Memorandum submitted by Ordnance Survey
(ST 18)
BACKGROUND
1. Ordnance Survey is Britain's national
mapping organisation. We maintain the definitive geographical
framework for Great Britain, as well as capturing and marketing
a wide range of geographical information. Our Director General
is the United Kingdom Government's official adviser on geographical
information. Ordnance Survey is a Government department and executive
agency, and since 1999 has operated as a trading fund.
GENERAL EVIDENCE
2. Ordnance Survey surveys and collects
data on roads, buildings, addresses, boundaries, water courses,
height and many other aspects of the landscape of Britain. Although
traditionally supplied to the user as paper maps, this data is
now more usually supplied as digital information which can be
readily analysed, manipulated and linked to other information.
This huge digital database of the surface of Britain is known
as OS MasterMap®. It is kept up to date on a daily basis with
up to 5,000 changes being added to the database each day. It forms
a valuable resource for government in this country underpinning
£100 billion of economic activity (1999 figures).
3. We have agreements in place with both
local and central government for the supply of our products to
support their activities. Government is a major user of geographic
information for policy-making, planning, operations, monitoring
and analysis. The geographic perspective and the ability to cross
refer data on a geographic basis add considerable value to the
business of government.
EVIDENCE RELATED
TO SCHOOL
TRANSPORT
4. The draft School Transport Bill and the
Prospectus for School Travel Schemes make reference to a number
of areas in which geographic information can assist in the planning
a delivery of better school transport. The first of these relates
to the planning and routing of new bus routes and other transport
methods including walking and cycling. To ensure the safety and
suitability for all transport to school, routing decisions should
be made using location based information gleaned from intelligent
and current geographic data. For this an integrated set of data
is required which could include all of these potential routes.
In response to user demand Ordnance Survey is produces an Integrated
Transport NetworkTM (ITN) as a key part of the OS MasterMap of
Britain. Currently this includes the road network with all road
routing information such as height restrictions, one way streets
etc. Unique identifiers known as TOID®s are associated with
each link and node in the network. These provide a reference which
will allow various organisations to attach their own data and
be sure when they are communicating with each other that they
are both referring to the same piece of road. Future plans for
the Network in include the addition of tracks and pathways. There
is currently a pilot of ITN being produced for London (M25 area)
which includes tracks and paths, and cycleways where they coincide
with paths. This pilot will be reviewed and, subject to the business
case being successful, will be rolled out nationally. This will
further enhance the value the data can add to school transport
planning and also, of course. It will also allow further joining
up of government initiatives such as traffic management under
the proposed Traffic Management Bill. We have been working closely
with the Department for Transport on determining the road data
necessary to underpin activity coming from both Bills.
5. It is clearly the desire of Departments
for Education and Skills and for Transport that LEAs use modern
technology to plan school routes, identify where people live,
and assess pupils' travel patterns, as mentioned specifically
in the Prospectus. This will be facilitated by the fact that all
local government already has access to a consistent set of road
data under existing supply arrangements with ourselves. We hope
that this will continue to be the case after the existing arrangement
ends at the end of March this year.
6. The use of a consistent road data set,
linked to other datasets, such as existing pupil lists or census
data on age local profiles, will allow a variety of scenarios
to be considered. The impact on school transport of a particular
scheme can be assessed more easily, and compared with other schemes.
7. Our involvement in the Safe Routes to
School initiative has provided an opportunity to ensure that the
requirements of those involved in school route planning, including
Walking Bus schemes, have been fed into the specification for
the future layers of the Integrated Transport Network.
8. The Prospectus for School Travel Schemes
makes mention of the input school children themselves can have
to planning their school transport. Ordnance Survey has supported
the use of geographic information in education for many years
through a variety of means including support to geography teachers,
and our education website called MapZone. In recent years our
support has included the provision of a local map to every 11
year old under the Free Maps for 11 year olds Scheme, which will
be continued next year. This introduces children of this age to
their environment through mapping. An extension to this could
easily be the use of their maps to plan their routes to school.
March 2004
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