1.2.2. Examples

Enhanced 911 (E911) mandate: The E911 mandate of the United States government aims to improve the quality and reliability of the emergency services by locating wireless 911 (U.S. emergency phone number) callers. The requirement was to ensure 50 metre accuracy for 67% of calls (150 metres for 95% of calls) for handset-based solutions, and 100 metres for 67% (300 metres for 95%) for network-based solutions by October 2001.

SAR – Search and Rescue: This example is probably one of the oldest examples for a location based emergency system. Radio beacons e.g. on marine vessels or small personal beacons transmit radio signals in the case of an emergency. The systems range from small beacons with only normal radio signals (as homing signal for rescuers or to geo stationary satellites) up to beacons which transmit their actual GPS position via satellite to the emergency services.

COSPAS-SARSAT System Overview (NOAA Satellite and Information Service)

Traffic management: Coupled with the ability of a network to monitor traffic conditions, navigation services can be extended to include destination directions. Such traffic management services take account of current traffic conditions (for example, traffic congestion or a road blocking accident) and suggest alternative routes to mobile users.

Car-park guidance systems: Finding a car park can be very time consuming and creates often additional traffic hold-ups. A time critical service which knows the available car parks and the position of the requesting car can assign the next available car park and guide the car to it.

Indoor routing: The possibility to provide detailed directions to mobile users can be extended to support indoor routing as well. For example, users can be assisted in their navigation in hypermarkets, warehouses, exhibitions, and other information rich environments to locate products, exhibition stands, and so on.

Mobile yellow pages: The application of mobile yellow pages that provide a mobile user, upon request, with knowledge regarding nearby facilities is another example of information services. This service can be combined e.g. with a navigation service. A common example would be a restaurant or hotel finder which shows the way to the destination.

Travel planer for train, bus etc.: According to the actual position and the desired destination the user gets the next station and the departure times.

Infotainment services: Information about local events, location-specific multimedia content, and so on, can also be provided to interested users.

Shopping guides: They help to search for the best prices at the local area.

Mobile blackboards: Allow users to leave messages at certain locations and which can than be read if someone other passes by. This can be simple messages, but also hints or restaurant critics etc.

Integration of LBS for field support in CRM: Location-based services for supporting field technicians and service order managers in customer relationship management solutions. Customer relationship management systems may be improved integrating location-based services in enterprise applications, including the Web environment.

Monitoring services for fleets of vehicles or individuals: Monitoring mainly is used for businesses (e.g. shipping companies), or public services (e.g. police, fire patrol or ambulances). Examples are to operate fleet management applications, and track the location of external resources to optimize and schedule their use and control or ensure their safety. Here, external resources include individuals, whether in vehicles or not (truck drivers, delivery personnel, maintenance technicians, security personnel, etc), and objects (cars, trucks, trailers, containers and other such items). Tracking services can also serve as logbooks. This can be for tax reasons, for the charging of travel expenses, holiday documentation but also for insurance and discharge of an accusation (e.g. car speed in the case of an accident).

Infrastructure or facility management: More specialised systems which do not target on the mass market are LBS for infrastructure management. Examples could be the management of a big industrial facility with technical building management (electricity, water, etc.), door inspection, cleaning management. Other examples would be in the infrastructure or environmental management of whole towns or regions such as water, wastewater, gas or also contaminated land. The benefits of LBS in this case are the easiness to find the locations, to add all the changes to a central database and e.g. the direct download of more detailed plans or other information. This enables the mobile field technicians to have all information that could be needed at hand.

Operator Services: User location information can be used to improve the way that services are implemented in areas such as network planning, quality of service, optimization of radio resources (handover and channel allocation) and pricing. Mobile network operators may price calls based on the knowledge of the location of the mobile phone when a call is made. Location-sensitive billing includes the ability to offer reduced call rates to subscribers that use their mobile phone when at their home, thereby allowing mobile operators to compete more effectively with their fixed telephony counterparts.

Geocaching: Geocaching is an outdoor sport that involves the use of a Global Positioning System ("GPS") receiver to find a "geocache" (or "cache") placed anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small, waterproof container containing a logbook and "treasure". Geocaching is a unique take on a traditional Easter-egg hunt in that it uses two recent technologies, the GPS and the Internet

Mobile games: Various mobile games already exist and the number is steadily growing. The variety of the games goes from simple mobile phone based games over handheld games with GPS to nearly augmented reality games with head-up displays and wearable computers. A nice example for an adaptation of an old computer game to the real world is PacManhattan. It is a live-action version of PacMan, played around Washington Square Park, in which people in Pac Man and ghost suits chase each other through the streets, seeking out power-pellets.