The mapping space in Singapore is definitely heating up with the big daddy of them all – Google, further entrenching its dominance in the this arena! Google in collaboration with LTA and Quantum Innovations have launched their nation-wide coverage of land travel planning tools in Singapore. According to LTA’s Chief Executive Mr. Yam Ah Mee – “Singapore is the first country in the world to provide this comprehensive range and nation-wide coverage of land transport options on Google’s Map platform.”

Features

So what does Google offer differently from other services out there? Other than the common features of providing public bus/MRT route information, the defining feature of Google Maps is the real time update of traffic conditions.

Google Maps shows live traffic updates which refreshes every 3 minutes thereby, giving users the flexibility to take alternative routes depending on the traffic conditions and if that was not enough, it has a prediction system that can predict traffic at any date and time based on analysis of past data.

It also has cool new feature of crowdsourcing traffic feed from commuters who use Google Maps on their phone. It takes into account, the speed of the device from various locations and processes it in real-time to update the traffic conditions. Google gets its traffic information from Quantum Inventions which in turn gets info from its Singapore Roadway Traffic Information Platform.

Another very useful feature for people with their own transportation is the mapplets feature which shows islandwide road conditions based on the data provided by LTA on accidents, constructions and road closures.

Integration

Google Maps has also integrated with Google Latitude to show the locations of your friends nearby and enable travel directions to their current locations. It will also be integrated with Google Trike going around the island now to provide street view  feature in the maps. It also has integration with Streetdirectory for business listings in the maps and HungryGoWhere for the restuarant-review listings.

The feature that is missing is the pricing for the public transit and cabs, but according to Google officials, this feature might be inculcated later into the system.

Competition

With all these features, will the users switch to Google from other service providers? When asked about competition to Google officials, they said more the competition, better it is for them as the service providers will be constantly on their toes to constantly improve and better their product.

In terms of providing directions and location based service, Gothere is currently the most popular service used by most Singaporeans. With regards to UI and ease of use, Gothere definitely is the most intuitive in this respect.

When asked about the Google Service to Gothere, they believe that “This announcement will help to reach out to a wider audience of people, who need help finding their way around Singapore” and they hope that with big players, such as Google coming into this space , it will help educate users on the navigational-based websites that are available to help them commute and find directions to where they are going. From the user survey they did in May ’09, over 95% of their users were very satisfied with the service and they take this as a strong validation of their work, and will continue to improve and innovate on their core features.

Something that also sets apart Gothere is that they get a lot of community support from the startups and the developers in Singapore. Startups based in Singapore such as Wego use Gothere Maps API to render their maps, and they are very active in the social media front and engage with their users very often.

They also mentioned that they will strictly remain a local website with additional features of carpark entrances and charge, minimise ERP cost for your journey, showcasing bus, train and taxi fares. They are also a dynamic start-up who can make changes or improvements quickly thereby adapting quickly.

According to LTA, their main objective is to provide a people-centric land transport system and are open to more partnerships with service providers to give commuters more choice. This definitely heralds more power to the users!