Arnout Desmet
Managing Director
APAC South, Tele Atlas
Asia-Pacific Pte Ltd
[email protected]
Digital maps are no longer just about helping people get from one point to another. In fact, they have heralded a whole new range of customised content. Today's digital map users are seeking to know more about their surroundings. These consumers are seeking to know: Which notable restaurants are there in a five-kilometre radius? What interesting tourist attractions are nearby, and why are they interesting? Where can I find a Wi-Fi connection while I'm waiting for my next meeting to begin? Where can I find a qualified dentist while I'm on vacation that I can converse with? And they want to have this information almost instantaneously. Getting such an encyclopedia of information to a range of devices such as mobile phones, in-car navigation systems and portable navigators, in an accurate and timely manner can be very challenging.
On average, as much as 10-15 percent of map content – everything ranging from a changed street direction, a lane marker change to new streets or buildings and new Point of Interest (POI) information – changes every year and in high growth areas, this can be even greater. Consider the millions of miles/kilometers of roads in the world, as well as buildings, landmarks and other structures that need to be updated. And with digital maps evolving from 2D to more realistic, content rich maps, with 3D imagery and capabilities like video, photos, voice descriptions, tour guides and other details such as schedules, restaurant reviews, etc, keeping pace with the rate of change is an enormous challenge.
So how does all that data get packaged into the navigation device with a high degree of efficiency and accuracy? The first challenge in building and maintaining an accurate map database involves collecting geographic information. As with any system, the higher the quality of the input, the higher the quality of the output.
Take for example, map data and content provider Tele Atlas, which covers more than 205 countries in its own database and through partnerships. Such wide coverage means that Tele Atlas makes approximately 100,000 changes daily and about 3 million changes each month to the maps. These changes include new construction, traffic flows, restricted maneuvers, blocked passages, toll roads, speed restrictions and signage.
To capture such data, Tele Atlas' nearly 1,700 office cartographers and 350 field cartographers employ three categories of data collection resources: an extensive resource network, survey vehicles and user feedback.
WIDE NETWORK OF DATA SOURCES
Tapping the company's network of more than 50,000 sources, the cartographers are able to obtain critical information daily, including many developments that simply can't be viewed from the road. These resources include satellite and aerial imagery, public data sources and filings, tax maps, proprietary web crawler tools, government agencies and strategic partners among others.
With such a network, a map provider can see the conditions and changes as they currently exist, and also anticipate changes that have not yet occurred. For example, through government agencies, public data sources and filings,
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Keeping Digital Maps Fresh Tele Atlas can obtain information about new residential and commercial developments, new highways and roads well in advance of when construction actually starts.
VEHICLE SURVEYS
Additionally, Tele Atlas deploys 268 vehicles worldwide and 50 innovative Mobile Mapping Vans for data collection in Asia, Europe and North America. The data collectors, who drive around and manually take pictures, aren't alone in their efforts to collect information and verify and anticipate change. The truth is that alone they can't possibly detect everything around them. But when these are combined with a resource network, this helps to ensure that what goes into the map is fully verified and accurate. For every kilometer driven, multiple sources such as satellite and aerial imagery, public data sources and filings, tax maps, government sources, input from utility, fleet and postal drivers are combined to help confirm and double check where changes are taking place, or are planned.
MOBILE MAPPING VANS
In the past three years, Tele Atlas has much improved the way drivers collect information with its Mobile Mapping Vans.
These capture what drivers notice – names of roads, images/magazines/2008/june of streets, complex intersections, landmarks, store fronts, road signs, speed limit changes and more. Using sophisticated electronics like 3D gyroscopes, the vans can capture slope and curvature information, bridge height and weight restrictions, tunnel restrictions, and other roadway features that could have an impact on how a driver reacts to a particular situation. Tele Atlas Mobile Mapping vans capture data quickly, traveling at posted highway speeds, and advanced back end processing methodologies help process and package data efficiently and accurately.
Each van is equipped with four to six cameras that precisely capture data in a 360-degree range – both in front and back as well as side to side. The images/magazines/2008/june offer quality detail and precision at exceptional speed, which is especially vital when measuring attributes such as the height of bridges and
Here is an example of how combining professional drivers with a vast resource network enables Tele Atlas to anticipate changes better than other map providers who primarily drive to capture changes. In each case, non-driving resources provide critical information that they combine and confirm, allowing Tele Atlas to deliver fresh, accurate updates before competitors have even noticed the changes. This resource network, built up over a period of more than 20 years, provides an invaluable source for maximizing the accuracy of the map data.
Fig. 1: Best way to add new neighborhoods
Tele Atlas mobile mapping van length of tunnels. The vans are more accurate than standard field capturing techniques with two-metre absolute accuracy and faster change detection. In fact, the van can capture data up to five times faster, which is more efficient than traditional driving methods. However, it may require repeat visits each time an update is required. Unlike aerial photographs or satellite images/magazines/2008/june, the maps are delivered as a vector database. That means that streets, landmarks and signposts are modeled as a set of precise 'x' and 'y' coordinate pairs that represent the position of these objects in space and their spatial relationship to one another. The end result: precise positional accuracy of those points and more detail, such as the exact curve a road takes, to better assist the driver. Interestingly, the data from mobile mapping vans alone has already totaled 51 terabytes (or 51,000 gigabytes). When stacked up in DVDs, is taller than the highest building in the world at 586.1 metres.
USER FEEDBACK
As today's consumers seek more detailed location-based functionality, including the "community", user-generated content becomes imperative to the collection process. The users/consumers themselves are increasingly representing a key channel to feed that dynamic content back-speeding the frequency of updates and improving overall "freshness" of digital maps.
Feedback can be obtained through a Web-based service that enables anyone to communicate the changes he/she observes directly to the map provider. Easy-to-use forms make it simple to provide input, and ensure a consistent format to aid in identifying and verifying the information. After the changes are classified by location and type, they are prioritised, processed, tested, verified and incorporated into map database.
One such example is Tele Atlas' Map Insight which can handle millions of change reports each year.
GETTING UPDATES TO THE USERS
At Tele Atlas, more than 2,000 automated control procedures are executed against the map data prior to any product release. The database is thoroughly tested to ensure accuracy. Partners, such as automotive, handset and portable navigation device manufacturers, then incorporate the maps into their devices and applications and make the current maps available online for users to download as well – ensuring that their users have the most updated maps as possible, and ultimately greater satisfaction.
THE FUTURE OF MAPS
The coming years will witness the unveiling of new and exciting mapbased applications. Increasingly, maps will provide information beyond that which is purely navigational – for example, not only can the application get you to the nearest car park, it may be able to detail that there are ten spaces left in it. Or, perhaps a search for a local restaurant will not only provide addresses, it will provide information on where you can find a curry fish lunch special nearby – or even a coupon for a shop you will be passing along the way! Furthermore, imagine being able to explore a new city with a map that can show you what the route looks like, and what the destination looks like, all in 3-D and with realistic texture and color.
More than being maps and navigation tools, maps will be interactive portals that allow users to explore and find their way around their worlds, according to their preferences. Aided by increased connectivity and the emergence of the Internet as a collaborative medium, maps will provide the participatory medium for enabling personalised experiences that our social computing society demands.
As maps continue to evolve in functionality, we can look forward to them enriching the lives of individuals and communities in a broad array of new, exciting and dynamic ways, with superior mapping data as the foundation.
Fig. 2: Comprehensive network of resources to anticipate and verify change
