VGI as a dynamically updating data source in location-based services in urban environments

Abstract

Urban environments, or living cities, share the characteristic of a high degree of organized complexity. This complexity arises from the components of the urban fabric: streets, shops, offices, houses, pedestrian zones, green spaces, plazas, parking lots, transportation networks, natural features, etc. Citizens in urban spaces are using location-based services (LBS) on their mobile devices in ever increasing numbers. The collection of spatial data and information on large urban spaces, by traditional methods of mapping and geographical survey, is expensive and resource intensive. These methods cannot capture the dynamic nature of urban environments within an acceptable time-frame for use in LBS. Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) is a recent phenomenon where citizens and/or other groups collect geographic information using smartphones, GPS, etc. In this paper we discuss how crowdsouring and VGI can be used as a complement/addition, or in some cases a replacement, to traditionally generated sources of spatial data and information.