Air Traffic Map

This map displays aircraft distribution on a big scale as well as filters them by the country flag.

Inspiration

Have you ever wondered what the global air transportation system looks like? As for myself, I always wanted to see aircraft locations, their density over the countries or their routes through the Atlantic. So this curiosity eventually pushed me towards the creation of this project.

What it does

Air Traffic Map shows aircraft in the format of a so-called heatmap layer, so users can see the busiest air routes or the large hubs all over the world. A drop-down list gives you the possibility to filter planes by their country and the graph below helps you to see real-time aircraft distribution by the flag.

How I built it

The project is built using javascript as a programming language, Google Maps Platform for visualising data as well as map styling, and AirLabs API to obtain plane coordinates.

Challenges I ran into

While working on this project I had a few challenges which were successfully solved. One of them was sorting planes by their flag (combining the "UK" and "Great Britain" aircraft into one category as it was slightly messed up in the API response).

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

• Creating the picture that was in my head
• Making it till the end
• Learning a new tool from scratch (Google Maps Platform)

What I learned

• Map styling and data visualisation using the HeatmapLayer on Google Maps Platform
• Adapting charts for all types of displays
• Participating in the hackathon
• I also improved my js skills as I'm new to it.

What's next for Air Traffic Map

• Push version 1.0 on the GitHub
• Add more statistics data, visualised by responsive charts
• Visualise large airports and their real-time busyness on the same map