By incorporating location intelligence into urban planning, it becomes possible to develop infrastructure adapted to the needs of citizens, enhancing living conditions in any given city. In addition, spatial data helps to optimize costs and prioritize government administration projects.
What does location intelligence provide to urban planning?
Heat maps are used by any business sector to identify foot traffic and vehicular mobility patterns in an area or point of interest, as their visualization presents multiple pieces of data in a way that makes immediate sense.
Heat maps can be used to identify foot traffic patterns from a country-level scale to a more detailed level such as the infrastructure of a store or building.
Location intelligence is revolutionizing the way companies establish, operate and expand their business.
From deciding where to locate a new store to analyzing foot traffic to gauge market competition, the use of location data is growing.
One of the key components of location intelligence is data related to points of interest (POIs). POIs indicate a specific location in an area of interest to businesses: it can be a store, a hospital, a university, or a corporate building, among others, depending on the information required for the particular target, helping companies make faster, more informed and cost-effective decisions.
Construction has been announced of a logistics training center in the Panama Pacifico Special Economic Area, with an investment of $9 million.
From a statement issued by the Government of the Republic of Panama:
Panama will have an International Logistics Training Center
The training should begin between September and October this year, which will help improve the quality of life of the many Panamanians who will participate in them.
A bill put forward by the Executive extends the benefit of the Colon Free Zone to the streets of the city, and another supports the implementation of the Special System of Freeports in the province.
From a statement issued by the Government of the Republic of Panama:
An investment of $600 million has been announced, in 22 projects in the province of Colon.
The Panama Maritime Authority (AMP) has selected the company Nathan Associates to develop, within three months, a business model to develop the port.
The project will include analysis and identification of the potential to attract investors to the market.
According to Prensa.com, "... this development plan ... seeks to identify viable options for creating business opportunities and alternatives for intermodal transport and logistics systems ...
Lack of clear leadership, internal chaos in the main political parties and parliamentary fragmentation are threatening Costa Rica's business climate.
Contradictory statements over the legal certainty of the project for a mega container port in Moin ($1 billion), made by the very probable next president of Costa Rica, Luis Guillermo Solis, and the founder of his party (Citizen Action) and deputy chief of the legislative group, Otton Solis have generated understandable alarm in the business community.
With an investment of $460 million, the Van Oord-BAM consortium will be responsible for the construction of the container terminal in Limon, Costa Rica.
In a press release, APM Terminals, the global concessionaire of the project, reported that the new terminal will handle 80% of maritime trade in Costa Rica, and will generate 400 new direct jobs and 5,000 indirect jobs.
CEPA has announced that its master plan for the renovation and modernization of the El Salvador International Airport will be ready in November.
According to Alberto Arene, president of the Comisión Ejecutiva Portuaria Autónoma (CEPA), the plan aims to leverage more non-airport operations and will be executed next year.
The construction and operation for 20 years of a container port in Isla Margarita, in Panama, is governed by a detailed concession agreement.
"... The ambitious port project will have three docks and will be located in an exclusive area of Colon, where it will compete with the terminals currently in operation in the Atlantic: Cristobal, Colon Container Terminal and Manzanillo International Terminal. "
In eight countries where Xinwei, the company awarded a contract for the construction of the canal, claims to have operations, nobody is aware of its existence.
A report prepared by the Associated Press also notes that in other countries large telecommunications investments were promised by the company but there have been long delays in their execution, including Nicaragua.
An announcement has been made for the construction of multipurpose docks in the Port of Balboa on the Pacific, and in the Port of Cristobal on the Atlantic.
The Panamanian auxiliary marine industry lacked the space required for its activity, which has been an obstacle to its growth, especially when taking into account the increase in maritime activity in the Canal Zone, once the expansion has been completed.
Without disclosing details on how the feasibility study will be financed, the government has announced an agreement with the construction company China Harbour to develop a dry inter-oceanic canal.
From a statement from the Presidency of Honduras:
The Government of President Pepe Lobo is preparing Amemorandum of understanding in order to build an Interoceanic Railway.
The Port of Quetzal is putting out to tender the construction of import and export warehouses at the site of the port.
The purpose of the project is the need to modernize the port due to annual growth and the need to provide better care to optimize the service, and bring adequate control in the supply and cost of the service in EPQ.
The deadline for submission of proposals is July 18, 2013.
A new wind farm and the expansion of the International Airport of El Salvador, are the first two projects to be conducted under this system.
"Today (yesterday) I called a meeting with the president of CEPA (Autonomous Executive Port Commission) and CEL (Executive Hydroelectric Commission of the Lempa River) to immediately structure the first two projects: the expansion of the international airport and the wind project which the CEL is working with," said Alexander Segovia, Technical Secretary of the Presidency.