The London Mugging Map

UK charity Witness Confident has launched a new Google Map called StreetViolence.org that allows victims of street robberies and assaults to add the crime to a Google Map. The charity believe the map will alert the community to potential risks, allow victims to post appeals for witnesses and can be used to thank passers-by who helped.

The UK government already provides a crime map for all of England and Wales, which is available at Police.uk. However Witness Confident argue that the government's map does not allow users to distinguish violent crime carried out by strangers from domestic or acquaintance violence, which leads users to believe that 'the risk to them of violent crime is worse than it is'.

Currently the map appears to be populated with 'Test Markers' which I'm pretty certain will also lead users to believe that crime is worse than it is. Presumably the test markers will be removed soon.

John Snow's Cholera Map on Google Maps

CartoDB is a great platform that allows you to map data and develop location aware applications quickly and easily. In CartoDB's demo gallery you can find this example of John Snow's Cholera Map of London presented with CartoDB.

The map demonstrates how CartoDB is able to quickly combine different data-types and display them on a map. John Snow's spot map of a cholera outbreak in Soho, London in 1854 helped to prove that the disease was caused by water (coming from one pump in Broad Street).


If you want to see John Snow's original map using the Google Maps zooming and panning tools then you should check out Hypercities.

Hypercities is a Google Maps mashup of historical maps available for many of the world's cities. Hypercities allows the user to navigate a selection of historical maps using the familiar Google Maps navigation tools. If you zoom into London on Hypercities you can choose to view John Snow's map overlaid on top of the modern map of London.

Interactive Bus Stops on Google Maps

Bus-Tops is a very exciting interactive art project launching in London today. Thirty red and black LED screens have been installed on the roofs of bus shelters around London. Absolutely anyone in the world can create artwork and hopefully get a chance to see their work displayed on one of the screens.

If you want to view the submitted artwork then you will need the Bus-Tops Screen Locations Map. It allows Londoner's to find their nearest Bus-Tops screen. The map also uses the Google Maps Styled Maps feature to give the map an appropriate red and blank design.

London's History on Google Maps

Locating London's Past is a superb tool for exploring London's past on Google Maps.

The map allows users to visualise data relating to seventeenth and eighteenth-century London against John Rocque’s 1746 map of London. The data sets that can be viewed on the map include records of Old Bailey Proceedings, coroner's records, historical directories, plague deaths, archaeology finds and much more.

Locating London's Past has big plans for the application. They say that additional maps of London and relevant mappable datasets concerning any aspect of London's medieval, early modern, and modern history will be added to the application as they become available.

London's Tech Scene on Google Maps

Tech City Map is a visually striking Google Map of the technology companies and startups in east London.

The map shows the locations of London's silicon roundabout area. The 'show networks' option on the map allows users to visualise the connections between the over 800 companies. If you click on an individual map marker there is also an option to view the latest Tweets from the selected tech company.

Hat-tip: Street View Funny

_____________

London Bus Waiting Times on Google Maps

Transport for London recently started beta testing a new Countdown API to provide real-time departure information for all buses at every bus stop throughout London.

Next Bus London has quickly released a Google Map that shows the location of London bus stops and informs you how long you will have to wait to catch a bus.

To find out exactly how long you will have to wait you simply need to click on a map marker and an information window opens displaying the bus number, destinations and waiting times for the next few scheduled buses at that stop.

_________________

The London Riots & Social Equality

In the UK I think it is now illegal to try and connect the recent rioting with social deprivation or economic inequality. The government and the mainstream media has decided that unless you blame bad parenting, social networking sites or a breakdown of moral order for the riots then you should be publicly castigated as a supporter and excuser of wanton criminality.



The Centre of Full Employment and Equity seem to be ignoring this new political orthodoxy by creating a Google Map overlaying the location of riot incidents on top of unemployment data.



The British Local Unemployment and the August 2011 Riots Map includes two layers: the local area unemployment rate range and riot incident data from the UK Guardian Open Data Blog.



The dark blue areas on the map show areas with high employment rates. At the risk of encouraging a visit from the UK thought police I have to say that the areas with high employment rates seem to have been largely unaffected by the recent rioting.



The Guardian themselves have used the riot incident data to create a Riots & Poverty Data Map.







The Guardian says that "The darker reds represent poorer places, the blues are the richer areas. What do you think? Is there a correlation between the two?" I'm going to say it - 'Yes, there is'.



Someone has also taken a KML from the London Riots - Verified Areas map and displayed it on MapTube Map with the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD). The IMD is a method of identifying deprived areas across the UK.







Overlaying the locations of the riots and looting on top of the IMD layer reveals that most of the trouble is occurring more in areas with high deprivation than in more affluent locations.



Curating Geodata from Social Media to Map the London Riots:

Whilst we are on the subject of the UK riots Directions Magazine has a good podcast discussion looking at the challenge of using social media as geodata and what journalists, geospatial professionals and the public can learn from these efforts.





OK, with that done we can now get back to blaming the parents and Twitter.



________________

Get Around London with Google Maps

London is a very large city that can be very confusing to travel around, especially if you are a visitor to the UK capital. CityMapper London can help you navigate the city by providing you with bus, subway, cycling and walking directions. Or, if you want to get a taxi, it can give you an estimated cost for your journey.



To get directions the user just needs to add their starting point and destination, either by text input or by simply clicking on the map, and then selecting the mode of travel.



If the user selects bus or tube directions CityMapper London shows you the route of your journey on Google Maps and in the sidebar explains which stops you need, any transfers you need to make, the estimated time of your journey and the cost.



The biking directions show the user the locations of London bike hire stations near your start point and how many bikes are currently available at each station.



Both the walking and biking directions give the user an estimated time for the journey and an estimation of the number of calories that will be burnt.



________________

Real-Estate Heat Map

Real-estate website Zoopla has created a heat-map of UK property prices.

The Google Map provides a quick overview of where properties are affordable and where houses are more expensive. For example if you zoom in on London, you can see a distinct pattern of expensive property in the commuter belt around the capital.


Zoopla: UK Property Heat Map

________________

Tube Directions Now On Google Maps

Public transport directions for London has been added to Google Maps. If you want to get around in London you can now get transit directions that include the London Underground, DLR, buses and trams.

To get public transit directions in London on Google Maps you just need to select 'Get directions', type in your starting point and destination and click on the train icon that appears in the side panel.

The resulting direction will then tell you which underground station you need to go to and even which tube line you need to catch.

Official Google Blog

________________

London Olympics Tweet Map

There is one year to go to the 2012 London Olympics. A number of events are being held in London to celebrate the occasion (including the flying of musical hot air balloons).

CASA is tracking all of today's Twitter messages that include the hashtag '1yeartogo' and have created a nice heat map of all the Tweets.

The map is actually a little sneak preview of a new heat map visualisation that will be made available to the general public in the next few weeks on MapTube. CASA are responsible for some of the best Google Maps tools (for example the CASA Image Cutter) so I can't wait to play with this new heat map tool when it is released.

#1yeartogo Twitter Map

________________

Boris' Cabs on Google Maps

This certainly qualifies as the strangest map I've seen for a while. The map creates the scenario of the user wanting to catch a taxi from a famous London landmark to the ICC London Excel conference centre.

The map displays a number of videos of London mayor Boris Johnson moonlighting as a London taxi driver. Each of the videos contains a brief description, by Boris Johnson, of a famous London landmark. When you click on one of the landmarks you can watch the appropriate video and, at the same time, a route is displayed on the map from the landmark to the ICC London Excel conference centre.

There seems to be a little bug in the map that stops the video displaying properly in FireFox but it worked fine for me in Chrome and Internet Explorer.

Take me there Boris!

________________

UK Average Incomes on Google Maps

The UK's Office of National Statistics has used Google Maps to show the average household income estimates for different areas in England and Wales.

You can select the income measure you want to view on the map via a drop-down menu. By clicking on the map you can then view the average household income estimate at that location. You can also search the map by an address or a postcode.

The map seems to show that the nearer you live to London the more your average income is likely to be. There are a few pockets of high earning areas outside the capital but it would be interesting to compare the data on this map to a map of commuting times into London.

ONS - Income by Location

_________________

London Bus Planners on Google Maps

There are around 7,000 red buses in London transporting passengers on over 700 different routes. BusIt London is a bus route planner that can help you navigate London's extensive bus network.

To plan a route just click on the Google Map to select your start and end points, or use the search box to find locations. BusIt London will then display your route on the map. If more than one route is available you can select from the alternatives given.

The sidebar explains where to catch your bus and which number bus you should get on. If you need to change buses on your route the stops where you need to change are also displayed in the sidebar.

BusIt London

Also See

• What Bus? - a Google Map of all London bus lines
• On a Bus - enter a London bus number and view the bus's route on Google Maps

_________________

London Coffee on Google Maps

London Coffee Map

I've started playing with the Places Library in the Google Maps API.

One feature of the library is that it lets you load venues that match a particular name. I've used this feature to show the locations of cafes belonging to the bigger coffee chains in London.

The London Coffee Map lets you find cafes run by the Monmouth Coffee Company, Starbucks, Costa Coffee and Caffe Nero. If you click on a marker you can view the cafe's Google Places rating and its telephone number.

_____________

Boston & London Marathons Mapped

In the next few days both the Boston and the London marathons will be run. If you want to check out the routes and find a good place to spectate then you should check out these Google Maps.

Virgin London Marathon Interactive Map

This year Virgin have added some new features to their Google Map of the London Marathon. You can still see the route of the marathon and view Street Views along the route but there are also now some great guides to help you watch the race.

The map now includes a time slider option that allows you to see where the wheelchair racers, the elite male & females runners and the mass race should be at different times of the day. The mile markers also contain information about what kind of entertainment you are likely to find at different locations around the route.

Via: Mapperz

Adidas: Boston Marathon in Street View

Adidas have produced a Google Maps app that lets you follow the whole of the Boston Marathon route in Street View.

The Boston Marathon Map lets you follow the route of the marathon using Google Maps Street View. You can navigate to points of interest on the marathon route and view an overlay on top of the Street View to enable you to jump forward to the next point of interest or go back to the previous POI.

The Boston Marathon app includes a Google Map of the route and a terrain chart.

Going the Distance - The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal's Going the Distance app includes Google Maps for the Boston Marathon, as well as the New York, San Francisco and Chicago marathons.

The map includes the route, an elevations chart and Street Views of the route. My favourite feature of the Wall Street Journals maps is the superb integration between the elevation chart and Street View. If you hover your mouse along the elevation chart the Street View will update to show the respective view. Very cool.

________________

2012 Olympics on Google Maps

London Olympics Site

Today it has been gloriously sunny in London, so this afternoon I decided to take a stroll to the site of the 2012 London Olympics. I had my phone with me so I took a few photographs on my walk.

After uploading the photos to Picassa obviously the first thing that I thought of was to create a Google Map. There is nothing overly exciting about this map but I thought there might be some interest in having a look at the site of next year's London Olympics.

The satellite imagery on Google Maps for the Olympics Park was updated last month - so that's another reason to have looksie.

________________

Google Map of London Coffee Houses

London Coffee Houses of the 17th & 18th Century

Inspired by the recent Atlas of the Rhode Island Book Trade I decided to create a map of the London Coffee Houses of the 17th & 18th centuries.

In their heyday there were over 2,000 coffee houses in London. Much has been written about the importance of the coffee house as providing a public sphere for discussion and debate that was largely free from class distinction. Many of modern day London's most important institutions were formed from meetings that first took place in the coffee houses of this time, including the Stock Exchange, Lloyds of London and the Royal Academy.

This Google Map shows the (often approximate) location of some of the most influential of the coffee houses of the 17th & 18th centuries. In creating the map I used Esa's Google Maps API v3 Sidebar with makeMarker() template. I used the Styled Maps function to make the map grey-scale and for the markers I used an image from google-maps-icons.

_____________

London's Cycle Scheme on Google Maps

Barclays Cycle Hire Map

London's new cycle hire scheme started today. 5,000 bicycles are available for hire from around 400 special docking stations around the UK capital. Transport for London have produced this Google Map showing the location of the docking stations.

You can search for docking stations by address or just zoom the map to a location. If you click on a map marker you can get live data about the number of bikes currently available at that station.

Nestoria

Real estate website Nestoria think that a property's proximity to cycle hire stations might play a key role in finding your next home. As such, from today you can find all of the central London cycle hire stations on Nestoria.

If you search for property in London you can now view all the cycle stations near a property on a Google Map.

London Cycle Stations Map

I created this map of the cycle hire stations myself for this Fusion Tables tutorial. I've now added the locations of bike shops to the map. So if you don't want to hire a bike you can buy one instead.

The only other map I'm aware of is the Cycle Hire App for the iPhone. The app uses OpenStreetMaps.

London's Cycle Scheme on Google Maps

London Cycle Stations Map

On the 30th July London is launching a Cycle Hire scheme. Under the scheme people will be able to hire bikes from 400 docking stations situated throughout the capital.

Transport for London are preparing a Google Map showing the location of the 400 docking stations. TfL say the map will go live on the 30th July (at the moment the map is empty). If you can't wait until then check out the map I created for this Fusion Tables tutorial.

The only other map I'm aware of is the planned Cycle Hire App for the iPhone. The app will use OpenStreetMaps when it launches.

_____________