[OSM-talk] How much would it cost to map a given area?

[Stephen Coast]

On 10 Dec 2007, at 15:47, Tom Chance wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I'm trying to get some data from a London Borough council for work and
> I've sent off a Freedom of Information request from my own to add to  
> the
> wiki page tracking map charges in the UK:
>
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Map_Charges/GB
>
> Looking at this page got me thinking...
>
> If Reigate & Banstead spend about £15k per year for 127k people, and
> other councils are doing something similar, how competitive is that?
>
> If a council were to pay a company to go out and verify & complete the
> same area in OSM, how much would that cost? Would the council's own
> departments be in a position to keep it up to date, i.e. changes  
> roads,
> allotments, public buildings and other things they're involved with?

A lot more, because a) they get master map and b) it's legacy data  
rather than having to go out and collect it all.

> If all the councils in the UK clubbed together, could they bring the
> costs down by much, and could they jointly invest in free software to
> get more value out of the data?

That was tried with NJUG I think.... you don't get fired for buying IBM

If you want to do this, you want to raise 5-15 million in investment  
and a) buy all the aerial imagery in the UK and b) somehow vectorise  
and name it all.


>
>
> Thoughts on the back of a napkin.
>
> Tom
>
>
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