Mapping Points of Interest Through Street View Imagery and Paid Crowdsourcing

AbstractWe present the Virtual City Explorer (VCE), an online crowdsourcing platform for the collection of rich geotagged information in urban environments. Compared to other volunteered geographic information approaches, which are constrained by the number and availability of mapping enthusiasts on the ground, the VCE uses digital street imagery to allow people to virtually explore a city from anywhere in the world, using a browser or a mobile phone. In addition, contributions in VCE are designed as paid microtasks—small jobs that can be carried out without any specific knowledge of the local area or previous mapping expertise in exchange for a fee. We tested the VCE in two cities to map points of interest (PoIs) in transport and mobility, using FigureEight to recruit participants. We were able to show that our platform enables crowdworkers to submit PoI location seamlessly, cover almost all of the tested areas, and discover several PoIs not reported by other approaches. This allows the VCE to complement existing approaches that leverage experts or grassroot communities.