RGIS605: Loc.

Based services and Web GIS

Location-Based Services
(LBS)
Outline

• What are Location-Based Services (LBS)?

• Components of LBS
• LBS Architecture
• Categories of LBS Applications
• Examples
• Challenges in LBS
• Location Privacy

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What are Location Based Services?

• Computer applications that deliver information

depending on the location of the device and user
– Local or global: works in a specific environment (e.g.,
campus) vs. everywhere (e.g., GPS navigation)
– Personal or collaborative: designed for single user
(e.g., mobile maps) or multiple persons (e.g.,
participatory sensing)

• Typically require network access and

infrastructure for measuring location information
Two definitions of LBS

• Definition 1 (Virrantaus et al. 2001)

• LBSs are information services accessible with mobile devices through
the mobile network and utilizing the ability to make use of the location
of the mobile device.

• Definition 2 (OGC, 2005 )

• A wireless-IP service that uses geographic information to serve a
mobile user. Any application service that exploits the position of a
mobile terminal.
Architecture of LBS - Stakeholders

• Mobile client
– Runs the application/service on a mobile device
• Location system
– Responsible for determining the location of the device
– Position can be determined on the client or by
infrastructure
• Service provider
– Provides the application/service
– E.g., advertising service
• Content provider
– Provides content within the application/service
– E.g., company that provides advertisements for the service
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Lifecycle of LBS

1. Client requests the service for location

sensitive information
2. Location system determines the location of
the client (or uses latest estimate)
3. Request for information and current location
sent to service provider that returns relevant
information
– Typically data connectivity needed
– Optionally some information could be
cached/stored on the client directly
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LBS components and information flow

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Simplified LBS Application Architecture

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Types of location services

• Pull Services
– Deliver information directly requested by the user
• Functional services: Ordering a taxi or ambulance
• Information services: Identify a near by good Italian restaurant

• Push Services
– Deliver information indirectly or not requested by the user
– The delivery is triggered by an event such as entering a specific area
or by a timer.
– Example of indirectly requested services: news feed for the city where
the user happens to be as a result of a subscription
– Example of not requested services: advertisement messages when
entering a mall or weather warnings

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Elementary mobility user activities and
corresponding questions and location services

(Reichenbacher 2004) 10
LBS Application Categories

(Steiniger et al., 2006)

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Categories of LBS - Emergency Services

• E911 (Enhanced 9-1-1)

– Locate where a call to an emergency number
originates
– Strict guidelines regarding positioning accuracy
and consistency:
• 50/100 meters 67% of times(handset/network-based)
150/300 meters 90% of times(handset/network-based)
• E112
– European equivalent of E911
– No strict positioning requirements
• “best effort” with respect to technological possibilities of
infrastructure 12
Categories of LBS – Mobile Advertising

• Mobile marketing/advertising
– One of the most popular domains for LBS
– Push-based: advertisements delivered to the client
terminal automatically
– Permission-based: require user’s consent
– Pull-based: client requests for advertisements
• Different location-sensitive advertising
approaches:
– Proximity-based: user’s within close proximity pushed
advertisement
– Profile-based: Routines detected by mining user’s
location history
– Coupons: discount vouchers delivered on the mobile
device based on locations/shops visited (and profile) 13
Categories of LBS – Location-based Games

• Game where the game play varies or evolves

according to user’s location
• Geocaching most prominent example
– Treasure-hunt kind of game
– User searches for boxes that other users have hidden
– Boxes specified by coordinates
• Serious games
– Games that aim to achieve some desirable objective
– E.g., learning or achieving behavior change
– Example: Savannah, a location-based game that
teaches children behavior of lions 14
Categories of LBS – Mobile Augmented
Reality
• Live, direct or indirect view of a physical real-
world environment that is augmented with virtual
content
• Common example: see-through lens + virtual
content
• Location needed for two purposes:
– Tracking the orientation and pose of the device
(viewport that is being augmented)
– Tracking the location of the client for delivering suitable
information
• Wide range of examples especially for outdoors:
– Tourist guides
– Interactions at a distance (e.g., architecture)
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Categories of LBS – Navigation Systems

• System that assists people in the movement from

one place to another
– Indoors: supermarkets, malls, airports, campus or office
environments
– Outdoors: pedestrian navigation in cities or within large
tourist sights
• Various ways to present route instructions
– Mobile maps (2D or 3D)
– Landmarks (verbal, auditory, visual, multimodal)
• Generally considered most effective way to present navigation
instructions for pedestrian purposes
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Categories of LBS – Mobile Tourist
Guides

• Mobile systems that provide assistance to tourists

visiting a particular city or other location
– Cyberguide is an example of early prototypes of these
systems
• Common functionalities include
– Map with information about interesting locations
– Navigation support
– Location-sensitive recommendations
• Also other variations:
– E.g., restaurant or other point-of-interest (POI) finders
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Categories of LBS – Participatory Sensing

• The concept of communities contributing sensory

information to form a body of knowledge
– Mapping iphone prices at different stores
– Trapster: mapping location of mobile speed cameras
• Active research area, examples of topics:
– Providing suitable incentives to participate in data
collection
– Security and privacy
– Determining which users to ask to contribute to data
collection
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Other Categories of LBS

• Mobile media
– Tag and retrieve content (photos, videos, music)
based on location
• Social networking
– Get notifications when a friend is in close proximity
– See locations of friends on a map
• Location-Based Recommenders
– Obtain recommendations about interesting places,
restaurants, etc. that are near current location
– Get information about friends that have visited a
particular location before
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Number of LBS users in USA

(source: Statista 2019)

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Sample Apps: Foursquare CityGuide

• A location-aware smart search

tool that focuses on finding
nearby locations, events,
restaurants and shops

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(Wikipedia)
Sample Apps: Curbside

• An LBS app that changes the way

people shop (especially for those
who do not want to receive their
order by mail)
• The user places an order online,
the retailer or restaurant fills the
order, the customer gets an alert
that the order is ready, the retailer/restaurant gets
an alert when the customer arrives, and an
employee carries the order out to the customer
• Many stores and restaurants in the US use this
app
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Sample Apps: GasBuddy

• GasBuddy connects drivers in USA and Canada

to a database of more than 150,000 gas stations
and convenience stores, providing real-time fuel
price information, station locations and offerings,
and ratings/reviews.

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Sample Apps: Uber

• The Uber ridesharing app

allows a user to request a ride
and pay with a credit/debit
card (or cash in select cities).
• The app uses two-way LBS
technology so the driver
knows where to pick up the
user, and the user is able to
see a live view of the driver’s
location on a map.
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Sample Apps: Abu Dhabi Taxi

• A user friendly application that offers convenience to

book a taxi in Abu Dhabi & Al Ain region of UAE from
your current location, determined by the phone GPS.
• The app allows taxi tracking from the time of
confirmation until it reaches.
• It calculates fare.

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Sample Apps: CityGuard

• The CityGuard app for

mobile phones and tablets
allows the public to report
incidents and submit
complaints related to the
Abu Dhabi Emirate
directly to the
government.
• The location of the
incident is determined
from the phone’s location
service.
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Sample Apps: Pokémon Go

• Players use the app to explore their

surroundings on foot, using the
smartphone as both a map and
viewfinder in order to discover and
collect Pokémon characters. If a user
joins one of the game's three factions,
the user can battle others for control
of a location-based Pokémon Gym.

• Each place in the app is tied to real

world locations that the user has to
visit physically, encouraging players
to travel in order to collect more
characters and visit new
neighborhoods

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Challenges in LBS

• Lack of standards
– Phone manufacturers have different APIs
– Location-sensitive databases have different formats
• Positioning
– Tradeoff between power consumption and accuracy
– Lack of widely available indoor positioning solution
• Power consumption
– Sensing (including positioning) and Internet
connectivity have high power consumption
• Privacy
– Possibility to deduce sensitive personal information
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Location Privacy – Inference Attack

• An approach that aims to discover sensitive

private information from location data
– Detect patterns in location data
– Cross-correlate patterns with other data sources
• Home and workplace detection
– Place detection can be used to identify places
where person stays regularly
– Correlations with time can be used to determine
home and workplace for over 80% of individuals
– Home address detection also examined in the
context of GPS traces from drivers 29
Location Privacy – Inference Attack

1. Regulatory strategies: governmental rules on the

use of personal information.
2. Privacy policies: trust-based agreements
between individuals.
3. Anonymity: use a pseudonym or create
ambiguity by grouping people together.
4. Obfuscation: reduce the quality of location
information.

• First two are manual enforcement techniques

• Last two are computational privacy measures30
Assignment

• Give examples of four commercial location-

based services and describe briefly what they
do.
• Choose one of them and describe how it
works.
• Provide examples that were not covered in the
lecture.

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References

• Virrantaus, K., Markkula, J., Garmash, A., Terziyan, Y.V.,

2001. Developing GIS-Supported Location-Based
Services. In: Proc. of WGIS’2001 – First International
Workshop on Web Geographical Information Systems.,
Kyoto, Japan. , 423–432.
• Reichenbacher, T. (2004) Mobile Cartography-Adaptive
Visualisation of Geographic Information on Mobile
Devices. Dissertation submitted at the Institute of
Photogrammetry und Cartography, Technical University,
Munich.
• Krumm, 2007. Inference Attacks on Location Tracks. Fifth
International Conference on Pervasive Computing
(Pervasive 2007), May 13- 16, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

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