Geospatial data preprocessing and visualization for the logistics industry

Abstract

Big Data Analytics is considered to be the key disruptive technology of the decade, and is revolutionizing the industries like never before with its ubiquitous applicability. Though the term “Big Data” gained more traction since 2011 after the McKinsey Report [1], some business models have been generating huge volumes of data for several decades. Some prominent examples include the Government [2] and Private [3] Meteorological Departments forecasting weather on the basis of Satellite Imagery [4] and the Logistics industry working with Geospatial Data [5]. There has been a significant boost to the efficiency of operations and the accuracy of results in both sectors after the advent of Big Data Analytics.

This paper examined the Geolocation Data provided by Google based on the Location Service API [6], and suggested different ways to preprocess and visualize the data for a business analysis later. The data had been taken from the operational fleet of a leading logistics service provider in India and a small subset has been analyzed to assess the suitability of the application of this paper in a general purpose manner. This study is a part of research[7] on applications of IoT and Big Data Analytics in the supply chain management being conducted by the authors, but can be used independently in other applications as well.

Subject Classification:

• 05C85

Keywords:

• Geospatial Big Data
• Google Location API
• Logistics Services
• Visualization