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AWS leverages GrabMaps to provide location-based services across ASEAN

By Ken Wong - on 10 Feb 2023, 1:02pm

AWS leverages GrabMaps to provide location-based services across ASEAN

The dark view option of GrabMaps. Image source: Grab.

Amazon Location Service, an Amazon Web Services (AWS) location-based service, now has access to over 50 million addresses and Points of Interest (POI) across ASEAN thanks to GrabMaps becoming a data provider for the service.

Amazon Location Service helps developers easily and securely add maps, points of interest, geocoding, routeing, tracking, and geofencing to their applications, and its customers can now leverage Grab’s hyperlocal search and routeing functionality tailored to the region’s unique attributes, from its small alleyways and subdivisions to hard-to-find places, have the peace of mind that data on local maps is up-to-date and use search boxes that accurately locate end-user addresses and POIs.

1-year growth in street imagery coverage in Jakarta on GrabMaps. Image source: Grab.

Users can also calculate the fastest routes and provide accurate estimated arrival times, factoring in parameters such as modes of transport, real-time traffic conditions, departure timing and more, and with options to avoid tolls, ferry routes or highways.

Philipp Kandal, Chief Product Officer, Grab, said:

GrabMaps offers a unique view of Southeast Asia, with data and functionality that is exceptional in freshness, coverage and accuracy. We are excited to collaborate with AWS’s world-class infrastructure to share our capabilities with other companies, and help them build services and applications that we hope will better serve Southeast Asians.

Kartacam in action. Image source: Grab.

GrabMaps was started in 2022 when the company began equipping their proprietary map-making camera, Kartacam, to the helmets of delivery and driver partners to collect data as they rode around and combining it with OpenStreetMap as its base layer map via an Open Database License. By doing so, Grab was no longer dependent on paid map and location-based services from third-party providers. Grab continues to use OpenStreetMap as its base layer map via an Open Database License.

Now, GrabMaps powers over 800 billion API calls per month across a variety of Grab’s services and has helped add more than 800,000 kilometres of missing roads to the OpenStreetMap.

One company already leveraging GrabMaps data is Luce SG, an on-demand home services platform based in Singapore that customers use to book the services they need for their home and office, from cleaning to air conditioner servicing.

As the company expanded into Indonesia and the Philippines, Luce SG found it harder to obtain a reliable map and routeing data in order to dispatch its service staff, especially given the large number of informal roads in this region. Amazon Location Service powered by GrabMaps has one of the most accurate maps and routeing data in these geographies, helping it make its operations more efficient and improving the user experience.

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