A new platform allows users to see how construction and other work is affecting travel in cities.

It’s called dotMaps, and as its name implies, it’s essentially a map, albeit one with dots indicating a wide range of development work, including everything from minor streetlight repairs to the construction of a major high-rise development project. The aim of the platform is to help residents, visitors, business-owners and anyone else occupying urban spaces to stay informed about mobility around them. To this end, users can draw a boundary around an area displayed on dotMaps — maybe it’s their neighborhood or perhaps their workplace — and zero-in on what projects are happening, getting notifications outlining construction work as it stops, starts or otherwise changes mobility.

The project that would become dotMaps was started in 2017, intended in the early stages to be used internally by public servants and city officials in Seattle. Seattle created dotMaps with the help of SADA Systems, a technology consulting services company, with the goal of giving various city departments and agencies a better means of coordinating the flurry of communications related to building developments, as well as info about how those projects impact the public space. City officials estimate that they have saved some $18 million since introducing dotMaps through improved coordination across agencies.

Keep reading in Government Technology