OS launches new digital map

Ordnance Survey (OS) is launching a new digital map, having already invited two hundred developers, innovators and entrepreneurs to trial some of the data in the hope that it will create fresh insights and innovative products and services.

OS OpenMap, which will be available at the end of March 2015, has been designed to work with the latest mobile and web platforms. It incorporates some of the most sophisticated mapping data in the world and can enhance a wide range of existing apps that use geospatial data.

Targeted at both commercial users and the public sector, the map provides an enhanced level of building detail, extended naming of roads and identifies sites such as hospitals and schools.

Also in the pipeline is the creation of a Geospatial Innovation Hub in London that will provide a space for OS to meet face-to-face with developers and to support the creation of new products and services. The Hub builds on OS’s experience of working with start-ups through their GeoVation programme, allowing businesses to benefit from expert OS advice.

The new facility will include:

• The release of Unique Property Reference Numbers (UPRNs), which uniquely and definitively identify every addressable location in the country
• A new Open Water Network
• A new and improved Gazetteer (the most up-to-date place names, road names, road numbers and postcodes for use in location searches for both mobile and on-line uses)