Maps are nothing new. Humans have been recording details about the world on maps before we had recognizable languages. Over the centuries, this has helped us find food, navigate the oceans, discover the world, and foster social and political change.
Now, we use maps to support all kinds of technology. While we may not always see them in action, mapping intelligence does the heavy lifting in the background. From the car you drive and the package you ordered to the coffee shop you visited before work and the busy road you avoided on the way home, all of these rely on deeply integrated maps to function optimally.
Digital maps help us navigate the world at a speed that would have been unimaginable a hundred years ago. How quickly, easily and how far we can navigate and understand it depends heavily on the detail, accuracy and timeliness of the maps. So how can we ensure and strengthen the accuracy of map intelligence to continue developing technology that keeps the world moving?
Why maps are the backbone of modern technology
According to Jerry Brotton in his book Great Maps: The World's Masterpieces Explored and Explained, “maps” are broadly defined as “a graphical representation that presents a spatial understanding of things, concepts, or events in the human world.” However, when we think of the word map today, what we’re really referring to is data, how it’s used, and the purpose the end user is seeking to fulfill.
Today, maps are used not only by individuals, but also by organizations across almost every industry that serve both individuals and other businesses. In fact, over the past few decades, the number of use cases for map intelligence has increased tremendously. Now, more than 20% of online searches rely on location data to provide an accurate result.
To keep pace with this growth, the mapping industry must continually anticipate and adapt to changing needs. However, it is too costly and complicated for individual companies to gather all the data and financial resources needed to meet those needs. In addition, the proprietary nature of most commercial mapping solutions means that the technology cannot always be widely or easily used, hindering industry-wide innovation.
Until now, those creating new technologies using maps had to do a lot of work to build their mapping system, from adding their own data to designing it and publishing it in their app. Fortunately, there are alternative options today.
Vice President of Maps Product at TomTom.
Finding the right solution for commercial use
The most common option used today is to leverage proprietary maps. However, this limits end-user control over the features and corrections made to a specific mapping solution. This also determines the level of innovation possible based on the resources a solution provider is willing to invest in their product and the speed with which they do so.
Another option is open source maps such as OpenStreetMap (OSM), although many argue that these are not extensive enough to be a viable solution. This is because open source maps are usually created by a community of editors with their own priorities, not by a specialist geolocation company – it is essentially the “Wikipedia of maps”. While the community identifies and fixes problems, in the time it takes to find a solution, companies and therefore their customers can be left exposed.
Fortunately, open data has improved so much over the past fifteen years that we can leverage it to keep the mapping industry moving forward. Rather than being limited by the resources of a single solution provider, end users can select a mapping technology partner that brings together the best of both worlds, combining proprietary mapping (including sensor-derived observations and sonar data) with open mapping.
Your solution provider should validate this open source data, checking for incorrect edits or vandalism before integrating it with private data. If something isn’t quite right, the data can be quarantined, compared to other sources, and corrected accordingly. These are the qualities that end users should check for when selecting an open, transparent, and collaborative mapping solution for commercial use or new innovations.
For years, maps have been doing their job in the background. Now, cartographers can deliver more agile and accurate solutions than ever before by combining open source and proprietary mapping data. Ultimately, this will allow commercial users and technology inventors to worry less about creating their own maps and focus on turning mapping data into something innovative.
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