is G-NAF. G-NAF provides more than 13.2 million addresses, with PSMA Australia adding more than 50,000 new addresses every quarter. The issues resulting in missing or duplicated data in G-NAF are generally well understood and documented but are often incredibly complex to resolve.

Multi-dwelling sites and private estates such as caravan parks, aged care facilities and gated communities are a common source of address variation. The state and territory governments are particularly focused on activities to better capture the addresses for these types of properties.

A ranged address is an address such as 2-8 Smith Street may be recorded within different data sources as 2 Smith Street, 2-6 Smith Street or 2-10 Smith Street. Ranged addresses have been responsible for up to 300,000 duplications within G-NAF. In the August 2012 release, more than 90% of duplications caused by ranged addresses were resolved in G-NAF. PSMA Australia has adopted the address supplied by the jurisdiction as the principal address and created aliases for the alternatives.

The use of different number systems (Unit 1 or 1A) for multi-dwelling sites is a more difficult issue to resolve and PSMA Australia is working closely with address contributors with a number of management strategies under consideration.

Australia’s authoritative national address reference file for addressing the nation is G-NAF. The Geocoded National Address File (G-NAF) was developed by PSMA Australia, the company established by the governments of Australia to provide an independent and self-funded means for collaborating on national geospatial matters.

“Since its introduction in 2004, G-NAF has developed a strong track record of supporting business critical systems in a wide range of industries including the telecommunications, insurance, banking and finance and utilities sectors,” said Dan Paull, chief executive officer of PSMA Australia. “G-NAF also underpins Australia’s National Address Management Framework that has been adopted by governments at all levels.”
In early 2012, PSMA Australia entered into an agreement under which NBN Co will use G-NAF for address information to support the planning, roll-out and operation of the national broadband network.

Dataset fundamentals

G-NAF brings together datasets supplied by the state and territory governments of Australia, the Australian Electoral Commission and Australia Post.

“As these are authoritative and relatively independently assembled datasets, each with its own strengths and weaknesses, G-NAF merges the supplied addresses into a single G-NAF address record with feature level metadata documenting its lineage & quality. Address confidence is established by the number of occurrences in the different datasets,” said Dan.

This analysis and comparison is conducted within a geospatial environment so that each component of each address can be matched against the official geospatial region to which it relates: state, locality, street and finally property.

“The production process creates extensive information detailing the variations that exist between the official principal address and the address that people use,” said Dan. “G-NAF features extensive address level alias listings and street and locality aliases, including vanity names. Alias addresses are addresses, other than the principal address, that refer to the same physical location as another address record.  G-NAF is a hybrid dataset combining the strengths of each input dataset (both address and spatial) to deliver a premium quality reference set.”

Figure 1: Example of how G-NAF manages vanity addresses at a locality level to avoid duplications

Improvements to G-NAF

PSMA Australia works closely with the data contributors to ensure the dataset supports the emerging needs of Australia’s geospatial data user community. PSMA Australia implements rules to match alias/unofficial information to the official record as part of the data processing. G-NAF’s founding principal, however, is to respect the integrity of the addresses supplied by the authoritative contributors.

“Many of the issues resulting in missing or duplicated data are well understood and documented,” said Dan. “Multi-dwelling sites and private estates such as caravan parks, aged care facilities and gated communities are a common source of address variation. The state and territory governments are particularly focused on a range of activities to better capture the addresses for these types of properties.

“Ranged addresses cause an estimated 300,000 duplications within G-NAF. A ranged address such as 2-8 Smith Street may be recorded within different data sources as 2 Smith Street, 2-6 Smith Street or 2-10 Smith Street.

Figure 3: Example of ranged addresses

“More than 90% of these duplications will be resolved in the August 2012 release of G-NAF, where PSMA Australia will adopt the address supplied by the jurisdiction as the principal address and create aliases for the alternatives.

“The use of different number systems (Unit 1 or 1A) for multi-dwelling sites is a more difficult issue to resolve and PSMA Australia is working closely with address contributors with a number of management strategies under consideration. “

Figure 3: Example of how G-NAF manages a common source of address duplication at a street level

Accessing new and changed addresses

Dan said that despite G-NAF being the most current address reference, data currency has always been a challenge.

“The data collection and processing takes time and this means that there is latency in the quarterly release,” said Dan. “In late 2012, PSMA Australia plans to introduce G-NAF Live, a near live database of the most recent authoritative addresses provided by the state and territory address custodians.

“PSMA Australia receives address data as frequently as the state and territory custodians can supply it,” said Dan. “The address data is then converted into a single data model (using the NAMF & AS4590 compliant model), loaded into the live database and exposed to address verification through PSMA Australia’s award-winning technology, PSMA Systems.”

“Designed to support the National Address Management Framework, G-NAF Live and supporting services will generate substantial improvements to address currency and accuracy. G-NAF Live will be a key component in a feedback loop for investigating and correcting addresses as well as near real-time access to new and corrected addresses.

“This capability of delivering changes in the national reference dataset as they occur within the state and territory custodians represents a significant advancement for national address management and will set a new benchmark, not just in Australia but around the world.”

More information about G-NAF and G-NAF Live is available on PSMA Australia’s website.

G-NAF Facts

• More than 13.2 million geocoded addresses
• Over 50,000 new addresses added every quarter
• All addresses have a locality level geocode
  More than 12 million have a parcel level geocode
• Extensive address level alias listing and street and locatliy alises including vanity addresses
• Multiple authoritative contributors, with match based confidence levels
• Primary and secondary address joining

DOWNLOAD SLIDES (PDF)

Abstract:

The daily interactions between government, the private sector and the community result in thousands of new addresses being created in Australia every week. The business operations of many enterprises – utilities, telecommunications, construction, banking and insurance – rely on timely access to these new addresses.

Address information is collected and stored in many different ways, creating the potential for addresses to vary widely in quality and accuracy. Inefficiencies and risks develop where there are multiple sources and no single point of truth for such information.

In recognition of the economic and social benefits associated with improving address quality, the governments of Australia have adopted a national coordinated approach to address management. The goal of the National Address Management Framework (NAMF) is ‘one address = one location’ and it guides the process for verifying and exchanging address information. Daily address feeds are being used to create a near-live database of authoritative geocoded addresses for Australia.

This paper will discuss initiatives being generated by NAMF that will improve access to up-to-date authoritative addresses as well as streamlining business processes and reducing duplicated effort for effective address management.

DOWNLOAD PAPER (PDF)

Dan Paull, Chief Executive Officer, PSMA Australia

Abstract:

Geospatial information embodies a revolutionary element that is capable of promoting innovation, generating opportunities as well as sparking new insights and approaches to issues. All of which are critically important in challenging economic times and for succeeding in highly competitive environments.

However, at the individual enterprise level, the barriers to take-up of geospatial information remain significant. Difficulties include cost, project complexity, the difficulty of sourcing the right skills and information as well as uncertain benefits and outcomes. It is a vicious cycle where the complexity involved may mean that the benefits realised are not well communicated or understood across the organisation.

This paper will explore two critical aspects to the wider adoption of ‘location thinking’. The first is the focus on address to provide the key to extracting value from location. As the one attribute that is virtually universal across business and government, address provides the link between complex spatial information and enterprise applications. Once addresses are geocoded, a whole world of location opportunity is opened up.

The second aspect is the use of web services to achieve the seamless shift from ‘thinking location’ to business processes ‘using location’. Through the use of web services, location is applied to existing processes, workflows and applications in an easy and reliable way. By using address as the key entry point, it makes it possible to easily integrate existing enterprise systems with a wide range of address management, validation, geocoding, spatial directories look-up and mapping services.

Our core competencies include

• The breadth and depth of our consumer and business data assets (we have the largest consumer universe in the AUS market)
• Our sophisticated and unique data quality and recognition capabilities

These core competencies are leveraged across a range of products and solutions that meet a range of client needs – whether that be helping them find more prospects, convert more profitable customers or maximise their existing customers’ profitability.