postcode distances using google
I would start by something like this to get the lat/long
Get lat/long for each post code
library(XML)school.postcodes <- c("KA12 6QE", "SW1A 0AA", "WC1X 9NT")ll <- lapply(school.postcodes, function(str){ u <- paste('http://maps.google.com/maps/api/geocode/xml?sensor=false&address=',str) doc <- xmlTreeParse(u, useInternal=TRUE) lat=xpathApply(doc,'/GeocodeResponse/result/geometry/location/lat',xmlValue)[[1]] lng=xpathApply(doc,'/GeocodeResponse/result/geometry/location/lng',xmlValue)[[1]] c(code = str,lat = lat, lng = lng)})# get long/lat for the studentsll.students <- lapply(student.data$post.codes, function(str){ u <- paste('http://maps.google.com/maps/api/geocode/xml?sensor=false&address=',str) doc <- xmlTreeParse(u, useInternal=TRUE) lat=xpathApply(doc,'/GeocodeResponse/result/geometry/location/lat',xmlValue)[[1]] lng=xpathApply(doc,'/GeocodeResponse/result/geometry/location/lng',xmlValue)[[1]] c(code = str,lat = lat, lng = lng) })ll <- do.call(rbind,ll)ll.students <- do.call(rbind,ll.students)do.call(rbind,ll) code lat lng [1,] "KA12%206QE" "55.6188429" "-4.6766226"[2,] "SW1A%200AA" "51.5004864" "-0.1254664"[3,] "WC1X%209NT" "51.5287992" "-0.1181098"get the distance matrix
library(RJSONIO)dist.list <- lapply(seq(nrow(ll)), function(id){ url <- paste("http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/distancematrix/json?origins=", ll[id,2],",",ll[id,3], "&destinations=", paste( ll.students[,2],ll.students[,3],sep=',',collapse='|'), "&sensor=false",sep ='') res <- fromJSON(url) hh <- sapply(res$rows[[1]]$elements,function(dest){ c(distance= as.numeric(dest$distance$value), duration = dest$duration$text) }) hh <- rbind(hh,destination = ll.students[,1]) })names(dist.list) <- ll[,1]dist.list$`SL4 6DW` [,1] [,2] [,3] distance "664698" "36583" "41967" duration "6 hours 30 mins" "43 mins" "49 mins"destination "1" "2" "3" $`SW13 9JT` [,1] [,2] [,3] distance "682210" "9476" "13125" duration "6 hours 39 mins" "22 mins" "27 mins"destination "1" "2" "3"