METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROVIDING A MACHINE LEARNING APPROACH FOR A POINT-BASED MAP MATCHER

An approach is provided for point-based map matchers using machine learning. The approach involves retrieving points collected within proximity to a map feature represented by a link of a geographic database. The probe points are collected from sensors of devices traveling near the map feature. The approach also involves determining a probe feature set for each probe point comprising probe attribute values, and determining a link feature set for the link comprising link attribute values. The apparatus further involves classifying, using a machine learning classifier, each probe point to determine a matching probability based on the probe feature set and the link feature to indicate a probability that each probe point is classified as map-matched to the link. The machine learning classifier is trained using ground truth data comprising reference probe points with known map-matches to respective reference links, and comprising known probe attribute values and known link attribute values.