Online mapping, geocoding, tracking & routing – the HERE Location Platform

About this service

The HERE Location Platform is a global web map service (WMS) from HERE, formerly NAVTEQ, the international mapping provider. This ready-to-use set of APIs enables users to quickly develop and customise their applications by incorporating maps, placing their own data on a map, tracking vehicles and planning routes.

The Platform draws on a comprehensive database containing global map content, which you can quickly integrate into your applications according to your requirements. Users can benefit from the HERE Location Platform by using it to underpin a range of applications, which can take advantage of a series of attributes linked to the road network.

When used in the context of route and schedule optimisation, the HERE Location Platform can bring a wide range of benefits; drawing on data that is constantly being updated, logistics managers can lower their operational costs through better mobile asset utilisation, improve their ETA calculations with live traffic speeds, ensure better customer service through more reliable, compliant routing and undertake post-trip analysis to improve future driving behaviour. Users can also perform geofencing, to understand proximity of their vehicles to customers for example, or upload their own information and view it on the map.

The HERE Location Platform offers easy-to-use geocoding functionality, enabling you to assign geocodes to your data for individual records or in batch mode. Assigning precise co-ordinates to data is essential for organisations in all geo-spatial applications, such as planning the delivery of goods, analysing territories, or managing fixed assets. Each record is scored on the basis seven levels e.g. premise-level, building-level, street-level, and so on, to help you understand the precision of the assigned geocode.

What's key?

• International geocoding, mapping and route calculation
• The maps provided are up to street-level and regularly updated
• Ready-to-use set of APIs lets you quickly develop and customise your applications via JavaScript or web services, or develop for mobile solutions using dedicated SDKs
• Cloud and on-premise hosted services available

Online tracking with geofence using HERE location platform

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The HERE Location Platform also provides reverse geocoding, the process of creating a textual statement, such as an address, for each of the locations based on the associated geographical co-ordinates. This is crucial for applications where users need to stay informed about the precise locations of their mobile assets, such as parcels, service engineers or vehicles, for example.

Additionally, the HERE Location Platform’s isochrone routing functionality can be used as the basis of catchment area analysis, which can feed geographical insights into marketing questions such as  “how many customers live within 20 minutes’ drive of one of our stores?”

The Platform’s range of road speed options, which include specific speeds according to vehicle type and time of day, can assist with the definition and balancing of realistic sales territories or the planning of efficient fleet routes and schedules, or help with strategic questions such as the optimal locations for new sites according to drive-times.

The HERE Location Platform is excellent for map-based visualisation and geo-marketing analytics for organisations adopting big data tools and leveraging analytics to drive their business decisions.