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* Ordnance Survey
SpatialNews.com Press Release

Smart numbers add up to free deal for data customers - Unique building codes herald dawn of digital map revolution


National mapping agency Ordnance Survey is offering its data customers a free taste of the future with the launch of a digital index of all Britain's 40 million buildings.

The Ordnance Survey National Buildings Dataset (NBDS) is trailblazing a host of benefits for emergency services, housing associations, utilities, insurers, and property management firms.

Every building, even those without a postal address, has been given a unique 16-digit code known as a topographic identifier (TOID). Customers can use these as digital 'hooks' on which to 'hang' and associate whatever information they want.

"TOIDs are expected to open up unprecedented opportunities in the accuracy and ease of data exchange between organisations, both public and private," says Vanessa Lawrence, Ordnance Survey's Director-General and Chief Executive. "They will help create intelligent databases for use in planning, management, marketing and related services."

The NBDS, unveiled on the eve of the prestigious GIS 2000 exhibition at London's Earls Court, is the first dataset directly linked to Ordnance Survey's new object-based reference framework, the Digital National Framework (DNF), currently under development. In time, the DNF will extend the use of TOIDs from buildings to all mapping features, including individual fields, areas of road, and even garden plots.

A year's free trial of the NBDS is being offered to customers of large-scale Land-Line data and ADDRESS-POINT, allowing them a head start in preparing systems for the type of future products and services that will be available from Ordnance Survey under the DNF. Updates highlighting changes to the dataset will be available on a quarterly basis.

Around 15 million buildings in Britain do not have specific postal addresses. They include electricity sub-stations, rural barns, sports ground changing facilities, public toilets, industrial buildings which are part of a larger complex, gas and oil holders, and non-residential windmills or lighthouses.

TOIDs will dramatically ease the task of managing them, says Ms Lawrence. "While their positions can be pinpointed accurately on maps using the National Grid or co-ordinates from the satellite-based Global Positioning System, extra computer information cannot easily be attached to existing mapping data.

"Private sector companies and public bodies are increasingly using computer-based geographical information systems to integrate and analyse data from many sources, so the enhanced flexibility provided by giving unique identifiers to every building - and later to every piece of land - is likely to provide a major boost to such work."

TOIDs within the NBDS can be used for any building-related application, including statistical analysis, asset management, command and control, air and noise pollution analysis, subsidence and flood risk assessment, and planning.

Senior Press Officer - Philip Round
E-mail: pround@ordsvy.gov.uk
Phone: (+44) 023 8079 2635

Press Officer - Paula Good
E-mail: pgood@ordsvy.gov.uk
Phone: (+44) 023 8079 2568

Press Office Assistant - Anne Patrick
E-mail: apatrick@ordsvy.gov.uk
Phone: (+44) 023 8079 2251

Press Office fax: (+44) 023 8079 2031

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