Mapping transport’s fine detail proves good business for Ordnance Survey

The transport sector makes huge use of geographic information systems, which means it’s a key market for the Ordnance Survey. Andrew Forster visited the OS’s headquarters in Southampton to learn about its transport work, including a DfT-funded project to develop the most detailed map yet of the country’s highway network

Andrew Forster

27 May 2016

Mention the Ordnance Survey and most people probably still think of the paper maps, with their distinctive pink and orange covers. There are 607 of these in all, covering every inch of Britain, but today they account for only about 5% of the OS’s £147m annual revenues. The digital revolution of the last three decades has transformed the business of mapping, and turned the OS, in its own words, from a “centuries-old venerable mapping company into a big data...