Taipei’s Integrated Crime Management Solution and other International GIS News

Police in Taipei have started using a combination of Global Positioning System, Geographic Information System and security cameras and satellite images to boost their anticrime efforts.

It'll cost NT$2 billion (US$68.94 million) and can "integrate information provided by GPS, GIS and the “110" hotline telephone reporting system, to pinpoint the location of an incident so police can be quickly dispatched there."

The data described includes images from more than 13,354 digital cameras in the road surveillance system; an additional 27,000 high resolution cameras will be added by 2014. There is no discussion of how satelite images are to be used.

- GMA News

China announced that its mapping scientists have finished a 1:50,000-scale map database which will provide essential geographic reference to China's economic and social development, per an official with National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation. There was even a press conference about it!

Crime Mapping in Brazil and other Crowdsourcing GIS News

WikiCrimes in Brazil, and similar initiatives in Venezuela, Panama, Mexico, Argentina and Chile, provide interactive maps that people can use to anonymously report crimes, describe what happened and pinpoint the location. In this way, crime mapping identifies danger zones - crime hotspots - within a region with generally high crime rates, to enhance people's awareness, preparedness and safety. 

- Al Jazeera English

The [Utah] Legislature’s Redistricting Committee did two things Monday that critics doubted would ever happen.

First, it adopted a map proposed by an ordinary citizen — Robert Horning, a software designer living in Logan — for new state school board boundaries.

Second, it let the news media into a backroom to watch a subcommittee negotiate how to redraw Horning’s map a bit before final adoption, allowing reporters to listen to frank discussion about protection of incumbents and local school board boundaries.

- Salt Lake Tribune

Google is crowdsourcing guides to its crowdsourced mapping effort, Map Maker. (Yes, that's meta.)

Now all Map Maker users can be part of an even broader community education effort, with the help of “Map Makerpedia.”

Makerpeda lets users make additions and edits on a variety of guides, which range from 101 material on using Map Maker to in-depth guides on specialized tasks, like mapping a local university. Map Makerpedia also highlights some of the major charitable projects from Google that have been built with Map Maker, including flood and disease mapping.

- Search Engine Journal

NCIS Map Marks Areas Sailors Should be Careful and other Government GIS News

The map - provided to crew members of the first ship to arrive for Navy Week in the Port of Los Angeles - fast became the topic of discussion on Thursday, turning up in stories on national blogs, out-of-town newspapers, television stations - and, of course, on Facebook.

It outlined the downtown as a "high drug use and distribution" area [in San Pedro, CA].

While locals don't find their city unsafe, business took the initiative to help the visitors feel welcome in the local shops and restaurants. It's not clear the source of the data.

- Daily Breeze

The latest highway map from the State of Ohio includes a single barcode. It can be scanned with a cell phone to get up-to-date traffic information. I wonder if people will use it or simply bookmark the traffic website?

- Columbus Dispatch

Officials with the Muskegon County [Michigan] Family Court put GPS tracking units in court cars last month to find out if workers were going to where they were supposed to during the day.

The GPS units showed that the workers were doing things like going home, going to the gym and a golf course instead of keeping track of juveniles' whereabouts.     

Two workers resigned and one was disciplined. "You have nothing to worry about unless you are doing something wrong..."

- WWMT

It's a bit confusing to look at the Hutchinson Kansas interactive neighborhood health map.

Why? First off, it's map of the state of the districts based on many criteria: crime, "the value of the property, its age, whether it was owner occupied or a rental, physical deficiencies of the housing, the value of renovations, repairs and new construction across the city, crimes and their locations, median household income and whether housing units were occupied"etc. Second, it's not too interactive. If you click on a distrct you open a PDF of data. So far as I can tell, that's the limit of the interactivity. On the positive side, it does look like a valuable tool to hone in on areas in need of assistance and the local paper who created the map details how itw as created.

- Hutchinson News

Mapping Swim Trails and other Crowdsourcing News

Helen Sahadi of Thorndike, Maine, is an avid open-water swimmer. Her website, www.swimmaine.com, will document Maine's best swimming "trails" in lakes and ponds and she's looking for contributions from other swimmers around the state.

- Bangor Daily News

Historypin is a way for millions of people to come together, from across different generations, cultures and places, to share small glimpses of the past and to build up the huge story of human history.

The basic idea is to link old pics of a location with those of today. Sounds like a fascinating way to explore history. Says Time:

In partnership with Google, from which it leverages maps and Street View imagery, Historypin allows users to upload vintage photographs to geographically "pinned" locations on a map. Those images are then laid on top of Google's Street View and organized on a navigable timeline, dating all the way back to 1840 (when the first recorded photograph took place). Landmarks, street corners, or wherever else you can imagine can be given unimaginable layers of depth via their own past and present communities.

via Time

Bangalore Security Map, being drawn up by MOD Institute, an international think-tank engaged in urbanisation processes in India, in conjunction with CSTEP (Centre for Study of Science, Technology and Policy), will feature the city’s most dangerous areas. ...

The website urges ordinary citizen to contribute inputs. “We want to know where in the city you feel insecure and why so. If you feel insecure in a certain part of the city (at a certain time, perhaps), please share with us what could have made you feel safer.” 

- Bangalore Mirror

Survey: UK’s Online Crime Maps Deters Crime Reporting?

More than 5.2m people have not reported crimes for fear of deterring home buyers or renters since the Home Office's online crime map was launched in February 2011, according to a research from Direct Line.

...

An online poll of 2,685 adults conducted on behalf of the insurance company found that, of the people not reporting crimes, nearly 4m, or 75%, ignored antisocial behaviour such as drug dealing or vandalism for fear of demeaning the neighbourhood.

In response to Direct Line's survey, the Home Office issued the following statement: "It is the crime that impacts negatively upon communities. Crime maps will allow residents to hold their local police to account for the level of crime and antisocial behaviour in their neighbourhood, pushing police to tackle crime which really affects the local community."

The tough part here is confirming the non-reporting is caused by or related to the online map.

- The Guardian