We have two waypoints:

• Carlos Celdran Booking office (with phone numbers on the favorites)
• Carlos Celdran Parking (this is for the intramuros tour)

Every Filipino should get to experience this.  It is an eye opener considering what we were taught at school.

Tour Highlights

• Spanish, Chinese, Japanese and American influences
• What culture?
• Chocnut
• Why there were no Spanish women in the Philippines during the Spanish era
• Father Damaso, the R.H. bill and the impact on the tour
• World War 2 Bombs

Filed: Map Release 1.11

Choosing a brand for GPS Navigation

Garmin is still the best brand out there, simply because there is an open source community for maps, if you can’t afford commercial ones or simply do not want to pay for it.

It has proven to be tough even in warmer climates like the Philippines.  There are cheap models you can get from Amazon, ebay or Walmart. Just get the balikbayan relatives or friends to ship it to you.  Better yet, get them from the local malls.

Paperless Trail Inc., a Philippines based system integrator/application developer specializing in digital mapping, GIS applications and document imaging, has developed detailed and GPS-accurate maps of the Philippines that include all the major roads, landmarks, and many other points of interest (POI) that will help to guide you when you commute or drive through Manila, Davao, Pampanga, or any other part of the country you find yourself in.

Paperless Trail Garmin Compatible Philippine GPS maps features 10,000 points of interest and free map upgrades for  12 months.

Perspective GIS and Perspective Mobile are products of Paperless Trail Inc.

In coming up with this protocol, we had to consider a number of issues, like not having specific house numbers; inconsistent conventions; poorly sourced conventional wisdom ; living in the provinces and generally not knowing your own barangay or postal code and let us not forget to add “not having visible street signs”.

So for lack any government guidance here it is.

Protocol

<Addressee>
<Unit No> < Building Name>  or  <Lot No / Block No>
<House No> <Street Name>
<Village/Subdivision>  or  <Postal Code Name>  or  <Purok Name>
<Barangay Name> < Postal Code> <City/Municipality Name>
<Province>, <Country>

The protocol starts in reverse order with the largest parcel which is the country, followed by smaller parcels city, municipality and so on, In effect drilling down to a specific location.

Some Examples

The Odd Balls
<Purok>
No one quite knows whether this is a political block or a geographical block? But it seems in the provinces purok is a way to find a person’s location.

<Postal Code Name>
The Philippine postal office attaches description(s) or name(s) to a postal code.

The conventions are confusing, it is not a barangay.  It does seem to be a village name (e.g. Merville, Greenhills) or a popular locality name (e.g. Binondo, Malate) when in metro manila, and it takes the municipality name when outside of Metro Manila.

This might be because of population size considerations however it causes location finding issues when used for large municipalities such as Davao City which carries a single postal code of 8000.  It may be that the postal office is extremely slow to react (similar to their mail services) to population changes, hence Davao with a population of more than a million is still a single postal code.

<Lot No / Block No>
This is the most annoying of all, we cannot route to a location with this information!  It is impossible to do with Navigation Software.  If we understand this correctly, this identifier is meant to be used by property developers to sell lots.

Process Ownership

If anyone from the Philippine Government reads this kindly send us an email and tell us who is supposed to be responsible for assigning addresses and postal codes?

We might even help you do this pro-bono.

Perspective GIS and Perspective Mobile are products of Paperless Trail Inc.

Paperless Trail Inc (PTI) is a Philippine based system integrator and applications developer specializing in fields such as digital mapping, GIS/GPS applications, document management and document imaging.

Recently policemen had arrested four men for hijacking delivery vehicles carrying Colgate toothpaste and Palmolive shampoo products. They were tracked down through the Global Positioning System (GPS) tracker installed on the hijacked vehicles. Read full article

The Philippine Police force made use of the same GPS device, technology and service that Paperless Trail Inc. (PTI) provides today.

PTI’s Perspective Mobile Asset Tracker is a GPS based vehicle tracking and monitoring solution that gives you the ability to monitor and track the status of your vehicle and your personnel (drivers) wherever they are and whenever you want.

Asset Tracker allows fleet management staff to monitor vehicle statuses:

• Is the engine on/off?
• Is the vehicle idling?
• What is the speed of the vehicle?
• Fuel levels
• Current location
• Are the vehicle doors open/closed?

Get regular and timely status updates of your vehicle location, its whereabouts, and if it’s being used. With Perspective Mobile Asset Tracker, you are able to optimize vehicle use, reduce fuel and maintenance costs, and optimize fleet management.

Protect your property and your livelihood from vehicle theft, kidnapping and other crimes.

Get more information about Asset Tracker.

Paperless Trail Inc is a Philippines based system integrator/application developer specializing in digital mapping, GIS/GPS applications, document management, and document imaging.

The WGS 84 mapping projection is perfect for professionals who are tasked to develop GIS base maps for their municipalities and local government unit (LGU).

Top Benefits of the WGS 84

1. Consistency of data – means you’ll never have to convert GIS files again!

Consider this situation as an example;

As a GIS analyst for the municipality of Carmen, Davao Del Norte which is bordered by Tagum City, Davao Del Norte.   You develop your own base maps for streets and other layers.

At a later date, both municipalities want to share base maps and the Tagum City GIS operators used a different projection.  This means your GIS files will not match.

You would have to go through a series of conversions and if you are extremely lucky, you might be able to reference and stitch the maps together.

Unfortunately this situation is currently prevalent with the Local Government Units (LGU’s) of the Philippines.

Find out more about GIS (Geographic Information System)

2. Equipment Compatibility

WGS 84 is the standard being used by commercially available GPS equipment in the Philippines.

If you want to capture points of interests (POI’s) for your municipality such business establishments or maybe tax mapping objects, you can simply purchase an off-the-shelf GPS device and device’s output would fit WGS 84 base maps.

3. Sharing Your Municipality’s Data with the World

Other stakeholders might have a need for your municipal data.  With WGS 84, sharing data is as easy as sending the file.

The most common one would be tourism based stakeholders, some websites offer free searches of POI data for hotels, malls, restaurants and resorts.  If you have WGS 84 data you can share your municipality’s offerings to the world.

Email us to find out how Paperless Trail Inc can help you business increase efficiency and profitability through Location Intelligence.

Addressing Information

• No visible signs – Most properties do not have their numbers clearly displayed from the street.  We are truly amazed at how delivery services find customers.
• Chaos in numbering – Some streets have jumping numbers 2, 4, 6, 10, 8.
• Invalid Addresses – Some subdivisions use Block 1, Lot 10 as an address.  This cannot be routed.
• No Authority – Who is supposed to regulate or issue addresses?

Gated Villages

This was one of the most expensive and time consuming exercise in developing the routable map.  We can only speak for Garmin Devices, but there is no support for gated villages.

If a driver was coming from Chino Roces and wants to go to Glorietta, the navigation software would route you through San Lorenzo Village, which of course requires a car sticker.  Although we have fixed this issue, it still is a challenge.

Constant Changes

Street Names and Street Names

What a nightmare! Street names seem to change along with our government administrations! And not only that, the locals never refer to streets with their new names!

Notwithstanding the fact that there are thousands of Jose Rizal’s, C.M. Recto’s and General Luna’s which makes things all the more complicated.

Street Rules

What is it with U-Turns, No Lefts and One-ways in this country? It changes faster than they could change the signs.

PTI GIS Development Team

**Garmin is a registered trademark of Garmin International, Inc. All other marks are property of their respective owners.