Location
services enable customized information to be delivered or made
available based on the specific location of the user. Knowing where
the user is at any given time adds a valuable dimension to the
kinds of services that can be offered.
As Harry
Niedzwiadek writes in his feature
article, "All businesses are in pursuit of just-in-time
actionable information - just the right information, at the
right time, at the right location, on any device
- from which they can make effective decisions and take immediate
action." This observation applies equally to individuals in
our daily lives. At some points in our lives, we have all found
a need to know, for example, where the closest Pizza Palace is
and how to get to it from wherever we happen to be at the moment,
with a car full of hungry kids! Also check out What
are Location Services? - From a GIS Perspective, by Ian
Koeppel, ESRI Location Services Industry Manager.
Within
the mobile wireless network community, there are two distinct aspects
of Location Services:
- Location
Services (also called Mobile Positioning or Mobile Position
Determination technology) deliver specific information about
the geographic location (i.e., position) of mobile terminals
such as mobile telephones, PDAs, and other devices attached
to other moveable items such as people, packages and vehicles.
- Location
Application Services (also called
Location-based Services) deliver end-user applications, normally
based on knowing the position of a user with their mobile
terminal. These services can be delivered through a wide
range of devices, including wireless phones, in-vehicle tracking
modules and other types of mobile terminals. Location Application
Services also support operations throughout a location-enabled
enterprise, including such applications as customer relationship
management, accounting, network planning, inventory management,
field service, network management, inside/outside plant,
and so on.
From
a user's perspective the distinction between Location Services
and Location Application Services may not be important. For simplicity,
we use the general term Location Services to describe the
infrastructure and services that deliver location-based information
to users and are available across fixed and mobile networks, such
that they can be used by anyone, anywhere at any time and on any
device. Location Services become integral to the enterprise (and
to the way individuals behave) when they are ubiquitous, efficient
and easy to use.
Why
is location so useful?
Location
is a foundational, unifying principle humans use to organize their "mental
maps" of the world. Location has tremendous utility in the
development of the "semantic
Web" precisely because it is so central to how humans
organize and relate to their physical and conceptual worlds.
How
is location used?
Location
most certainly takes us one step closer to modeling the reality
of our business (not to mention organizing our personal life!).
How
so? Let's assume that a business has valuable information that
is now buried in files, folders, documents and tables scattered
around the enterprise and they want to get at this information
more easily. Now let's say that much of these information have
some form of location content, be they messages, asset maps, documents,
customer databases, delivery routes, transaction reports, or whatever.
Now let's add a location application server to the warehouse. The
location application server keys on the location properties of
warehouse holdings and organizes and provides location-based access
to these data, accordingly. Likewise, the location application
server makes it easy to exploit business information holdings,
keying on location properties to generate reports and maps with
actionable business information.
Types
of Information in Time and Space
The
following types of information occur continuously or intermittently
in time and space.
- Positions. Fixed
locations. Expressed in terms of coordinates, positions on a
map, named places, and so forth.
- Events. Time-dependent
incidents (past, present, or future) at one or more locations.
- Distributions
(e.g. demographics). The densities, frequencies, patterns,
and trends of people, objects or events within a given area(s).
- Assets. Fixed
and/or mobile assets. Asset management. Inventories. Condition/status.
- Service
Points. Points of service delivery. May also pertain to
prospects or targets of interest. Further characterized by
levels of service and quality of service.
- Routes. Navigational
information expressed in terms of coordinates, directions (angles),
named streets and distances, landmarks, and/or other navigation
aids. Navigational logs.
- Context/
Overview. Maps, charts, three-dimensional scenes (virtual
reality) or other means for representing the context and relationships
between people, objects and events over a given area(s).
- Directories. Catalogs.
Listings. Directories.
- Transactions. Transactions
for the exchange of goods, services, securities, etc. Trading
services. Financial services.
- Sites. Characteristics
of a given site (e.g. suitability).
Types
of Location Services
Here
we list examples of location services, in the form of user requirement
statements (or questions), organized by information type (row)
and market segment (column).
