Population info

[tadjik1]

Hi there,

we've noticed that there is a sorting mechanism in pelias-api that takes population field into account. At the same time seems that this information is missing for OSM documents. Am I missing something here or this feature is in "todo" list and it should be implemented in importers (by calling placeholder service, for example)?

[missinglink]

We currently only have population information for administratrative areas such as cities and states, the field doesn't really make sense for other layers.

[missinglink]

The popularity field is more appropriate for venues, streets etc.

[tadjik1]

@missinglink and what do you think of using population also for streets, pois, etc. it will be population let's say of county in which that place is located. so that if there will be several streets with the same name or two mcdonalds then population of district will be taken into account.

[missinglink]

@tadjik1 It depends on how it's implemented, a user in a rural area should still be able to find a local chain restaurant (eg. McDonalds) even if there are hundreds in a nearby city.

Some care would need to be taken to ensure that the population calculation didn't outweigh the proximity calculation.

There are also some other tricky cases such as remote tourist attractions (eg. something like Angkor Wat, in a sparsely populated area of Cambodia), which could also have replicas in densely populated cities such as Las Vegas.

It all depends on the use-case, I'm not sure if population of the encompassing geography adds to the 'value' of the results, other metrics such as focus.point would probably provide more meaningful results to the user.

[missinglink]

I would be interested in using popularity for streets, this is something other geocoders do, so if you type just 's' you get back the top 5 most trafficked roads starting with 's' (in your local area).

[missinglink]

I'm planning to come in to the Moovel office tomorrow so we can talk more then :)