The Interactive Papal Map App was developed to assist residents and visitors to Philadelphia navigate within the city during the 2015 visit by Pope Francis to the World Meeting of Families, September 26 & 27. Our goal was to create a mobile app that would provide real-time data, on demand, about transportation options, street closures, parking availability, restrooms nearby, charge-up spots, bike share locations, and open or closed businesses in the area. This information changed rapidly during the two-day event.
It was created through a collaboration between the Comcast Local Media Development department, NBC OTS Digital and NBC10. The app used EveryBlock technology to power a live, interactive map for the event. It was available to anyone through a free download of NBC10's mobile app and also on the NBC10.com website. The Interactive Papal Map App was the most comprehensive information resource on the pope's visit, with live updates about all the papal events and affected services happening around the city.
The EveryBlock Map presents up-to-the-minute happenings such as news, service information and related media based on the user's current location. This technology powered the Interactive Papal Map App, a customized application designed for use during the Pope's visit to Philadelphia. It allowed users to stay on top of all of the rapidly changing activity happening around them, such as public transportation options, street access, parking lot availability, restrooms, charge-up spots, bike share locations, and open or closed stores in the area, by selecting drop-down topics of information to display in a city map.
Described as a "digital public transit system" by NBC10, data was continuously uploaded to the app both by automated feeds as well as by news reporters, event organizers, businesses and special roving street teams contributing on-the-ground live observations, photos and video.
The application is designed so that it can be customized to use for any type of community event.
During the two-day Papal visit, the Interactive Papal Map App generated nearly 13,000 visitors with each staying over one minute. The supporting Comcast LMD platform that connected to the map and fed content into it generated nearly 68,000 visitors and a social reach of approximately 40,000 people.
