• The Department of Transportation for both the State of Texas and the State of Ohio are among the latest entities to build on top of Microsoft's Virtual Earth platform. Both agencies provide easy to use web sites that enable citizens to find the latest traffic information, accident details, and even see traffic cameras. Texas has used the Virtual Earth platform to develop a range of traffic and citizen information services statewide in addition to developing Virtual Earth powered portals for cities including Houston, and El Paso and has San Antonio coming online in the next few weeks, among others.

• The first of many planned citizen facing portals, Texas DOT recently launched the El Paso Intelligent Transportation Site, TransVista. TransVista allows residents to see live traffic camera views, road-way communication signs, and traffic incident data in two and three dimension views. Users can toggle between traffic hazards and incident data that comes directly from the El Paso Police Department as well as control information displayed through an integrated, easy to use panel on the left side of the screen.

• Just weeks after El Paso launched its Virtual Earth application for visualizing travel conditions in its region, the Houston TranStar consortium—a partnership between the Texas Department of Transportation, Harris County, the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, and the City of Houston—launched its Houston TranStar Traffic Map.

• The TranStar site allows travelers to check on traffic flow, incidents, lane closures, and it provides traffic-camera views and the ability to inspect road-sign messages. All this data is layered on the Virtual Earth platform, along with appealing maps and rich aerial imagery provides an easy to use web-service delivery model. As with all Virtual Earth based applications, users only need an Internet-enabled computer with a browser to access the information and do not need to install a desktop application. Both Texas sites are Virtual Earth 3D enabled, which includes comprehensive 3D city models.

• The Ohio site "Buckeye Traffic" provides travelers with similar up-to-date information on road conditions, traffic, construction, and other activity affecting roadways managed by The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT). Information updated through sources such as pavement sensors, monitoring stations, traffic cameras and through direct input by ODOT personnel.

• In the Puget Sound region of Washington State, the eCityGov Alliance, a regional inter-local agency that provides online access to services such as permitting, public building information and recreation resources, used Microsoft^® Virtual Earth™ to build an application where users can search, locate, and visualize regional parks and recreational resources. With Virtual Earth, eCityGov delivered a rich user experience, reduced the staff time and cost of implementation, and freed limited tech nology resources to focus on higher-value tasks.

• In March Miami released a site which utilizes the .Net spatial application development platform to integrate the City's GIS data with the Virtual Earth interactive maps. The enhanced MiamiGov site now allows city personnel and constituents to visualize and gain better understanding of community information in the areas of zoning and property, public safety and response, and urban planning. The site takes advantage of Microsoft's photorealistic, geospecific and highly accurate Miami City 3D model to provide first responders with unobstructed views of emergency sites before arriving on scene, and citizens and visitors with the ability to explore the City virtually before leaving their homes or hotel rooms.

• In addition to providing the necessary traffic advisory services that come from real-time data layered on the Virtual Earth platform, governments from Miami to Seattle are offering enhanced solutions that connect public servants and citizens alike to regional data at their fingertips. The City of Miami, Florida chose Virtual Earth mapping software to develop online applications that provide enhanced public safety response, urban planning, and tourism services. The new software helps fire personnel to respond more quickly to emergencies, urban planners to study the impact of new construction, and the public to get the most out of city services. The site takes advantage of Microsoft's photorealistic, geospecific and highly accurate Miami City 3D model to provide first responders with unobstructed views of emergency sites before arriving on scene, and citizens and visitors with the ability to explore the City virtually before leaving their homes or hotel rooms.

• Earlier this year, MTA New York City Transit (NYCTA), which has a combined bus and subway ridership of 7.5 million riders, announced that it released a version of its Trip Planner online travel itinerary service featuring Virtual Earth maps. The service, which allows visitors and residents to get walking directions for their travel itinerary within the City, provides a rich 2D and 3D visualization experience. On the site, New York residents and visitors can plan routes and set preferences such as what time to leave or the desired time of arrival, desired distance, and available subway, bus or express bus alternatives along the route. In April, the site received 8,359 unique visitors on an average weekday and 6,691 on an average weekend day. Those figures are up 208% and 235% respectively over the same month last year.

Microsoft Virtual Earth Video