Automatic Identification of Addresses: A Systematic Literature Review

Address matching continues to play a central role at various levels, through geocoding and data integration from different sources, with a view to promote activities such as urban planning, location-based services, and the construction of databases like those used in census operations. However, the task of address matching continues to face several challenges, such as non-standard or incomplete address records or addresses written in more complex languages. In order to better understand how current limitations can be overcome, this paper conducted a systematic literature review focused on automated approaches to address matching and their evolution across time. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines were followed, resulting in a final set of 41 papers published between 2002 and 2021, the great majority of which are after 2017, with Chinese authors leading the way. The main findings revealed a consistent move from more traditional approaches to deep learning methods based on semantics, encoder-decoder architectures, and attention mechanisms, as well as the very recent adoption of hybrid approaches making an increased use of spatial constraints and entities. The adoption of evolutionary-based approaches and privacy preserving methods stand as some of the research gaps to address in future studies.