Overture POI data for the United Kingdom: a comprehensive, queryable open data product

Abstract

Point of Interest data that is comprehensive, globally-available and open-access, is sparse, despite being important inputs for research in a number of application areas. New data from the Overture Maps Foundation offers significant potential in this arena, but accessing the data relies on computational resources beyond the skillset and capacity of the average researcher. In this article, we provide a processed version of the Overture places (POI) dataset for the UK, in a fully-queryable format, and provide accompanying code through which to explore the data, and generate other national subsets. In the article, we describe the construction and characteristics of the dataset, before considering how reliable it is (locational accuracy, attribute comprehensiveness), through direct comparison with Geolytix supermarket data. This dataset can support new and important research projects in a variety of different thematic areas, and foster a network of researchers to further evaluate its advantages and limitations.Comment: Main document: 6 pages, 1 figure, 2 tables. Supplementary: 2 pages, 2 figures, 1 tabl