The Mapping Challenge

For years, the mapping industry has grappled with a significant challenge: keeping maps fresh and accurate while managing costs. We’ve all relied on methods like Google Street View-style mapping vehicles, which while effective, have proven prohibitively expensive, prompting every mapmaker to seek ways to reduce their collection budget.

Crowdsourced mapmaking projects like OSM and Waze made significant strides, but they lacked a crucial element: the ability to collect their own ground truth data. This has historically hindered their reliability and scalability.

What’s the solution? Bee Maps has been working on just that.

Enter Bee Maps

Bee Maps, powered by the decentralized mapping network Hivemapper, is addressing these challenges head-on, cracking the code of scalable crowdsourced mapping. Their approach?  Sell purpose-built mapping hardware, a key differentiator and game-change in the industry.

And their device isn’t just another mapping tool: it’s a paradigm shift in how we approach geospatial data collection. They’re the fastest-growing mapping company ever, dedicated to decentralizing mapping and making map data more affordable and accessible.

Purpose-Build Hardware

While cartographers have used standard consumer consumer dashcams and smartphones for mapping, they often produce inconsistent data quality. Automotive sensors, though advanced, lack the crucial imagery needed to establish ground truth. Bee Maps dashcams bridge this gap, offering consistent quality, precise positioning, and integrated Map AI. This combination allows for accurate detections with supporting imagery, automatically signaling real-world changes.

What sets Bee Maps apart?

Bee Maps’ approach to data collection really sets it apart from the rest. Unlike projects like OSM or Waze, which rely on user-submitted information, Bee Maps passively collects its own ground truth data from its  Bee dashcams, or Bees, and automatically uploads the data to the Hivemapper Network.

Since launching, contributors have passively mapped more than 28% of the world’s roads—all while going about their daily lives.

Dashcams mounted in the cars of thousands of professional drivers, such as ride-hail and delivery drivers, turn everyday trips into valuable contributions to a dynamic global map.

It’s like having a tireless cartographer in every vehicle, updating the map in real time. This continuous flow of information ensures that maps are not only current but also truly reflective of real-world conditions.

This network of dashcams continuously collects fresh data, allowing maps to be updated much more frequently than traditional methods. Collection costs are reduced by orders of magnitude by harnessing this real-time, passive data—something that has been sorely lacking in the mapping world.

By using dedicated hardware, rather than relying on smartphones, such as Mapillary, or consumer dashcams, such as Nexar, Bee Maps ensures consistent data quality and coverage. By utilizing a crowdsourced model, Bee Maps offers a more affordable alternative to traditional mapping methods, which often rely on expensive specialized vehicles.

Let’s not forget about the AI element. While automotive sensors like Mobileye can detect changes to road features and conditions, they lack the crucial imagery needed for validation. Bee Maps solves this by offering consistent quality, great positioning, and Map AI, so you can get accurate map feature detections and the imagery to back it up—automatically signaling changes in the real world.

Is this all scalable though, you might be wondering? Yes – Bee Maps stands out for its scalability.

The crowdsourced nature of passive data collection allows Bee Maps to cover vast areas quickly and cost-effectively. This decentralized approach combined with advanced processing capabilities through Map AI, results in real-time image processing, intelligent data collection focused on capturing changes, and automatic detection and placement of map features like traffic signs. This scalability means there’s no compromising in quality while covering vast areas with Bee Maps.

Growth and Industry Recognition

The numbers speak for themselves. In just two years, Bee Maps has collected an astounding 360 million total kilometers of map data. This includes 17 million unique kilometers—covering more than 28% of the world’s roads.

Bee Maps is growing five times faster than Google Street View in its earlier days. This rapid growth and innovative approach haven’t gone unnoticed in the industry. Bee Maps has created quite the buzz already with the big players taking notice too.

The team has successfully completed pilots with some of the world’s largest mapmakers and has earned the trust of highly quality-conscious customers, including automotive OEMs and autonomous vehicle developers.

Three of the largest ten global mapmakers are now using Bee Maps’ data to keep their maps fresh and accurate. This endorsement from industry giants underscores the value and reliability of Bee Maps’ solution. That’s no small feat in an industry dominated by tech giants.

A Solution for Enterprise Map Data Buyers

What excites us most about Bee Maps is its potential to democratize map data collection. By fostering an open-source map data ecosystem, Bee Maps is paving the way for innovation we’ve only dreamed of.

For the mapping experts at major enterprises – whether you’re working for tech giants like Amazon and Microsoft, logistics companies like FedEx and DHL, or automotive manufacturers like Volkswagen and General Motors – Bee Maps is offering a solution that could revolutionize your approach to geospatial data.

Traditional methods like Google can only refresh their maps once a year or every couple of years, due to the high-tech, high-cost nature of its vehicles. Hivemapper’s crowdsourced community of passive data contributors means that you are now able to access and use location data that’s got the tricky-to-find trifecta: freshness, accuracy, and affordability. For example, in an area that Google vehicles see once every 14-18 months, Hivemapper’s Bees sees that same area around 80 to 100 times a year.

It’s clear that we need fresh data as an industry and even better that it is available at a compelling price point and with a model that challenges Google’s map dominance.

Bee Maps is set to be a game-changer in streamlining workflows for mapmakers, big tech companies, transportation and logistics industries, and automotive giants. The technology is quickly establishing itself as a trusted provider in the mapping industry.

The Future of Mapping – See the World as It Is, Not as It Was.

As we look to the future, it’s clear that Bee Maps is not just participating in the mapping industry – it’s reshaping it. By bringing crowdsourced data collection through purpose-built hardware and sophisticated AI, Bee Maps is setting new standards for what’s possible in geospatial data collection.

As the company continues to expand its coverage and refine its technology, it’ll be working on continuing to deliver the world’s freshest and most accurate maps.

So, if you’re in the business of maps and you haven’t heard of Bee Maps yet, this is for you. The buzz around Bee Maps is real and they are leading the charge towards a future where our maps are just as dynamic and up-to-date as the world they represent.

Ready to join in shaping the future of mapping? Here are 5 reasons why Hivemapper built their dashcams for your mapping needs.

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