What is location intelligence? Your handy guide
Mar 2023
Get answers to common questions about geospatial and location intelligence, and how it helps businesses and governments solve problems.
Mar 2023
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Where is the best place to build a road? What is the best exit route in a flood-prone area? How many trees do you need to plant to offset a suburb’s carbon footprint? All of these questions can be answered by using a tool called location intelligence. Through the visualisation and analysis of geospatial data, businesses, governments, and planners can harness invaluable insights to guide important decisions.
With new innovations pushing the location intelligence industry into what we believe to be the fourth age of geospatial data, we’re seeing new levels of insight and opportunity for multiple industries. There’s never been a better time to get on board. Unique capture systems, AI technology, and expanding coverage have put Nearmap at the forefront of this type of intelligence.
Whether it’s learning from the past or predicting the future, location intelligence is the geographical data analysis that is shaping our livable world.
What does location intelligence do?
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but location intelligence dials this concept up to the next level. Location intelligence is essentially the collection of many layers of geospatial data, displayed in a rich visual format to create a user-friendly experience and provide data analytics.
For example, Nearmap Vertical provides users with a suite of data and insights that are easy to navigate and apply to use cases. You can access high-resolution aerial imagery, explore more than 10 years of urban coverage, quickly determine things like distances, building measurements and square kilometres on site, and integrate the best quality aerial imagery with leading GIS and CAD platforms.
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Why do businesses use location intelligence?
Government
Government departments at all levels rely on location intelligence for a host of applications including remote property inspections and assessments, urban change forecasting, planning and monitoring large-scale infrastructure projects, and as a tool to promote transparency between stakeholders.
For example, Ipswich City Council uses up-to-date vertical and oblique aerial imagery from Nearmap to support a demanding caseload of complaints related to land use or unlawful structures across a large Local Government Area. In-built measurement tools help investigators confirm cases, rich historic imagery assists with gathering evidence and achieving compliance, and remote inspection capabilities minimise the risk associated with site visits.
Insurance and financial services
When it comes to money matters, timeliness is crucial — this is why many in the insurance and finance industries rely on consistently updated location intelligence from Nearmap as their source of truth. Up-to-date location intelligence helps companies with risk management, underwriting, renewals, and claims. With access to historical and current data, the assessment process can be done smoothly and remotely.
Architecture, engineering, and construction
Site surveying can be one of the most costly and time-consuming parts of any infrastructure project. Location intelligence allows stakeholders at all levels of a project to access tools for remote surveying and site monitoring. Accurately measure building dimensions, vegetation, ground features, and more before you or your team even step on site. Being able to detect change and track progress is of major benefit when forecasting urban growth and making informed decisions for the future.
Disaster recovery
Nearmap ImpactResponse post-catastrophe ground insights equip disaster response crews with up-to-date solutions for assessing damage, deploying resources, and finding the safest recovery routes. With no need to wait for ground resources or to resolve potentially dangerous access issues, teams are able to proactively create recovery plans without delay.
Want to see more examples of how location intelligence is used in certain industries? Check out some more Nearmap customer stories.
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Why is location intelligence data important?
Location intelligence data provides a unique set of insights that can be incredibly useful. The collation of these seemingly disparate data sets provide a unique point of view that can be used to make meaningful, evidence-based decisions. These transformative insights are the direct result of location intelligence — put simply, this data is a goldmine for planning, forecasting and problem-solving.
From a business perspective, location intelligence data saves time and money by allowing teams to access crucial insights remotely and with substantially fewer resources. Instead of sending a crew out to conduct a site inspection and take measurements, crews can achieve the same results without leaving the office. The remote capabilities, combined with the frequency of Nearmap captures, mean that users have the most accurate picture of truth on the ground. It allows for better decision-making, improved forecasting and the ability to mitigate issues before they arise.
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Find out more about location intelligence
If you’re curious about location intelligence and how it can benefit your business or organisation, sign up for an obligation-free demo tailored to your business.