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In many areas such as outside Chicago,
Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Seattle, Portland, Denver,
Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Nashville, Kansas City,
Minneapolis, Columbus, Cleveland, Baltimore, Jacksonville, Tampa Bay,
Miami, Orlando, Atlanta, DC Subs, etc. And in NJ, NC, NV, OH lots of
other fast growing growth pockets.
When GPS devises for cars first hit the
scenes at the CES and SEMA shows in 1996, they became increasingly more
popular, powerful and better data. But like VHS and Beta, Apple and IBM,
competition became increasingly greater causing much consolidation in
the industry along with patent fights. Much of the technology was former
Defense Contractors peddling their wares through subsidiary consumer
level companies. But the tight market remained due to the costs.
Meanwhile companies like DeLorme and others tried to flood the market
with low priced GPS units, which made things even more competitive. And
the bugs were not fully out of the system yet. Someday all cars will
drive themselves and people can watch TV, do video conferencing and use
their transportation as a portable office or entertainment system while
they are being driven to the location they have punched into their
computer. Some things will have to occur before this is a reality of
course. But eventually your dexterity skills to actually pilot a car
will be worthless and un-needed.
First the
satellites will need to be laser aligned and use multiple satellites to
get absolute locations of ground items and vehicles. The cars will need
to have additional anti collision devises made up of networked sonar and
optic flow sensors. All of which are now available and the technology is
getting better and better. Many military applications today will be
civilian tomorrow. Just like Radar, Microwave ovens, Nuclear Energy,
Cellular Phones, Satellite Communication and Jet Aircraft in Commercial
Aviation. The flow of transportation will be brought to the next
generation to serve man better.
For the time
being the incremental changes in these technologies has hit a slight
road block even though Honda, GM, Ford, Mercedes, Daimler Chrysler and
Toyota have invested billions in anti-collision and safety devices which
they will add comfort and desirable options which they can sell to
customers as upgrades. Smart Car Technologies can add Thousands of
Dollars to the price of a car and consumers are glad to pay for them. A
factory GPS system with display can cost up to $6,000.00 and they sell a
lot of them on the higher end cars. It is a high profit item upgrade,
although there are some, which only cost $1000. And if you wish to
compare these, some are very incredible with many features;
http://www.gpsnuts.com/myGPS/GPS/review%20...he%20review.htm
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There are many
companies, which sell after market computer assist items. These
companies are doing quite well and the systems work great. The big issue
is just because you have a super duper incredible GPS system, does not
mean the street you are looking for is even on the map yet. In other
words it is like using an old map. If you are a studier of maps like I
happen to be, you will see the problem with older maps. Even some
companies keep printing old map data year after year without adding in
new on ramps, city streets, infrastructure freeway improvements and
ring-roads, it is aggravating for those from out of town. Even more
aggravating looking for an address or street in a new housing tract,
which you can see but the devise insists, does not exist? Then there are
problems in areas like Cape Coral, FL and Tehachapi, CA or El Paso, TX
and Knoxville, TN where the roads have been scraped and ready to put in
or put in but do not connect or have nothing there yet. Of course it is
very aggravating to see a road and try to go down it and find it is a
dirt road that connects to nothing yet or an entire sub-division that
does not exist? Is it a Mirage? If so where is the white Tiger Show?
Jack Dangermond
of ESRI had set up entire networks of software makers who developed data
for their awesome software products for GPS and GIS needs. Used by
government, military, utility companies, transportation companies,
private companies with GPS units to sell to the public, First Responders
and school districts for buses. After the Dot Com crash those software
companies were among some of the survivors, but had significantly cut
costs. Thus without the proper data the GPS systems bought by the upper,
upper-middle and middle class for their cars were not always good enough
to support the price point for the newest technology. This is especially
upsetting since the upper, upper-middle and middle class citizens who
pay the most taxes live in the suburbs for the most part. The chances of
a middle class American; who bought a home during the 3 years last
housing boom; not being able to find their house or street on their new
GPS devise is a higher probability then them actually finding it. We
interviewed one man who bought a new Nissan Sports car.
Who lives in a
newer developed area in the higher end Las Vegas, Clark County Suburbs,
which only had the main streets on his GPS and had huge blank spots on
his device? Some GPS devices allow the user to choose a satellite vendor
and data vendor and software, but many of the Factory units do not.
People think they are getting something really good and then find they
cannot use it to navigate, which would really piss you off considering
you may have paid as much as $6,000 for the unit. Even more dangerous is
the information we learned from an EMT ambulance driver in Dallas area
who told us of looking for streets for 15-20 minutes after battling
through suburban gridlock to get to where they thought it might be. 3G
cell phone technology may assist for those using cell phones to call in
data to the dispatches. For all the training we are doing across this
nation for first responders and on-going education of police, fire,
Hazmat, etc. it appears that we have forgotten the problems of the
system. Any time you build a system to serve humankind you must make it
simple and make it work, that should be the first, the very first
priority, then you can fix all the other issues.
With that said we
interviewed a lady recently one evening who had a hell of a long day
working for the Metro Police Departments Central Nervous System. The
communications center and dispatch is to what we are referring. Although
she was unaware of the problem at the center for bad data or missing
data in the system, she could not say how they were able to get the
information. Luckily serving a metro area they are probably connected to
the planning departments computer, which they should be. And if the
police department has the new data and no problem in this case, why have
the software vendors not been able to access the data? It is a safety
issue if someone with a GPS system pulls out a map and tries to read it
while driving in an area they are not familiar with. It is guaranteed
that in the history of the automobile in this country more people have
been in serious traffic accidents from trying to read maps, than talking
on cell phones, although cell phones no doubt a contributing factor in
many lesser accidents will eventually pass this figure. Where the
streets are, well frankly I cannot understand the need to keep this a
secret unless it is the layout of Area 51, Prison, Power plant, Pentagon
grounds, Military Bases, etc. If the emergency first responders
divisions and contractors would share the data, there might be less
accidents and they maybe able to get some assistance from the public
being the eyes and ears
http://www.lancewinslow.org/nmwp.shtml
and also perhaps
they could in fact use the idea of Smart Virtual Mobile Communities or
FlashMob scenarios since budgets are strapped as the National Security
“Red-Orange-Yellow-High-Risk-Danger-Days” come with high frequency, more
police and first responders are on duty and that costs money. Without
significant inflows the coverage of the Grid of a city is in jeopardy of
slower response times. Fast response times are the easiest way to keep
the peace, everyone, which gets away can cause problems another day and
of course in case of International Terrorist Attacks.
It is essential
to have the data for these devises and everyone is better served when
communication flows. GPS units provide that and the data should be
readily available and probably it is best to have the cities using the
same formats as first responders and the same data can be used for
utilities, consumers, military and even census data or academia studying
urban sprawl and growth rates to have infrastructures ready during
expansion. Things like water and energy, which has obviously been a
major focus here.
There needs to be
a nationwide coordinated effort to see that such data is filtered into
the private sector, because as it stand the companies have been hammered
in the industry and cannot perform the services to bring this stuff to
market. Communication is important for government and citizen a like,
increased efficiencies in business will save the government money and
provide additional tax base and funds on the income of such businesses
utilizing such data, as well as save money and time for all the
government services discussed above. If we want a screaming economy we
ought to be thinking how we can streamline and accelerate the flow of
information to increase efficiencies and allow a small portion of the
gain from the expanded pie to continue the growth. In other words, we
make it easier for the Florist to deliver, the school buses to pick up
more kids per hour and the soccer mom to take more kids to practice and
still have time left to shop all of which serves man. The digital GIS
divide is as important for our economy as the Digital Internet Divide.
Kids in sports do less drugs, become more competitive, have higher work
ethics and soccer moms can help keep the retail economy going. Every
time you ease the flow, more things are possible. The exponential
increase in American productivity is needed to offset the time lost in
traffic and congestion. GIS-GPS systems can help in any emergency or
simply driving around town getting things done to check off one’s list
for the day.
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