[OSM-newbies] GB Utilities geographical records referenced against Ordance Survey Re: Electricity Pylons

[Micah]

On Monday 31 August 2009 18:17:09 Dave F. wrote:

> I don't suppose you have a link or do you have to specifically ask for
> them?

Although this is not the answer you are looking for. 
I will point you to the website:

http://linesearch.org/

If you are doing any work especially involving a digger then you register at 
that site and do a an enquiry with location and if it is in the vicinity of 
any above or under ground plant from various operators such as National Grid 
Electric Transmission then you (and they) are alerted and one sends off details 
of works and recieves maps back.

Unfortunately all the asset details of such utilities in Great Britain are 
referenced against Ordance Survey Mastermap often transitioned from OS 
Landline and before that large scale 1:1250 or 1:500 paper OS maps. And so I 
believe OS will consider them derivitive works and unable to incorporate into 
OSM.

> What is he etiquette for asking a utility/authority departments for
> information? Would it carry more weight if one the originators of OSM
> did the deed?

All utilties will have an asset records department.
I would be curious to see what response you would get. I am guessing it would 
take a while for them to repond and maybe a be of back and forth to get any 
decent reponse if any at all. 

National Grid UK Electric Transmission's postal address is:

National Grid House 
Warwick Technology Park
Gallows Hill
Warwick 
CV34 6DA
Telephone: +44 (0) 1926 65 3000 

http://www.nationalgrid.com/corporate/About+Us/Contact+Us/departments/T.htm


Various bodies have looked at increasing ease of access to infomation on the  
location of various underground assets:
http://www.nuag.co.uk/docs/publicNUAGreportfinal.pdf 
http://www.nuag.co.uk/ 

Also see: 
http://www.mappingtheunderworld.ac.uk/ 
http://www.vistadtiproject.org/ 
http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/mtu/vista.htm

Articles covering development in recording location of underground pipes 
(different write-ups of the same project):

http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/business/sectors/utilities/docs/as-
laid-and-abandoned-gas-pipeline-surveys.pdf
http://www.pi-ukchina.org.cn/cfiles/VideoUK/CESNov2007.pdf
http://www.geoconnexion.com/uploads/easingpressure_ukv5i4.pdf
http://www.korecgroup.com/files/downloads_file-97.pdf


If there is an increased use of GPS then perhaps a sharing of raw GPS data 
could happen but I can not really see a way this would become a priority 
within the structures and flows of such large companies. And how one could 
persuade those who can affect the changes required given all other immediate 
pressures on them of just running their operations.

It seems the new commerical upstart rival to OS for large scale mapping
http://theukmap.co.uk/
won't make as much claims on derviitve works as OS. So if utilties start using 
it as an alternative they could more likely open their asset records systems 
to wider public access.
And maybe the utility data could be imported into OSM with just the utilities 
permission. It remains to be seen what effect TheUKMap as a rivial to OS will 
be but if adopted by various local authroities and organisations that collect 
data that is geo refferanced then data that is collected and refferanced against 
TheUKMap as against OS could then be released more easily.

It seems that 'a UK utility tendered for a new mapping product, with the idea 
of replacing their existing map base within their asset management system. 
This was for a large area - tens of thousands of square kilometres of urban 
and rural England. The level of mapping detail required was consistent with
what they already had for their urban areas but included more detail in the 
countryside. They also wanted a range of features not available on the 
standard products. In the end the project did not proceed, due in no small 
part to the business risk the utility would be facing if they embarked on
creating a new mapping base from scratch. '
Page 6-7:
http://theukmap.co.uk/resources/magazine/2009.pdf

In order to make a dent in the commercial market for large scale mapping 
dominated by OS TheUKMap need to differentiate itself as much as possible and 
the enabling of it's customers to release data they collect after adopting it 
to share with OSM and others would be one of those point that would bring good 
will to it and encourage it's adoption.

As moment Geospatial Vision Ltd.are recording various bits of street furnature 
such as lamposts refferanced against OS Mastermap for various local authorities 
but maybe the local would release this data to us if they used TheUkMap.

I hope I have understood the licensing the TheUKMap will use but seems that 
anything that does not follow exactly the features they have in the map can be 
shared.

"The big difference with UKMap is the right granted to the licensed user to own 
any derived data they create using UKMap as a base or reference. To qualify as 
derived data the features cannot already be part of UKMap and features must 
not be a duplicate in whole or part of any UKMap feature. For example a 
boundary around an area to define an accident hotspot would be classed as 
derived data, but a selection of the centre points of all the houses within 
that boundary would not"

from: http://www.theukmap.co.uk/resources/faq/


regards,

Micah

I have cc:ed this to talk-gb and prob best for any follow thread on the 
developments I mention above to be on there rather than newbies list.


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