Ordnance Survey (OS) is releasing a new series of mapping data products on the first anniversary of the launch of its OS National Geographic Database (NGD).
The NGD is a single store of authoritative Great British geographic data and which OS frames as its biggest step change in access to its data in a generation.
New upgrades include a range of extensions that emergency services and councils can immediately benefit from. They will deliver greater accuracy and details to buildings and transport features, and so should also benefit the land and property sector, utility providers, logistic and routing services, and key government areas such as active travel.
Coverage of Great Britain’s Path network now includes data for the whole of England, Scotland and Wales. Previously, only urban areas were captured, but 10 million new path features have been added, an increase of almost 35%. This extra data allows further analysis on undertaking how pedestrians complete routes using road and path; and supports Active Travel policies, improvements to public health and projects to encourage walking, says the body. Pavement widths and their presence along roads are also included for the first time, benefitting analysis relating to those using mobility scooters, wheelchairs or pushchairs and enabling councils to support key citizen services eg, pavement maintenance.
And in the first of its kind to be released by OS, there is a new generalised rail network for Great Britain widget that will allow customers to understand how well-connected areas are in relation to rail, the transportation of goods and improving emergency services’ situational awareness when attending emergencies on the rail network.
On the buildings side, a new building geometry representing a building’s footprint, making it easier to select and analyse individual properties, is available. Building use (eg, if it’s commercial or retail), connectivity to other buildings, identifying a primary building within a site and providing the number of addresses which reside in a building are also now included. These enhancements will also help emergency services with preparedness activities, says OS, as well as response. It will also provide vital data to input into risk models for insurance underwriting and enable local authorities to analyse and investigate their building stock more quickly.
OS says the NGD now has half a billion geographical features, and that 20,000 updates are submitted every day. More than 308 million product updates to the OS NGD have also been made since its launch, and it has recorded over 1.4 million transactions on the OS NGD Features API. Bespoke packages can be downloaded using OS Select+Build and OS NGD APIs; since launch, over 390 organisations have used OS Select+Build so far, says the organisation.
Commenting on the extensions, John Kimmance, managing director of OS National Mapping Services, said: “This latest data release is yet another demonstration of the value of OS as the country’s national mapping service, providing incredibly detailed and accurate layers of geospatial data. This new information will enable our customers to deliver improved public and commercial services and support the promotion of healthy, sustainable and connected communities.
“We work in strong collaboration with our customers, identifying how accurate, trusted location data can help tackle the challenges they are facing, both at a national and local level [so] I am looking forward to seeing how these datasets will ultimately help people see a better place."
The release of the new data hits a major delivery commitment under the Public Sector Geospatial Agreement (PSGA), which provides public sector organisations with trusted location data for free.
