Guest Post: How Rikibu Personalised his Ovi Maps

Hello to all the Ovi fans and enthusiasts out there.

Maybe some of you already know that I am a REAL HUGE Ovi Maps fan. Ovi Maps is my everyday companion because I can’t imagine that I can orientate myself without it anymore.  It’s such a great idea and full of possibilities. I think the potential of new and enhanced features are unlimited. Therefore, I often think about ways to enhance Ovi Maps by myself because I want to make a great thing much greater.

Everyone of you who has installed the Ovi Maps 3.06 version or the 3.07 concept beta release from Nokia beta labs knows, that Ovi Maps is able to show a local transportation layer on the map. I think it’s a great idea and the way into the right direction to have walking navigation, local transportation carriers and driving navigation in one tiny piece of software. For me as a heavy-user of walk navigation functions, the local transportation layer is very useful, but it only gives a sneak peak of information.

I asked myself:

How it is possible to give users a better local transportation experience?

Here is my personal idea I try to put into effect. I want to add all the bus and tram stations one by one from my home town into my Ovi Maps Favourites. I know it sounds a little crazy but don’t forget the advantages when you finished grabbing all the relevant stations u need in your daily life.

So I began with the first tram. The plan is, always when I have to ride with local transportation services (bus or tram), I want to put all the stations that I have crossed into my Ovi Maps Favourites. I add my stations according to the following pattern : Name of the station and available public transportation lines for tram and bus. For example, Central Station & 1-3-7 means that I can reach the tram 1, 3 and 7 at Central Station.  Maybe it sounds easy to grab all this information by hand during the ride, but believe me, it is not. Sometimes it is very loud so I am unable to understand the correct station announcement. In some cases the station announcement is not working and I have to change the tram. Also, I have to hurry up to enter all the information I heard before the next station arrives. In some trams we have displays which show the names of the next station. However, when all is said and done, I have a complete set of all the stations with useful information.

When I explore my city and I want to know how I can get to a desired target, I only have to check if one of my STATION markers are close to the destination point.  The only thing I have to check from time to time, if the collected information is up to date. Of course, my biggest wish is It, to have this information in Ovi Maps out of the box – always up to date and comfortable to use (with time tables etc), otherwise I don’t know if such a feature is planned. So I decided to collect all the information by myself and have fun to drive through the entire city.

Now It’s your turn. What kind of information have you added to your personal Ovi Maps Favourites? Have you ever done something different like me with Ovi Maps? Tell us your thoughts in the comments section.

-Rikibu

Rikibu is a familiar name on Ovi Blog posts and comments related to navigation. A veteran Ovi guest blogger, he lives in Leipzig, Germany with his loved ones and a cute doggie.