Retail Location Similarity

Retail Location Similarity is a geospatial tool for finding locations that resemble your best-performing stores. It converts map data into H3 feature vectors, compares a reference location with candidate areas and ranks the matches on a map.

The problem

An operator needs to find places with similar built environment, amenity and access characteristics instead of judging candidates from location names alone.

What it does

London feature matrix

The verified private 54 MB matrix contains 131,596 H3 resolution-10 locations and 1,956 numeric features. Retained builders use Overture Maps Places, Base, Buildings and Transportation; exact per-record provenance is not retained.

Leo similarity score

Normalize feature dimensions and compute Leo’s historical distance calibration and logistic similarity score; independently expressed functions matched the original on ten real full-dimensional rows.

Nearby exclusion and map

Exclude the reference cell’s 15-ring neighbourhood and display ranked H3 matches.

Synthetic example

A standalone companion runs the scorer on generated sample features; values are illustrative and not observations of London.

Global pipeline source

Global build scripts and estimates are retained; a completed global matrix has not been verified.

Design decisions

Use H3 cells as a common spatial index for location features. Preserve the independently expressed historical Leo formula and identify its difference from the published DIEM reference implementation. Bound the private adapter to one fresh calculation at a time and cache three computed examples. Keep software licensing and the Overture/OSM-derived data rights as separate review subjects.

Current state

The reusable scorer runs from a fresh clone. Its hosted example computes matches from 90 generated H3 records across five features. The original London matrix contains 131,596 cells and 1,956 numeric features; a full comparison was verified privately. That historical data remains separate while its original attribution is reconciled. Global matrix-building code is preserved.

Continue the project

Run the synthetic example locally and explore the retained matrix-building source.