Mapping Manchester's Trees

DataGM is Greater Manchester’s public data portal. It was created by public sector organisations in Greater Manchester, to release and bring together in one place, as much of the data they hold as possible.



Trafford Highways Trees uses data from Trafford Council to map the area's trees. The map uses custom map markers to create a visually striking Google Map.



At the bottom of the Trafford Highways Trees site there are links to other Google Maps of Trafford, showing other public facilities. You can even view all the place-marks on one Trafford Open Data Map.



The Trafford Council Tax Map also uses public data to provide a handy guide to property taxes in Trafford.







Using the application residents can enter a street address and find out the property taxes for the properties on that street. It provides a very useful service, particular for anyone looking to buy a property in the area who wants to know the property taxes they would have to pay for a specific property.



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Local Foods & Dishes on Google Maps

One of the great joys of travelling is discovering (and tasting) the local and regional foods and dishes of the places you visit.



If you ever get the chance to travel around England then I recommend you consult The Food Map of England and the UK Food Tourism website.



The Food Map of England is a Google Map that shows the local and regional specialities of food throughout England. For example, if you visit Cheshire, The Food Map of England shows you that Cheshire Onion Pie, Cheshire Lamb Crumble, Cheshire Cheese and Cheshire Pork Pie are all local delicacies that you might want to try.



After finding the local dishes on offer with The Food Map of England you can then consult the UK Food Tourism website to discover local restaurants, and local food markets and festivals. The UK Food Tourism website contains a number of regional Google Maps that allow you to discover locally recommended food centres throughout the UK.



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The London Riots & Social Equality

In the UK I think it is now illegal to try and connect the recent rioting with social deprivation or economic inequality. The government and the mainstream media has decided that unless you blame bad parenting, social networking sites or a breakdown of moral order for the riots then you should be publicly castigated as a supporter and excuser of wanton criminality.



The Centre of Full Employment and Equity seem to be ignoring this new political orthodoxy by creating a Google Map overlaying the location of riot incidents on top of unemployment data.



The British Local Unemployment and the August 2011 Riots Map includes two layers: the local area unemployment rate range and riot incident data from the UK Guardian Open Data Blog.



The dark blue areas on the map show areas with high employment rates. At the risk of encouraging a visit from the UK thought police I have to say that the areas with high employment rates seem to have been largely unaffected by the recent rioting.



The Guardian themselves have used the riot incident data to create a Riots & Poverty Data Map.







The Guardian says that "The darker reds represent poorer places, the blues are the richer areas. What do you think? Is there a correlation between the two?" I'm going to say it - 'Yes, there is'.



Someone has also taken a KML from the London Riots - Verified Areas map and displayed it on MapTube Map with the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD). The IMD is a method of identifying deprived areas across the UK.







Overlaying the locations of the riots and looting on top of the IMD layer reveals that most of the trouble is occurring more in areas with high deprivation than in more affluent locations.



Curating Geodata from Social Media to Map the London Riots:

Whilst we are on the subject of the UK riots Directions Magazine has a good podcast discussion looking at the challenge of using social media as geodata and what journalists, geospatial professionals and the public can learn from these efforts.





OK, with that done we can now get back to blaming the parents and Twitter.



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#UKRiots on Google Maps - Updated

The Guardian UK Riots Map



The London Riots Map is no longer being updated. However The Guardian has stepped into the gap with this Google Map.



The latest incidents are displayed with red markers. The Guardian has also created a Google Map of reader's photographs of the riots.



London Riots - Verified Areas



This Google My Map is attempting to map verified locations that have been affected by the London rioting and looting.



The map is showing locations that have been reported in the mainstream media. You can tweet @jamescridland if you have information from a verifiable source of an area affected.



MapTube Map



Someone has taken the KML from the London Riots - Verified Areas map and displayed it on Map Tube with the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD). The IMD is a method of identifying deprived areas across the UK.



Overlaying the locations of the riots and looting on top of the IMD layer reveals that most of the trouble is occurring more in areas with high deprivation than in more affluent locations.



London Riots Map



As London enters its third night of rioting someone has released a London Riots Map, loosely based on Ben Marsh's #UKSnow map.



The mainstream news networks in the UK have been quick to blame social network sites and BlackBerry phones for providing a medium for rioters to organise their looting and attacks on the police. The London Riots Map however clearly provides just another way to report news of the rioting, with the added advantage of being crowdsourced and almost real-time.



The map shows tweets that include the hashtag #londonriots. The #UKSnow map asked tweeters to mention a score out of 10 and a postcode in their message and it seems some Twitter users are employing a similar system to grade the scale of rioting in their Tweets.



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Google Maps at the Fringe

The world's largest art festival the Edinburgh Fringe is due to start on Friday.

With over 2,000 different comedy, musical and theatrical shows taking place in over 250 different events what is needed is a Google Maps guide to the Fringe.

Enter stage right - Gigglemaps.

Using Gigglemaps you can click on any Edinburgh Fringe Festival venue and view the next five performances. The map includes a menu that allows you to filter the venues by category, such as comedy, cabaret etc.

Gigglemaps

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Google Maps Picnic

The Guardian newspaper is increasingly working with partners to produce useful Google Map based guides. The newspaper are collaborating with lastminute.com to create their City Guides. They have also worked with Enjoy England to create a Google Map based guide to great destinations in the UK.

The Guardian has now partnered with Country Life Butter to create a Google Maps guide to great picnic spots in the UK.

The map helps you search for a picnic spot by activity, for example spots that are good for hikers, photographers or wildlife fans. You can also search by environment, such as by beach, riverside or country park.

If you have a favourite picnic spot of your own you can add it to the map.

Great British Picnics

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Real-Estate Heat Map

Real-estate website Zoopla has created a heat-map of UK property prices.

The Google Map provides a quick overview of where properties are affordable and where houses are more expensive. For example if you zoom in on London, you can see a distinct pattern of expensive property in the commuter belt around the capital.


Zoopla: UK Property Heat Map

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Tube Directions Now On Google Maps

Public transport directions for London has been added to Google Maps. If you want to get around in London you can now get transit directions that include the London Underground, DLR, buses and trams.

To get public transit directions in London on Google Maps you just need to select 'Get directions', type in your starting point and destination and click on the train icon that appears in the side panel.

The resulting direction will then tell you which underground station you need to go to and even which tube line you need to catch.

Official Google Blog

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London Olympics Tweet Map

There is one year to go to the 2012 London Olympics. A number of events are being held in London to celebrate the occasion (including the flying of musical hot air balloons).

CASA is tracking all of today's Twitter messages that include the hashtag '1yeartogo' and have created a nice heat map of all the Tweets.

The map is actually a little sneak preview of a new heat map visualisation that will be made available to the general public in the next few weeks on MapTube. CASA are responsible for some of the best Google Maps tools (for example the CASA Image Cutter) so I can't wait to play with this new heat map tool when it is released.

#1yeartogo Twitter Map

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How to Make a Campus Map

Loughborough University's campus map is a great example of how to use the Google Maps API to help students and visitors find their way around a large campus.

The map uses the custom overlays function to overlay a custom map of the university on top of the Google Map. The custom map overlay includes features and locations that are not on Google Map's own map tiles, such as trees, tennis courts, football pitches etc.

The map also makes good use of polygons to make buildings on the map interactive. If you click on any of the buildings you can view the building's name, a photo of the building and links to its page on the university's website.

Finally, the map includes a very nice search facility that allows you to search for a building or feature by name or by category.

Loughborough University Campus Map

Hat-tip: Michael Lee

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Boris' Cabs on Google Maps

This certainly qualifies as the strangest map I've seen for a while. The map creates the scenario of the user wanting to catch a taxi from a famous London landmark to the ICC London Excel conference centre.

The map displays a number of videos of London mayor Boris Johnson moonlighting as a London taxi driver. Each of the videos contains a brief description, by Boris Johnson, of a famous London landmark. When you click on one of the landmarks you can watch the appropriate video and, at the same time, a route is displayed on the map from the landmark to the ICC London Excel conference centre.

There seems to be a little bug in the map that stops the video displaying properly in FireFox but it worked fine for me in Chrome and Internet Explorer.

Take me there Boris!

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Running & Cycling Apps with Google Maps

Afstand Meten

Dutch website Afstand Meten allows joggers and cyclists to create and save routes using Google Maps. The app is available on the desktop and for the Android market and iPhones.

Using Afstand Meten users can create new tracks or search for tracks created by other users. When searching for saved tracks you can refine the search by the 'most viewed', the 'shortest distances' or 'the longest distances'.

Cycle Routes UK

Cycle Routes UK is a cycle routes planner for UK cyclists. Using Cycle Routes UK users can search for cycling routes, add their own routes and comment and rate cycling routes.

Each route is displayed on a Google Map. Alongside the map of the route Cycling Routes UK displays the length, difficulty, the estimated duration and an estimation of calories burned.

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UK Average Incomes on Google Maps

The UK's Office of National Statistics has used Google Maps to show the average household income estimates for different areas in England and Wales.

You can select the income measure you want to view on the map via a drop-down menu. By clicking on the map you can then view the average household income estimate at that location. You can also search the map by an address or a postcode.

The map seems to show that the nearer you live to London the more your average income is likely to be. There are a few pockets of high earning areas outside the capital but it would be interesting to compare the data on this map to a map of commuting times into London.

ONS - Income by Location

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UK Broadband Speeds on Google Maps

Ofcom, the regulator of the UK communications industries, has created a Google Map to show the speed of broadband throughout the UK.

Each county in the UK has been ranked on how they score on four broadband metrics; average sync speed, percentage getting less than 2Mbit/s, superfast broadband availability and broadband take up. The map displays as a basic heat map with each county coloured to show how they perform overall on each metric.

The map confirms what you already probably suspected. If you want superfast broadband then you are more likely to be lucky if you live in a big city. If you live in the Outer Hebrides then you are probably going to have make do with superslow broadband.

Ofcom - Broadband Speeds Map

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London Bus Planners on Google Maps

There are around 7,000 red buses in London transporting passengers on over 700 different routes. BusIt London is a bus route planner that can help you navigate London's extensive bus network.

To plan a route just click on the Google Map to select your start and end points, or use the search box to find locations. BusIt London will then display your route on the map. If more than one route is available you can select from the alternatives given.

The sidebar explains where to catch your bus and which number bus you should get on. If you need to change buses on your route the stops where you need to change are also displayed in the sidebar.

BusIt London

Also See

• What Bus? - a Google Map of all London bus lines
• On a Bus - enter a London bus number and view the bus's route on Google Maps

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The Angling Trust's Google Map Campaign

Cormorant Watch

The UK's Angling Trust, has launched a new web site for anglers to record sightings of cormorants, goosanders and mergansers throughout the UK. The new site uses Google Maps to record user sightings of the birds in the UK.

The birds are having a major affect on UK fish stocks and the aim of the map is to gather data to help persuade the UK government of the need for action to protect fisheries. The map has been launched to coincide with the start of the coarse fishing season on rivers.

Anglers can record sightings and activity of cormorants anywhere in the UK, directly onto the map. Users can also use the map to view details of each recorded cormorant sighting and watch the real picture of cormorant predation in UK waters build up week by week.

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Google Maps on Campus

University of Southampton Campus Map

Postgraduate student Colin Williams has created a campus map for Southampton University in the the UK using Google Maps and the University's Open Data Service.

The map shows all the University's campus buildings, live bus times for nearby stops and a number of categories of points of information. The detail for each category of marker is very impressive. For example, the retail category not only displays the locations of all shops on campus but also the locations of all vending machines. It even tells you what each vending machine sells.

The source-code for the map and the map marker set have been made available by Colin under a creative commons licence.

Via: OUseful.info

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The Volcanic Ash Cloud on Google Maps

Flightradar24

The eruption of the Grimsvotn volcano in Iceland has caused a huge ash cloud that is now affecting flights in Iceland and Scotland. Flightradar24, the live flight tracking Google Map, has now added an overlay to show the current position of the cloud.

The map shows the movements of flights in real-time. At the time of writing the map shows that most European flights seem to be unaffected by the cloud but there seem to be very few flights in and out of Scotland.

The BBC are reporting that flights to and from the airports of Londonderry, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Prestwick, Durham Tees Valley, Newcastle and Carlisle are likely to be affected by the ash cloud.

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2012 London Olympics Street View

Olympics Street View

I strongly suspect that when the Olympics Park for the 2012 London Olympics opens next year the Google Street View trike will be one of the first visitors.

However at the moment there is no Street View available for the site of next year's Olympics. I therefore decided today to create my own Street View map of the Olympics construction site in east London.

I have to apologise for the poor quality of the photography. I created the Street View panoramas for this map using a free Android app from 360 VTcreator, which, whilst it is a brilliant free app, doesn't really create photographs of a high enough definition for Street View. I advise you not to zoom in!

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Street Video on Google Maps

MyStreet

MyStreet is a UK project where anyone can make a short video about the street they live in. The result is a really interesting snapshot into life in the UK and what people think is important about their neighbourhoods.

The site features a Google Map of all the films submitted so far. If you click on any of the map markers you can watch the film about the location and view a brief description.

If you want to take part submit your video before May 26th and you will also be eligible for the 2011 Open City, London Documentary festival.

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