Councils input into new highways blueprint for Britain

OS MasterMap® Highways Network is designed to support planning and to help professionals make informed decisions about asset management and route planning. The map was launched at the Highways UK 2016 conference by the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Transport Andrew Jones MP.

The detail rich product is the result of a £3m investment by The Department for Transport (DFT), made in 2014, for OS to develop road and transport information using data from authoritative sources and trusted partners. One of the overall aims is to ensure traffic in Britain keeps moving efficiently and safely.

GeoPlace together with all 174 highways authorities across England and Wales have been working in partnership with Ordnance Survey and the Department of Transport to create and maintain OS MM Highways Network with data from all sectors of the highway authority community; local, regional and national. This includes authoritative information from the National Street Gazetteer (NSG) and Trunk Road Street Gazetteer (TRSG) for streets in England and Wales. The data is used by authorities to coordinate and manage all road works they carry out, alongside Street works carried out by statutory undertaker.

Richard Mason, Managing Director for GeoPlace said: “The new highways dataset is a true blueprint for Britain’s road network, created by bringing authoritative data from local highways authorities together with expertise from Britain’s mapping agency, Ordnance Survey. Current, authoritative and unambiguous information about the street network is fundamental to all aspects of everyday life. This new detail rich product from OS will help improve planning and maintenance, and ensure traffic in Britain keeps moving efficiently and safely. I am delighted that GeoPlace has been able to play such a key role in its development.”

OS MasterMap® Highways Network contains the Unique Street Reference Number (USRN), street name, road number and maintenance responsibility, ESU (Elementary Street Unit) as well as additional street data and several other features provided by every local highway authority via the NSG.

David Henderson, Director of Products and Innovation, Ordnance Survey said; “By tapping into GeoPlace’s unique relationship with every local authority in England and Wales, and the wider highway management community, we were delighted to partner with GeoPlace in our product development. Benefitting from years of knowledge and experience, the GeoPlace team helped us save crucial time in the understanding, formation and the development of the workflow that sits behind our production processes. Furthermore, we have established a collaborative production environment that can be built upon in the future.

The team at GeoPlace worked closely with us to assist in the development of data requirements, the data specification, and the long term product roadmap. Their collaborative approach and support throughout the life cycle of the project, coupled with their industry knowledge and expertise of the community has been instrumental to ensuring the future success of the product.”

www.geoplace.co.uk