University Campus Navigation for All: Wayfinding at UBC

Navigating around the 1000 acres of UBC Vancouver’s campus may look like a walk in a park, but when you’re a student in a wheelchair trying to find a powered door to the class you’re late for, it is not all that scenic. UBC’s GIS team will share the journey from the original 2003 static map application to the current web application built using FME and the ArcGIS JavaScript API. There were two main goals with this new application: 1. Enable the UBC community to easily interact with and navigate the campus by walking, cycling and accessible means (which include mobility constraints such as steep slopes, stairs, and doors that are not powered). 2. Provide high quality geospatial data that is authoritative and updated using FME to reflect existing conditions on campus including road, sidewalk or building closures for construction. We will cover the unique challenges in creating a navigation application which offers features that Google Maps cannot at the scale of a University campus. Door to door navigation, avoiding stairs and steep slopes, navigating to accessible entrances and up to date construction barriers are some of the features we will discuss.