Thread: GPS Navigational Maps for Pakistan

Automotive Navigation Systems have become extremely popular all over the world today. These devices are used extensively in major cities around the globe; by everyday people, taxi drivers and people new a the city or town. The bigger the city, the more the need for a navigation system is. Sadly, we Pakistanis have long been deprived of this technology but finally we have working SatNav in Pakistan.

Improper urban planning, lack of technical infrastructure and lack of voluntary efforts are the three main reasons SatNav has remained ineffective for Pakistan. While major companies are not keen in investing here keeping in mind the not so high revenue they would generate, the people have themselves not created maps for themselves because they want everything for free or others to do such things for themselves.

The biggest player in satellite navigation today, Garmin and TomTom have not developed any maps for Pakistan. They don�t see a reason why they should do so. But they have been gracious enough to provide software (and people have developed even better ones) to create maps capable of running on their GPS devices. A bunch of volunteers have dedicated huge time in creating maps for many cities of Pakistan and I�ll be explaining the extent to which these maps are effective later on.

Free Online Maps

The two biggest names in community created online free for all maps are OpenStreetMap and Google MapMaker. The main difference between the two is that OpenStreetMap provides its map data under a Creative Commons license while any maps created by users of Google Map Maker are the intellectual property of Google. Both are community created and with time both maps have been quite developed. For cities like Islamabad and Karachi, they present a very high detail and therefore are a success for the online community. Google has promised that with time it will verify the integrity of the created maps and then export them to Google Maps.

A comparison between the two (PIMS - Jinnah Avenue Interchange, Islamabad) :






The level of detail as seen in the above pictures is quite satisfactory for pre-departure route planning.

Garmin Maps (Provided by [Only registered and activated users can see links. ])

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A bunch of what I can assume are GPS enthusiasts have worked hard to develop these Garmin compatible maps. Using free software available over the Internet, they have worked tirelessly to create maps for Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar and Wah Cantt. Indexed (means address searchable) versions are also available. The forum encourages open source map creation and does not allow discussion about *****ing/unlocking premium maps available for the region.

Using maps provided by these angels, I have been able to install a perfectly working Garmin Mobile XT. The GPS chip in my Nokia E71 is of course not the greatest, and I am able to lock my location in a minimum of 13m radius, which is of course very negotiable.

A-GPS (Assisted GPS), which primarily works by locating your position roughly by comparing your cell site on the cellular network to an existing databese of these cells/towers and thus triangulate you, is of course of hardly any use. The maps developed by these chaps provide a very good detail and make navigation for an unfamiliar person at least easy (of course the address in hand would be 3rd house on the right, after the second turn under the Pine Tree).

The setup demonstrated below using a Nokia E71 and Garmin Mobile XT.

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