Producing Grid Square Statistics on Demand

This chapter proposes an on-demand service to produce Grid Square statistics. This on-demand service is based on the Generic Statistical Business Process Model (GSBPM) developed by UNECE. GSBPM consists of eight phases: Specify Needs, Design, Build, Collect, Process, Analyze, Disseminate, and Evaluate. We prototype an on-demand service for World Grid Square statistics as a web data application based on data collected from the OpenStreetMap (OSM) service. The system conducts processes automatically, from request acceptance to disseminating the World Grid Square statistics. We propose the following four steps to form the on-demand service in real-time: (i) users check out points of interest; (ii) the service automatically accesses Web API of Web Feature Service (WFS) to collect the data on points of interest; (iii) the system computes Grid Square statistics, and (iv) disseminates them. Since the types of points of interest dealt with in WFS vary enormously, and the total number of the World Grid Squares is vast, it is impossible to produce World Grid Square statistics for all the possible types of interests beforehand. However, our proposed service can produce and serve the Grid Square statistics in response to users’ requests. Moreover, we discuss a potential extension of the proposed system to other types of geographical expressions, such as postal codes and addresses.