[chrisplough]

OTM provides the ability to populate the lat/long of a location when it is entered, based on a zip-to-geocode mapping table that can be populated. Unfortunately, this mapping data is usually a pay-for product and can be expensive.

For testing purposes, it is sometimes helpful to populate this data for only a few locations. Within OTM by navigating to:

Transportation Planning and Execution > Power Data > Geography > Postal Code Latitude/Longitude

Here are a few resources for obtaining free geocode information for a limited set of addresses:

• http://geocoder.us/
• Map Multiple Locations by Address
• Geocode.com // Tele Atlas Geocoding Services
• Google Maps - Haven't tested this one yet, but Sam tipped me off about it.

This should be enough to get you started.

In future OTM releases, it may integrate with Oracle Spatial, which could give OTM access to NAVTEQ data and make this all a moot point, but that's still a bit of speculation.

I hope this helps!

Thanks,
Chris

[runinord]

We are using PC-Miller19 here as our distance calculator and it is using ZIP to ZIP.
We would like to get down to using lat/long but it does not seam to be an option for PC-Miller19. Does any one have a sugestion on how we can set up PC-MILLER to use lat/long in the OTM enviroment?
The benefits of using lat/long is that we can manipulate locations and there by the planning logic, i.e. we have 2 orders going from A-->C and From B--> C where A is 1 mile closer to C than B and OTM will plan this multistop load as B--> A--> C
so if we could manipulate the lat/long for A and make the distance from A--> C a little greater than the distance from B -- C OTM would plan the same scenario as
A-->B-->C
Thanks,
Runi

[chrisplough]

Runi,

In short, no - not that I'm aware of.

OTM is able to utilize lat/long and estimate miles between points using a Euclidean algorithm, however it doesn't provide the "true" mileages that distance engines report.

With the distance engines that I'm aware of (PCMiler, MileMaker) - there isn't a way to calculate distances other than zip-to-zip. The benefits of these packages, which you may well know, is that they provide true road miles and also take into consideration which routes are inaccessible to large trucks.

I hope this helps!

--Chris

[JoeMac]

PCMiler is good but you'll need a license for that which is in the thousands. And if you want to go outside of the US their packages get more expensive (up to $25K and beyond) and are not as strong as their North America versions. Outside the US I believe that OTM has an API for a European distance engine but the name escapes me.

Going way way back to my data content days (I'm talking 2000-2001) there are also data sources from which you can buy the postal/lat long data. Companies like Geoscape and Great Data will sell these to you. The cost will vary depending upon the geography. For example, US was something like $450.00 back in 2000 and this included updates for 1 year. Adding Canada and other countries would add to the cost and in some cases significantly. Finally, there were whole buckets of the globe that these data sources did not cover, some because they did not have a state sanctioned postal code system. Hope this helps!

[runinord]

Thanks Joe,
This was very helpful.
Runi

[chrisplough]

Joe,

Thanks for the info! BTW, the European distance engine is Map & Guide - though it can be very expensive, just like PCMiler.

Hope this helps!

--Chris

[blasley]

We are using PC Miler as our US distance engine. We supposedly have support for Canadian postal codes, but it does not appear to be working. (Our standalone PC Miler version does return answers for Canadian postal codes)

Here are our external distance engine parameters. Are we missing something to make it work for Canadian postal codes?

Parameters Value Country Code
--------------------------------------------------------------------
SOURCE_ADDRESS_TYPE POSTAL_CODE *
HOST pcmiler.host *
DEST_ADDRESS_TYPE POSTAL_CODE *
ROUTE_TYPE 0 *
PORT pcmiler.port *

Geo Hierarchy ID Country Code
----------------------------------------------
POSTAL_CODE *
USZIP5 US

[JoeMac]

You may want to check the postal codes on your locations. PCMiler is picky when it comes to that. Canadian postal codes have 6 characters and often there is a space between characters 3 and 4. I can't remember if PCMiler likes the space or doesn't but improper data formating on the postal code is generally the cause when PCMiler works for US addresses and fails for Canadian.