15. “Our taxes fund the collection of public data -
yet we have to pay again to access it. [Make] it
freely available to stimulate innovation”
The Guardian “Free Our Data” web site
16. sadly it’s not that simple ...
Taxes only pay some of the costs
Costs are ongoing, not one off
Many competing priorities for tax money
All geodata is not equal
Commercial companies can profit
18. I think we should
raise taxes or cut
spending on schools to
do better mapping
19. National Mapping Program Employees
(Selected years for which data could be found)
3500
3000
!"#$%&'()'*#+,(-%%.
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Slide courtesy Larry Moore, from Briefing to the USGS State Partnerships Meeting
23. The US situation
There is no large scale “national map”
Almost all utilities and local governments do
their own base mapping
Therefore most cities are mapped many times -
huge duplication of effort
Typically there are significant inconsistencies
between basemaps (tens or hundreds of meters
not uncommon)
30. “Creating, maintaining and delivering a
comprehensive, high quality map database is a
multi-step, labor-intensive process. We
currently employ over 270 employees in our
centralized production facility and a global
workforce of over 700 geographic analysts in
32 countries”
31. Database
2007 data
69 countries
11m miles (18m km) of roads
18m points of interest
People “Creating, maintaining and delivering a
comprehensive, high quality map database is a
Field force 700 multi-step, labor-intensive process. We
Central production 270 currently employ over 270 employees in our
centralized production facility and a global
Technology 500 workforce of over 700 geographic analysts in
32 countries”
Total 3349
Financial
Revenue $853m (~€604m)
Data creation & distribution costs $396m (~€280m)
32. In 2007, there were more than
57 billion
route planning transactions
using North American NAVTEQ data on leading web sites
revenue from this was
“not substantial”
36. Model 3 Summary
(Buy commercial data)
Creating geodata is very expensive*
Some improvement through sharing
of costs between more companies
€$£¥
*Using traditional methods
40. Free* commercial services
* as in beer, with strings attached
Google Microsoft Yahoo!
All based mainly on data produced using model 3
... but service provider pays
41. Now easy to include
location data
Free or cheap Location
Geocoding
map data tracking
42. Google Maps API
Terms of Service
Application must be free to the public (paraphrased)
No access to underlying (vector) data
No use for real time navigation, dispatch,
fleet management or business asset tracking
No use of geocodes except with a Google map
No creation of a derivative work of any content
In future, Google may ...
... limit number of transactions
... include ads on map images
44. Model 4 Summary
(Free commercial data)
Has enabled huge growth in geo
... but terms limiting for many apps
Creating geodata is still expensive*
Is this model sustainable?
€$£¥
*Using traditional methods
45. The continuing issue is that
geodata creation is
fundamentally labor-intensive
and therefore expensive
68. Model 5 Summary
(Open crowdsourcing)
Creating geodata is no longer expensive!!
Much more sustainable than other models
Not only cheaper, scope for greater detail
and more timely updates
70. Sensors
Traffic
UWB Weather
Wi-Fi
Video
Cell towers
GPS RFID
71. Scope for automatic data gathering
Identify changes
Additional data - speed limits, one
way, turn restrictions
Prompts - “the road you are on has
no name in OSM”
Real time traffic??
75. Credits
Ludovic Bertron Bryan Brennemann Neil Cain
laverrue kainr Pimpmaster Jazz
Photos from flickr used under Creative Commmons Attribution license
Editor's Notes
When I started in GIS, it looked a bit like this (I exaggerate slightly, but only just)
For a long time geospatial technology was a backroom thing, and still is in many places - a lot of FUD about needing special training etc
Only companies that could justify “GIS” were those like utilities, telecom companies, government agencies, etc - largely because of the cost of data (which we’ll talk about more)
Google Earth was cool and fun - everyone liked to fly to their house etc
Big step in making people more aware of online maps / geospatial data
Why was Google Maps so successful?
Great performance and usability - slippy maps and AJAX
Biggest single factor was the API, spawned the real growth in “neogeography”
Google Earth was cool and fun - everyone liked to fly to their house etc
Big step in making people more aware of online maps / geospatial data
Why was Google Maps so successful?
Great performance and usability - slippy maps and AJAX
Biggest single factor was the API, spawned the real growth in “neogeography”
In the early days of GIS, 20-25 years ago, only companies that could really justify the cost and effort were those with lots of geospatial data of their own - utilities, local and central government agencies, etc
Really major effort to create and maintain their own data (pre-GPS)
In some cases may have been able to use government map data, in others not (typically not in the US)
Nobody would argue with that, surely? Especially here? Well, it’s not as simple as it might seem ...
Free speech and free data, but not free beer sadly :(
I don’t know how closely you all follow the US election, but this was widely considered a turning point in the campaign ...
I’m joking of course, but the point is that we can’t imagine a politician advocating raising taxes or cutting funding on schools to do better mapping
USGS doesn’t have the resources to create large scale maps, small scale maps are generally 10+ years out of date
Utilities, telcos, local governments all do their own base mapping - huge duplication of effort. Made worse because of major inconsistencies in data between agencies
This is an example of a USGS topo map
This is an example of a USGS topo map
Bottom line is that geodata creation is expensive using traditional methods, no easy way around that
Bottom line is that geodata creation is expensive using traditional methods, no easy way around that
Bottom line is that geodata creation is expensive using traditional methods, no easy way around that
The two main companies focused on commercial street data
Navteq now owned by Nokia, and Tele Atlas owned by TomTom
Does this risk more restriction on availability of data? Potential conflict
Mainly focused on automative navigation, street maps as a byproduct
NAVTEQ spent $330m maintaining their database in 2007 (Autocarto presentation)
The two main companies focused on commercial street data
Navteq now owned by Nokia, and Tele Atlas owned by TomTom
Does this risk more restriction on availability of data? Potential conflict
Mainly focused on automative navigation, street maps as a byproduct
NAVTEQ spent $330m maintaining their database in 2007 (Autocarto presentation)
The two main companies focused on commercial street data
Navteq now owned by Nokia, and Tele Atlas owned by TomTom
Does this risk more restriction on availability of data? Potential conflict
Mainly focused on automative navigation, street maps as a byproduct
NAVTEQ spent $330m maintaining their database in 2007 (Autocarto presentation)
The two main companies focused on commercial street data
Navteq now owned by Nokia, and Tele Atlas owned by TomTom
Does this risk more restriction on availability of data? Potential conflict
Mainly focused on automative navigation, street maps as a byproduct
NAVTEQ spent $330m maintaining their database in 2007 (Autocarto presentation)
The two main companies focused on commercial street data
Navteq now owned by Nokia, and Tele Atlas owned by TomTom
Does this risk more restriction on availability of data? Potential conflict
Mainly focused on automative navigation, street maps as a byproduct
NAVTEQ spent $330m maintaining their database in 2007 (Autocarto presentation)
The two main companies focused on commercial street data
Navteq now owned by Nokia, and Tele Atlas owned by TomTom
Does this risk more restriction on availability of data? Potential conflict
Mainly focused on automative navigation, street maps as a byproduct
NAVTEQ spent $330m maintaining their database in 2007 (Autocarto presentation)
The two main companies focused on commercial street data
Navteq now owned by Nokia, and Tele Atlas owned by TomTom
Does this risk more restriction on availability of data? Potential conflict
Mainly focused on automative navigation, street maps as a byproduct
NAVTEQ spent $330m maintaining their database in 2007 (Autocarto presentation)
The two main companies focused on commercial street data
Navteq now owned by Nokia, and Tele Atlas owned by TomTom
Does this risk more restriction on availability of data? Potential conflict
Mainly focused on automative navigation, street maps as a byproduct
NAVTEQ spent $330m maintaining their database in 2007 (Autocarto presentation)
The two main companies focused on commercial street data
Navteq now owned by Nokia, and Tele Atlas owned by TomTom
Does this risk more restriction on availability of data? Potential conflict
Mainly focused on automative navigation, street maps as a byproduct
NAVTEQ spent $330m maintaining their database in 2007 (Autocarto presentation)
The two main companies focused on commercial street data
Navteq now owned by Nokia, and Tele Atlas owned by TomTom
Does this risk more restriction on availability of data? Potential conflict
Mainly focused on automative navigation, street maps as a byproduct
NAVTEQ spent $330m maintaining their database in 2007 (Autocarto presentation)
The two main companies focused on commercial street data
Navteq now owned by Nokia, and Tele Atlas owned by TomTom
Does this risk more restriction on availability of data? Potential conflict
Mainly focused on automative navigation, street maps as a byproduct
NAVTEQ spent $330m maintaining their database in 2007 (Autocarto presentation)
The two main companies focused on commercial street data
Navteq now owned by Nokia, and Tele Atlas owned by TomTom
Does this risk more restriction on availability of data? Potential conflict
Mainly focused on automative navigation, street maps as a byproduct
NAVTEQ spent $330m maintaining their database in 2007 (Autocarto presentation)
The two main companies focused on commercial street data
Navteq now owned by Nokia, and Tele Atlas owned by TomTom
Does this risk more restriction on availability of data? Potential conflict
Mainly focused on automative navigation, street maps as a byproduct
NAVTEQ spent $330m maintaining their database in 2007 (Autocarto presentation)
The two main companies focused on commercial street data
Navteq now owned by Nokia, and Tele Atlas owned by TomTom
Does this risk more restriction on availability of data? Potential conflict
Mainly focused on automative navigation, street maps as a byproduct
NAVTEQ spent $330m maintaining their database in 2007 (Autocarto presentation)
In general, licensing costs are relatively expensive - reflecting the cost of data capture
Expensive iPhone app is normally $9.95
$10,000 per million sessions for GM enterprise
Microsoft tile based - $8000 per x tiles
Big question is whether this model is sustainable ... not clear whether GYM are making any money from maps
Has been an aggressive battle to try to gain market share. Interesting parallel with early days of GIS - business model was not clear, required an act of faith to make big investment in data
Microsoft had said they were investing hundreds of millions - but recently made significant layoffs in Virtual Earth team, several senior people moved on
Yahoo recently released their GeoPlant data as a free download - widely welcomed, but also makes you wonder if they have give up on trying to make money (and lots of upheaval at Yahoo in general)
So has Google almost “won the war” ... and if so will they be more aggressive about trying to make some money?