UK: User-generated data may be the answer to the GPS navigation industry's problem of outdated maps on user devices. According to Ed Parsons, Google's geospatial technologist, the reason users encounter inaccurate road layouts and landmark placements on their GPS devices is that it takes a long time to get updated maps to users.
From the mapping of roads to getting the maps updated and onto distribution channels, such as garages, people can expect their maps to be over two years old, even on new devices, Parsons said.
Even buying maps online will only shorten the process by about a year, leaving users with maps that are a year old, which is still not good enough for some, he added.
Incidentally, the Automobile Association of Singapore on Tuesday announced a GPS-based device it calls TrafficGEM, aimed at providing more up-to-date information for motorists.
Although its map does not reflect changes in roads, the real-time traffic alerts aim to inform users of temporarily-valid information, such as traffic jams.
Parsons said the industry has warmed up to the trend of harnessing user responses to supplement map data, by offering them tools with which they can feed back information.
Google has a site, Map Maker, which works with its Google Maps service.
Maps provider Tele Atlas said it integrates user contributions as an "additional source", which has been helpful in geographically dispersed and rural areas that are less frequently covered by its surveyors.
Tele Atlas Asia-Pacific director of operations, Arnout Desmet, said road information changes between 10 to 15 percent each year, and more so in busy urban areas.
Geraldine Kor, director of customer marketing, Asia-Pacific, at Navteq, said keeping maps updated involves some 80,000 sources, which include professional cartographers and "the input from more than 100 million users every day".
Navteq offers an online tool it calls Map Reporter, which allows users to suggest changes in maps. Once users identify such a change, the information is verified before it is added to Navteq's database, she said.
There are some map players that do not agree with the notion of harnessing user-generated data. Singapore-based maps site Streetdirectory.com has said its site's strength was professionally-collected data. Managing director Firdhaus Akber said competitors like Google Maps, which allow users to tag locations, have introduced inaccuracies into their maps as a result.
Source : http://news.zdnet.co.uk
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