Wednesday, November 30, 2011
ONE.MOTORING Traffic.Smart - Your One Stop Site for all Traffic Information! [Part 3]
We're back for the final installment of the Traffic.Smart post! As mentioned, we are down to the last 2 features of this comprehensive site. Here we go!
Want to know the parking lots availability of some of the car parks in town before you park your vehicle? Now you can. Check the Parking Lots Availability box, indicated by the "P" icon and the places with parking availability info will be displayed on the map.
As with other icons like the ERP and camera ones, users can click on any car park icon and a pop-up will appear to indicate the number of empty lots.
To find out more on the parking rates, click on the parking rates hyperlink and a new tab will pop up to show you the various parking rates at different days/times.
The last feature is of course the shortcut and legend button on the top right of the map.
This button gives you some basic info on how to interact with the map and some of the shortcuts that can be used.
Ok, that's it! We have come to the end of the introduction to using Traffic.Smart for users who are driving. What about those who take public transport? Stay tune as we bring you another post on a new interactive public transport map!
Sunday, November 27, 2011
OneMap.sg: ONE.MOTORING Traffic.Smart - Your One Stop Site for all Traffic Information! [Part 2]
Hey we are back for part 2! Thanks for staying tune to part 2 of the Traffic.Smart article. To read part 1, refer to the previous post here: http://onemapsg.blogspot.com/2011/11/onemotoring-trafficsmart-your-one-stop.html. As promised in the previous post, today we will talk about the ERP gantry option, the camera option and the search function.
It is important to have sufficient stored value in your cash card and it is equally important to know what are the ERP gantries you will drive through and how much you need to pay. By checking the ERP gantry box, drivers can see where are all the ERP gantries and it is pretty obvious they are mostly packed within the central region. You can also click on the individual ERP icons on the map to know how much you need to pay.
Once you click on an icon, a pop up will be displayed with a dropdown list. This list has all the vehicle type and after selecting your vehicle type, the ERP fee to be paid will be highlighted according to the current time as well!
If you do not know the location of the ERP gantry on the map, fret not. You can find the gantries via the Map Search section on the left panel below the Road Closure tab. Just click on the dropdown box to find the gantries along the expressways or areas and the list of gantries will be listed below the main map.
For each of the gantries, users can click on the map hyperlink and the map will zoom to that gantry, marked by the green pin.
The camera option works in a similar way too. Check the Camera box and locations of cameras across the island will be displayed.
What is more unique here is that when you click on any camera icon, you can view the real time image captured from the camera! (That is totally awesome!)
Like the ERP gantry search, you can click on the dropdown box for the Camera option, select a location or road and have the list of cameras displayed below the map.
And the camera location (indicated by the green pin) will be displayed when you click on the map hyperlink:
Finally, we have come to the search function under the Map Search tab. Users can use this function to find a road name if they are not too sure about the exact name. For example, just by typing the text "Thomson", the system will generate all road names with the word "Thomson" in them below the map.
Simply click on the map hyperlink for the map to zoom into the road.
Hmm... this must be the most map overloaded post we have had and we are still left with 2 features to be introduced! Let's leave them for the next post... the bonus part 3 post hahaha...
That's all for now but stay tune to the last part of this Traffic.Smart post (and we guarantee it will be the last of this series until new features and functions are developed) :)
Thursday, November 24, 2011
ONE.MOTORING Traffic.Smart - Your One Stop Site for all Traffic Information! [Part 1]
The ONE.MOTORING website by Land Transport Authority is definitely one of the most visited sites by drivers who want to obtain more information on everything related to traffic and vehicles. And now, their interactive map is using OneMap as the base map with more enhanced services!
The Traffic.Smart interactive map is so enriched with useful information, we are gonna split the article into 2 parts as there are too many things to talk about! :)
First of all, to navigate to the Traffic.Smart, you can either type in URL: http://interactivemap.onemotoring.com.sg/mapapp/index.html or go to the ONE.MOTORING main webpage, select On-the-Roads tab and then the Traffic.Smart option on the left.
There is a range of options you can click on to display various information on the map. First, we have the most important information - the Traffic Speed. When users check this box, they will be able to view the traffic speeds along roads across the whole island, be it expressways or major roads. The traffic speeds are classified in to 3 categories: below 40km/h, between 40 - 60 km/h and above 60 km/h. Before drivers hit the roads, they may wish to check whether the routes they want to take are smooth or else they may want to go by an alternative route.
Severe jams are likely due to vehicle breakdowns, roadworks or accidents and you can know the locations of these incidents in Traffic.Smart as well! Just check the Incidents/Alerts box and these incidents will be displayed. What's more, you can click on the icons to find out more information.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Double dosage of top searched themes for this month! In this post, we present to you the most searched theme for the month of October.
There you go:
Not much movement for this month... All except for 1 theme maintained the top 10 spots. Dengue Cluster theme, as predicted in the last top 10 post, is out of the picture as the hot dengue season comes to an end. Replacing this theme is the Tourist Attractions theme (Holidays are coming? Oh, for most of the younger kids, school holidays are here!).
For the rest of the themes, they are just playing the musical chair game and none has retained their original positions... and Hotels theme is making a comeback! Storming into 5th place but still far away from its glory days of holding onto a top 3 spot.
And our new number 1 for this month is... (drum rolls...) the Community Use Sites theme! This is unprecedented in the history of OneMap! But what sort of impetus did Community Use Sites theme gain to usurp the throne previously owned by Kindergartens and Childcare Centres? We have some insider news! But all we can say is that the surge could probably be related to some students' projects. :) This table topping act is probably a one-off thing, and now, TeamOneMap is gonna make another bold prediction: Community Use Sites will not secure a double for the month of November.
We shall see if our prediction will come true for the 2nd time in a row! :)
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
It's time to introduce another useful tool in OneMap - the Map Link function!
Have you ever encountered a situation where you want to meet a friend at a particular location but your friend is totally clueless about where it is? Worse is that the place is kinda "ulu" or it has no distinct landmark for you to describe to your friend for him/her to identify? Fret not, cos' you can use the map link tool available in OneMap to make your task easier!
Map Link allows users to easily send a link of what they see on the map in the computer to someone else with exactly the same view and information! This is extremely useful especially when you need to send information of a meeting place but do not have much space to include an image of the map. A line of URL will do the job nicely for you. :)
Users can find the name of the place in the search box 1st. Let's say we want our friends to meet us at Revenue House. We can type in "Revenue House" in the search box and hit the "GO" button. The map will zoom to Revenue House.
To create the map link with the exact zoom and extent you are currently viewing, navigate to the Tools icon and then click on the Map Link option in the dropdown list. Once you are done, the Map Link widget will pop up on the right side of your screen, with a URL that you can either copy and paste it somewhere or email it directly to your recipient... simple as that! :D
Click on this link and you will find exactly the same image as attached here!: http://www.onemap.sg/?SearchVal=REVENUE%20HOUSE&LW:Y&wO5d:JbcJJ_J,IIIaa_f,JRIII_c,IIabR_Y,c
So next time you want to share a location map with others, you know where to go to! OneMap.sg!
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Wireless Hotspots Locations on OneMap
Singapore has the heaviest internet usage among south east Asia, as reported in the news a few days ago (http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1164067/1/.html). It is no surprise given Singapore's push to become the region's hub of everything, including being an IT hub. The prevalence of desktops and more importantly, the more mobile laptops and smart phones have spurred the development of wireless hotspots in Singapore.
If you are one of the laptop users that cannot survive without Internet access while you are out of your office or house, Onemap is the place for you to find out where are the nearest wireless hotspots for you to tap on!
Simply go to Onemap and search for the wireless hotspots theme parked under the recreation option and search for the hotspot location!
Besides the location of the wireless hotspots, you can view additional information such as the specific shop that has this service and even the service provider.
The wireless hotspot theme is one of the themes with the most number of icons too (over 700 of them)! This wireless@SG programme is driven by IDA as well. To find out more details of the initiative, go to this link:
http://www.ida.gov.sg/Programmes/20061027174147.aspx?getPagetype=36
So next time when you want to go somewhere to do your work or serve the net, remember to check if the area has wireless hotspot! :)
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Streets and Places Theme on OneMap
It's another long weekend for Singaporeans because today is Hari Raya Haji, so tomorrow will be a public holiday too. Our Muslim friends will be celebrating the festival but how about the rest of you? Any ideas what to do for the long weekend? Well, as the song goes, "You could take a little trip around Singapore town, in Singapore city bus. To see Collyer Quay and Raffles Place, the Esplanade and all of us!" You can try just that to go around Singapore to view and learn more about interesting streets and places!
Don't know where are the interesting places to go? No worries, use OneMap to find out!
Go to OneMap.sg, navigate to the themes icon and under the culture tab, you can click on the last option "Street and Places". We would advise users to zoom to and area where they are interested to explore before opening up the theme as there are over 300 street and places icons if you open it in the whole island view.
For example, we have zoomed into the Marina Bay area and have clicked on one of the icons that says Collyer Quay. If the brief description in the pop up box is not enough for you, do click on the "more info" hyperlink and you will be brought to National Library infopedia webpage where you can learn more about the history and facts of the place!
We are sure you cannot finish exploring these interesting places within a day, so save some for the next long weekend to do your own walk around Singapore! :)
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
We're back again for the top10 most searched themes for the month of September. For those new to this monthly post, it is an article where the top 10 themes of each month are revealed to let our readers know which are the most popular themes that are being searched by users! At the same time, TeamOneMap's inquisitive mind will try to find out the reasons for the rise and fall of some themes and predict trends for the next month!
Ok, enough said, here are the top10 themes for the month of September 2011:
Yup, it is recycling bins! After barely featuring in the top 10 themes close more than 6 months ago, the recycling bins theme was never in the top 10 after that. This 6th place position is not the highest it has climbed though... Can you remember the highest position recycling bins has achieved? Go click on the "top search" link in the category column on the left of this blog to find out. The inclusion of this theme in September caught us by surprise though... was there a nation-wide recycling campaign? Or did any recycling related news made it to the TV? Your guess may be as good as ours!
Kindergarten and Child Care Services themes are still dominating the charts "likeaboss" and we can increasingly see themes such as Sports Centres and Hawker Centres cementing spots in the top 10. Seasonal popular themes such as Dengue Cluster is experiencing a natural drop in search as the dengue peak season is over. Seemingly on a free fall is the Hotels theme, where even a top 10 finishing is under threat!
Probably the safest prediction to make is this: Dengue Cluster theme will drop out of the top 10 themes. :)
Which is your most searched theme on OneMap? Let us know in the comments below or post it on the OneMap Facebook fan page!