Improving Local Services with Google Maps

Verbeterdebuurt

Verbeterdebuurt, which translates as 'improve the neighbourhood' is a Dutch Google Maps mashup site that hopes to engages citizens in improving their neighbourhoods.

Citizens can use Verbeterdebuurt to post local problems and ideas on a Google Map. The application then sends a report to the relevant council. At the moment 300 of 430 Dutch councils make use of the service. Reported problems and ideas appear on the map as pushpins and lightbulbs. If the council solves the problem or takes up the idea a green flag appears on the map.

Residents can add local properties under a number of categories: waste, water and sewerage, traffic and pavements, green areas and play facilities, street furniture, lighting and others.

An important feature of the application is that it can be embedded on websites with a local focus. An example is the media partnership with the Amsterdam newspaper het Parool.

Also See

• SeeClickFix - US site for citizens to report local problems
• FixMyStreet - UK site, allows citizens to report local problems. All problems are then passed onto local government

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Win a Flight with CBC.ca Google Map

The Hour: Best of Canada Map

CBC.ca's The Hour have created a Best of Canada Google Map for people to add their favourite places in Canada. If you add your top Canadian locations to the map you might just win four one way flights to any scheduled WestJet destination and a $3,000 travel credit with Anderson Vacations.

The map markers added to the map include Favourite Finds, Great Grub, Late Night, Take a Hike and Out and About. It is possible to refine the map results by any of these categories and by the top picks today, this week, the past 30 days or all time.

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The UK Election on Google Maps

There doesn't seem to be much evidence that Google will be producing a Google Map to show the results of the UK General Election to be held on Thursday of this week. The Guardian, Channel 4 and Tweetminster have teamed up to produce a map of votes in real time. The map is inspired by Ben Marsh's now legendary #UKsnow map.

So far there doesn't seem to be any clues as to which mapping service will be used but I expect it will be either Google Maps or Open Street Map. The map itself will show Tweets including the tag #ukvote alongside the first half of a post code. The map will not be showing who people have voted for just who has voted.

For this election there has already been a number of Google Maps mashups that are using Twitter to show real-time comments on the campaigns of the main political parties in the run-up to polling day:

Geo.me: UK General Election

Geo.me has produced this Google Map to display geotagged tweets over a constituency map of Britain.

The map displays the new 2010 constituency boundaries released as Ordnance Survey Open Data, coloured by the notional 2005 election results, as provided by the Guardian Data Store.

Twit Vote UK
If you can't wait until Thursday to cast your vote then you can vote on Twit Vote UK. Using Twitter and Google Maps Twit Vote UK hopes to give an overview of people's voting intentions around the country.

If you have a twitter account, you can vote using the format,

"@twitvoteuk, postcode, political party"

Your vote will then be displayed on the map based on your postcode. You can only tweet your opinion once every 24 hours.

Electwits.co.uk

Electwits.co.uk is another Twitter and Google Maps application trying to track the real-time conversations around the upcoming UK general election. The application tracks the positive and negative comments made on Twitter about the leaders of the three main political parties in the UK.

To post your support for a party leader simply tweet the politician's name, a happy smiley, your postcode and the tag #electwits. For example, "Nick Clegg is the boss :-) #electwits SW1"

If you Tweet your postcode your message will appear on the Google Map. The application also displays a number of graphs to show the number of positive comments made about each of the three candidates for Prime Minister.

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Sofia Traffic on Google Maps

tix.bg

This Google Maps mashup allows you to view traffic conditions in the Bulgarian capital Sofia.

The map displays current road works in the city and also displays roads where there are current delays. The map sidebar displays the roads that are currently experiencing delays, with an estimated time of the delay.

If you click on the road events tab at the top of the map you can view current road closures and intersections that are currently closed due to road works. The map also allows you to get driving directions between any two locations in Sofia and get public transportation routes between two points.

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Where Americans Are Living Well

Forbes Map: Where Americans are Living Well

If you want a good household income then don't move to the middle of America. Forbes are using Google Maps to display a number of lifestyle factors across the USA, all of which suggest that there is an area down the middle of America from Montana and North Dakota in the north to Texas in the south that is under performing compared to other states.

The map displays a number of population, education and business related indicators to show where Americans are living well. To select a category, use the drop-down menu at the top of the map.

The data is shown in the form of a heat map with red indicating a higher score. The data for the map is provided by ZoomProspector.com.

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Route Sharing with Google Maps

TourWerk

TourWerk is a German language route sharing website. Users of the site can upload or download running, hiking, biking routes and view them on Google Maps.

The site uses Google Maps to show the location of all shared routes. The routes are shown on the map using map markers that reflect the type of route uploaded (a bike marker for a biking route, a hiker marker for walking routes etc.).

If you select a route from the map you will then be taken to that route's own dedicated page. Here the route is shown on a Google Map, alongside a description of the route and an elevation chart.

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Batch Geocoding with Google Maps

BatchGeo

BatchGeo is a batch geocoding service that allows you to get the latitude and longitudes of addresses held in a spreadsheet.

Batchgeo includes a spreadsheet template so that you can just import your data into the template and then copy and paste it into the BatchGeo geocoder. Once you press 'Map Now' the addresses will be mapped onto Google Maps and you can export the results via kml or copy and past the geocoded results back into your spreadsheet.

BatchGeo will even host your created Google Map for you. If you click the "Save / Print / Share" button you will be sent to the web page where your map is hosted. You can then just copy the URL and post a link to it on your web site.

Aus-emaps Bulk Address Geocoding
This bulk address geocoding tool uses Google Maps' geocoding engine to find the latitude and longitude coordinates from a list of addresses.

This service geocodes your addresses one at a time and requires you to save each geocoded result individually. This means that using this service will be a little slower that BatchGeo but does mean that you can validate that each result is geocoded correctly. If you don't like the positional accuracy of a result you can just drag the map marker to the correct position.

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