Location-based data provider Maponics has released Maponics School Boundaries, a commercial GIS data product to include "explicit" attendance zone boundaries, the areas around public schools that define the households that attend them.
The practical application of this is in online real estate. "With their school boundaries product, Maponics is providing the means for parents to quickly and easily see public school options relative to property locations," said Andy Woolley, vice president at eNeighborhoods - compiler of real estate related home and neighborhood information, providing real estate and related industries with a comprehensive set of marketing and analytical tools. "This addresses a fundamental need in real estate search and we are actively looking at how we'd incorporate the school boundary data into our advanced real estate search to offer a better user experience."
Maponics has established relationships with local school districts throughout the country to obtain the information. The first product release includes school attendance zone-level coverage 20 percent of the K-12 U.S. student population and 100 percent at the school district level. Maponics expets a 20 percent increase in student population coverage per quarter.