Who Makes MapQuest's Maps?

carpoolio writes "TechTV has an interesting story about the company that builds the mapping technology behind popular map services like Mapquest. The company, Navigation Technologies, is decidedly low-tech in its approach to making its maps: two people in a car drive around endlessly, inputting street information and landmarks into databases. Navtech's map databases are used in everything from Garmin GPS units to Alpine in-dash auto navigation systems. So next time you turn the wrong way down a one-way street, know that there are real people behind the controls."

Comments

So that's whose fault it is

[Realistic_Dragon]

My car has one of these things in it - the map systems runs of a data DVD rom in the boot (part of the CD changer assembly).

As a result I have been driving in Boston for 3 months and can't find my way from end to end, unlike every other place I have lived in (I can drive around NYC, London, Cambridgeshire and Lancashire with no map no problem). I have no idea what connects to where at all.

You need that period of getting lost all the time when you first move somewhere to really learn it, rely too much on GPS nav and you will never know the city properly :o(

Cool for the odd weekend, but overreliance will cripple your direction sense. And worst of all, now I have lived here for so long I can't exactly switch it off and be late for everything - no excuse anymore.

Now I'm stuck forever buying map upgrades and newer and better systems at vast cost - it's a conspiracy to lock you in I tells ya, get out whilst the goings good.

I'm surprised they don't use UPS, FedEx

[The_Rippa]

I'm suprised they don't strike up a deal with UPS, FedEx, and other companies that travel around alot that allows them to hook up receivers and use it to grab data that they can compare to their db.

Should be easy to tell if a street is new, changed, or whatever. Then they'd just have to send someone out there to verify the new data.

I'm actually surprised that this is how they do it. I've always assumed they hire people to drive over every road, but I figured there was a much better way to collect what I'm sure is a shitload of data.

New Volunteer-created mapping system

[bwaynef]

A lotta folks are saying they don't understand why theres not some huge network of volunteers that are helping out. I'd also think that this would be beneficial to the entire digitized world, but for the simple fact that I would not want my charity to be used by a company to make their $$. If however someone with more time/programming-skills than I decided they'd lend their time to building a free solution then I'm sure volunteers would pop out of the wood work. (Free as in, the cd's and data distributed by users who aren't searching on the web.)

Re:They hire

[DoraLives]

Have anyone who wants upload their GPS "track" data to a central site...a few volunteers could add names and addressing schemes

Not to sound like a mean old man (well ok, I am a mean old man), but the hardest part of any such project would be sifting the bullshit out from the data.

There's just too many ways for erroneous input to be included in such a vast database: Folks with an obnoxious "sense of humor," people with Things To Hide, grudge holders against various and sundry people, places, and things, government wombats with strange agendas, and never forget the Great Slimy Shoal of Lawyers who would seek to reorder things on behalf of Bob Knows Who, for Bob Knows What kind of reason. Pure random stupidity and mistakes cannot be ignored either.

Odds of actually achieving a useful, properly updated, set of data aren't actually zero, but they're pretty damn close.