Location Based Services and Mashups
The ability to use maps to pinpoint where assets are, events take place and visualize multiple instances, e.g. road traffic accidents, spatially greatly enhances decision making by governments and private sector organizations alike. Traditionally national spatial programs that establish map bases at various scales showing land usage, properties (Cadastre), network assets, e.g. roads, communications, electricity and water lines, administrative boundaries, planning zones and so on provide a useful backdrop to locate activities of all types and link information to the points (nodes), lines and polygons on a map that represent objects of interest e.g. traffic roundabouts, roads and property boundaries, respectively. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) exploit this data to help answer spatial questions relating to the location of something, its proximity to other things, and to overlay different data sets to provide fresh insight into the relationship between things, e.g. oil spill and coastlines, emergency service vehicles and accidents, planned developments and their neighborhood impact. The ability to tie information together around a point or area on a map raises the possibility of integrating information and instances of service information from different agencies to a single object of interest using the unique geographic coordinates (x, y and occasionally z for height) as a database key. Many countries have used this to integrate map data with valuation data for property, conveyance services, land titles and registration and statistical data. Mashups are becoming easier as recent technological convergence has introduced more technologies into the spatial mix, e.g. Google maps, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags and readers; Global Positioning Systems (GPS) that can pinpoint the precise geographic coordinates of even small handheld devices, e.g. mobile phones, location based services based on the triangulation of different mobile transmission cells, micro-sensor technologies, bar coding, video compression techniques, Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPV6) enabling more unique addresses for increasing numbers of objects of interest, interoperability and more open systems, wireless communications whilst on the move, e.g. Wimax, etc. As a result, the application of spatial technologies is becoming more pervasive. Governments like Australia and the UK are encouraging the development of Mashup services on a largely experimental basis by interested users. Enabling developers of all types to combine spatial (map based) data with data sets from a variety of government agencies at events like Govhack. In addition to mashups, spatial technologies hold the key to the municipal control of city assets in the smart city - from hospital patients and property to police cars and transport - providing centralized command and control systems with essential geographic information. Sensors placed on assets can be combined with location data to assess remote situations and respond to them more effectively. For example, smart grids can be deployed using these technologies to optimize transport, communications, water and electricity networks balancing supply and demand more efficiently. Local use of positioning and location based technologies can enable education and health care facilities to monitor the location and movement of supplies, vehicles, containers, students, patients and healthcare staff within a variety of controlled environments. National spatial programs provide the essential map bases, technology and data standards, technology know how and knowledge transfer mechanisms either on a chargeable basis or as a free public good to promote the use of these important technologies in the furtherance of national goals and advanced e-services. A priority for such a program might be development of common spatial services on the government service bus that agencies (and other institutions) could use to develop spatial e-services and share spatial data. The Korean government has (with private sector partners) invested heavily in RFID technologies. As a useful adjunct, spatial technologies can be used to assist in the demographic analysis, development of channel strategies and generally better deployment of e-services across the nation. Helping to answer that age old question - where are my customers or clients. Allowing interested end user groups to develop mashups using government data sets can add interesting new e-services and help increase adoption rates for Government to Citizen G2C and Government to Business G2B services.
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