Directions Plus - Geomatic Technologies Provides World Class System for 2006 Commonwealth Games

March 5th 2006

Melbourne, Australia – In a world-first, a new mobile geospatial service designed and produced by Geomatic Technologies will ensure that the more than 90,000 visitors to the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games can find their way to events, restaurants and entertainment. The service was launched today by the Minister for Information and Communication, Marsha Thomson.

60 volunteers, wearing distinctive navy uniforms with an orange Directions Plus logo, will be at key locations around the city and the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games venues to help.

The volunteers will provide Games visitors with a tear away printed map and directions from their portable belt-mounted printer or send a text or picture message directly to a mobile phone, including the map, directions, and even the destination’s name and phone number for bookings.

The volunteers are equipped with a small PocketPC 2003/Windows Mobile 5 based device and a Bluetooth™ enabled belt mounted thermal printer. The Directions Plus application communicates to back end servers and spatial databases using xml/soap web services over GPRS. After a route request, Directions Plus displays a map that highlights the optimal public transport route and detailed text based navigation instructions.

Routes are calculated dynamically from a spatial network data model of Melbourne’s public transport system of trains, trams and buses and priority walking routes. The spatial model has been specially built for the Games and will provide the Government with information services for future tourism applications. Additionally, each web service request is validated and logged, and analysis of the system usage will be performed using SQL reporting services at the conclusion of the Games, enabling better understanding of visitor requests for tourism planning.

The service oriented architecture underpinning Directions Plus means that the solution can be easily adapted to support other major events.

      

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