Name-based geocode pass (the "paste it in a browser" tier)

For rows still unplaced after the address-based passes, geocodes by record name plus city and state rather than the street line. This can resolve campus/landmark addresses (e.g. a unit inside a hospital) that street-range interpolation cannot, because a composite geocoder recognises the named place.

Usage

geocode_by_name(
  data,
  method = "arcgis",
  bbox = region_bbox("NJ"),
  min_score = 90,
  accept_types = c("PointAddress", "Subaddress", "StreetAddress"),
  ...,
  cache = NULL,
  refresh = FALSE
)

Arguments

data

A data frame carrying record_id, record_name, city_clean, state_clean, and the geocode audit columns.

method

tidygeocoder method that accepts free-text queries (default "arcgis"; "osm" and "google" also work).

bbox

Bounding box used to reject out-of-region matches; see region_bbox().

min_score

Minimum match score (0-100) for a name hit to pass without review. Hits below this stay reviewable. Default 90.

accept_types

Address types precise enough to pass without review (matched case-insensitively against the geocoder's addr_type). Default the point-address types c("PointAddress", "Subaddress", "StreetAddress").

...

Passed through to tidygeocoder::geocode(). full_results = TRUE is requested automatically so scores are available; pass full_results = FALSE to opt out (which also disables score gating).

cache

Optional locatr_cache(). When supplied, the name lookup for a given query (under the same region extent) is served from the cache, including its cached score and address type, instead of re-querying.

refresh

If TRUE, ignore cached entries and re-query, overwriting them. Defaults to FALSE.

Value

data with name-lookup audit columns nm_latitude, nm_longitude, nm_score, nm_addr_type, nm_status, and updated latitude/longitude/geocode_method/geocode_pass/match_status for rows the name pass filled. When there is nothing for the tier to geocode, nm_status is set to "not_run" for audit clarity. Low-confidence fills also set review_status == "needs_manual_review".

Details

Because name lookups are looser than address matching, each hit is scored using the geocoder's match score and address type (when available - ArcGIS returns both via full_results, which this pass requests automatically). A hit passes cleanly only when it resolves to a precise point address at or above min_score; fuzzier hits (a POI, a locality centroid, or a low score) still have their coordinates filled in for context but are marked match_status == "matched_low_confidence" and routed to needs_manual_review so a person can confirm them. When the geocoder returns no score/type information (e.g. method = "osm"), the pass falls back to the previous rule: any in-region match is accepted.

Filled rows are tagged geocode_pass == "pass_4_name_lookup". The bounding box still rejects out-of-region hits, but cannot catch a wrong same-state match, which is exactly what the score gate is for.