Public Information Exchange

PIE Guide History

History of PIE

PIE (Public Information Exchange) was founded in 2004 to publish the first motorbike parking map of central London as riders needed a comprehensive high quality map. This involved pulling together all local authority information and relevant private sector content, accurately positioning all the information on the map and making sure the map looked right and worked for the user. This involved many early mornings surveying the streets of London before the kids got up. We were sponsored by Piaggio, an industry leader, and sold out the first 10,000 copies within months.

From here our publishing brand ‘The PIE Guide’ was born as well as the business model. PIE was now ready and open for the geospatial mapping business opportunities.
 

Since our first data collection and PIE Guide publication we have focused on delivery of data and mapping services around the disabled community and the freight industry. Our PIE guides have been sponsored and supported by leading names that include: Highways Agency, VW, Mercedes Benz Trucks, DirectGov, TfL, RHA, FTA & London Councils.

We now survey and collect on-street parking and transport related information across the UK. We collect data from over 470 unitary and local authorities across the UK. We operate and fully manage the essential mapping and route information for London Council – London Lorry Control Scheme and now provide the DfT approved Disabled Parking Guide for London.

PIE has evolved a strong technical digital online mapping development capability. We have an established GIS team for all online sites and parking related content.

We have a bespoke interactive mapping platform and the ability to create customised maps and content overlay. We created the Complete Directions venue mapping application which delivers map and user specific journey planning for sites that includes; Earl’s Court, Olympia and Lords Cricket Ground.

We are the providers of the online mapping service to the Government (Directgov), this is UK wide specifically for geospatial disability content www.direct.gov.uk/bluebadgemap). This is also customised for mobile phone usage.

Other bespoke mapping applications include local authority freight mapping. Further information can be found in news and features section of the website.

With the growing need for geo spatial data and the many applications to deliver maps to end users, PIE works with many partners to condition and groom our data that is then licensed for these many applications. For example, our data is provided to Yell.com for their online mapping portal as well as for Yell.com mobile service. Recent applications include our data being used on Pro Nav (freight specific sat nav) as innovatively for the BBNav, a dedicated Sat Nav for the disabled community. Our values in the work we do is to provide excellent data quality, be experts in our data areas and providing the most comprehensive data.