In an attempt to stay ahead of the ride-sharing game, Uber has opted to increase its investment in global mapping systems.
“The ongoing need for maps tailored to the Uber experience is why we’re doubling down on our investment in mapping,” said Brian McClendon, vice president of advanced technologies and former vice president of Google Maps.
While McClendon didn’t reveal exactly how much Uber would be investing in his announcement last week, news reports have guessed that the amount would rack up to somewhere around $500 million.
“We are declining to comment on the $500 million number,” said Molly Spaeth, Uber spokesperson.
“Existing maps are a good starting point, but some information isn’t that relevant to Uber, like ocean topography. There are other things we need to know a lot more about,” explained McClendon, “like traffic patterns and precise pickup and dropoff locations.”
“Moreover, we need to be able to provide a seamless experience in parts of the world where there aren’t detailed maps- or street signs,” he continued.
Trip Chowdry, managing director for equity research at Global Research, shared his opinion that increased investment in maps made sense for the ride-sharing mogul:
“They don’t need to provide the all-things-to-all-people kind of maps like Google,” he explained. “It makes sense for Uber to have an alternative strategy. It needs highly targeted maps.”
That means maps that can support certain initiatives, like tracking vehicles, estimating times to pickup and dropoff, and pinpointing caller locations.
“It’s a different use case than what Google and Apple are doing,” Chowdry concluded.
Roger C. Lanctot, associate director for the global automotive practice at Strategy Analytics, believes that Uber has needed to expand its maps program for some time:
“If anything, they’re a little late with this,” he posited. “They’ve had the advantage of all these vehicles wandering around all these cities around the world, so it only makes sense to start collecting data from these vehicles.”
“When you’re going to get rid of the driver entirely, you’re going to need a map,” Lanctot continued. “It looks like they’ve determined it’s in their interest to create their own maps.”
According to Jim McGregor, principal analyst at Tirias Research, cars are becoming more valuable data generators in our internet-of-things era.
“As we start building out this IoT era, the data that’s used for things like autonomous cars is going to be extremely valuable,” he explained.
“Companies that have that data are going to want to leverage it more and more,” he continued. “Uber is thinking the data from its drivers is something valuable to have as the industry changes.”
While it’s hard to say exactly what kind of data Uber will be gathering and how it will be implemented into the initiative to improve the company’s maps, the company has proven its ability to predict industry trends over and over.
“Whether Uber can leverage the data enough to pay for the investment it’s making in mapping, that’s hard to tell,” McGregor offered.
The value of Uber’s newfound data is unlikely to go unnoticed by other ride-sharing companies, especially if Uber chooses to sell it.
