September 21, 2010 -- Bluesky is working with the UK’s Northamptonshire County Council to help it continue to improve its service to local residents with a newly-launched interactive mapping service providing live feeds of information.

The service uses aerial photography from Bluesky to help residents in Northamptonshire access a wide range of information about council services and local amenities all from the County Council’s website. A revamped interactive mapping service provides live feeds of information including Council news, travel updates and a ‘Where’s my Nearest’ search tool with visitors being able to choose their preferred backdrop. The use of the Bluesky aerial photomaps is designed to give the presented information locational context and a real world familiarity building on the success of more high profile sites such as Google Earth.

“This service offers residents an alternative way to access real time information about council services, local amenities and their own neighbourhood,” commented Richard Beards Web Team lead at Northamptonshire County Council. “We explored the use of existing technology and sites but were unable to overlay the vast amount of information necessary to the make the service successful. Now you can find your nearest bus stop, check what time the next bus is due and where it is going and even check to see if it has been delayed.”

The interactive mapping website ( http://maps.northamptonshire.gov.uk) developed by Northamptonshire County Council allows visitors to navigate to their selected location or area of interest by simply entering a postcode, street, village or town. They can choose their preferred background; with a choice of modern or historic mapping, or Bluesky’s aerial photography, against which search results are displayed. The site provides access to nearly a hundred different types of information ranging from social service and children’s centres to Magistrates Courts and Registry Offices, demographic classifications and local traffic flows information.

“The ability to share this wealth of information with residents online is critical in today’s economic climate. Our core purpose as a council includes helping people to help themselves; this service allows citizens to access a wealth of information at the ‘touch of a button’. It frees up the time of frontline staff to help deal with other important matters raised by citizens.”

“For example during spells of bad weather the Council’s Customer Service Teams are inundated with calls about road gritting. By accessing the online mapping site they could quickly answer specific queries, without reference to the actual highways team, and suggest in future the caller could access this information directly.”

The Bluesky aerial survey images were captured at 12.5cm resolution and form part of GeoPerspectives, the countrywide archive of up-to-date aerial photography. The digital image file was supplied as a map referenced layer ready for use in the Council’s geographical information system (GIS) and online map service.

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