OneMap is a collaborative platform for public agencies to share geospatial data and deliver services to the public.

It has a variety of Application Programming Interfaces (API) that enables developers to use the themes, tools and services available in the map portal and mash up this information with their own data to create their own application.

The new themes and services OneMap launched recently are all co-developed with other government organisations such as the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS), Land Transport Authority, Ministry of National Defence and other non-profit organisations.

MCYS for example launched a directory which allows users to browse the availability of social services nearest to their location. Meanwhile “TrafficQuery” allows users to check on live traffic updates and other related information such as traffic speed, incidents, live traffic camera, Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) and Parking Lots Availability.

A Spokesperson from SLA told FutureGov that the initiative stemmed from SLA’s drive to seek a collaborative partnership with its partner agencies agencies to share more themes and co-develop more convenient services for the public.

“The newly added themes and services will add value to our customers to help them develop more useful applications, as well as provide convenience to the public.”

To date, SLA has been receiving good feedback regarding the services and themes.

“So far, the most popular services include LandQuery, SchoolQuery and BusRoute Explorer,” the spokesperson said.

“SchoolQuery for example allows parents to prepare their child’s Primary One registration exercise as they can locate the address of a particular school quickly and accurately.”

“PropertyPrices is another popular one, as this is the only service in Singapore public service that provides transaction details of both HDB and Private properties on the same map.”

A Crowdsourcing plug-in is also available on OneMap so that users can easily locate their preferred places of interests. It is currently used by non-profit organisations such as the Cat Welfare Society and the Restroom Association in Singapore.

“For next year, we hope to bridge the gap between the web portal and the mobile version of OneMap (Pocket OneMap) through our Academic Institution Partner, Nanyang Polytechnic.” So far, Pocket OneMap has seen approximately 60,000 downloads to date.

The spokesperson also revealed that SLA is planning to release a new service every quarter on Pocket OneMap as part of the government’s push towards enhancing service delivery through the use of mobile technology.