UK's National Mapping Agency is Working on a Project To Create Almost Real-Time Maps of Streets

The UK's national mapping agency is working on a project to create almost real-time maps of the nation's streets, which it says will help with everything from 5G rollout to autonomous driving. From a report: The Ordnance Survey (OS) pilot project will see the vehicles of utility companies using a dashboard mounted camera to record the view of the road as they travel. The images from the camera are processed to identify details such as road signs, traffic lights, lamp posts, bollards, drains and man-hole covers which are then sent to the OS. Highly precise maps are vital for everything from 5G deployments to smart city planning and autonomous driving projects. For example, 5G signals are easily blocked by common street features like signs, hanging baskets, trees or bus shelters. "Having a very detailed map means you can optimise where you put your 5G stations to get the best views down the road. By having very detailed asset maps and street furniture maps we can produce much better planning and reduce the number of stations you put out," said OS interim CEO Neil Ackroyd.

"5G kinda shitty, researchers find"

[Anonymous Coward]

" For example, 5G signals are easily blocked by common street features like signs, hanging baskets, trees or bus shelters." Lol, what about stern looks or a slight breeze?

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[rmdingler]

" For example, 5G signals are easily blocked by common street features like signs, hanging baskets, trees or bus shelters." Lol, what about stern looks or a slight breeze?

5G signals, perhaps,

but the prying eyes of cameras that represent ubiquitous surveillance will hurdle these obstacles admirably.

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[AmiMoJo]

Trump is a true 1%er. In 1991 his losses were 1% of all business losses in the US.

The greatest enemy

[spcebar]

Ah yes the greatest enemy to the 5G rollout: hanging baskets.

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[AHuxley]

Bollards in the path of the 5G?

accuracy ?

[johnjones]

Open Street Map has taken over much of the generalised usage in the free to use...

the problem is that accurate measurement depends on accurate instruments or lots of diverse measurement techniques/equipment

how will this compete with google ? should it be open after a period ?

if they opened part of the data up if you contributed back then maybe people with phones would actually use it and report issues... like water leaks...

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[AHuxley]

For use by the SAS to quickly get into and out of any area.
So the UK can use its limited number of SAS in a very large city when needed.
The only real "contributed back" part is going to be how well the SAS can move around in a van using the new data.
So many missions.

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[AHuxley]

Will a bollard been up or down make the 5G internet that much faster AC?
Getting all the bollards cleared for the SAS van to move in quickly would be a useful real time city project AC.

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[timeOday]

As far as I know, OSM is just the GPS coordinates of streets. Google's Street View cars take GPS of course but also high-resolution imagery plus LIDAR so they can map out ever street sign, pothole, light post... anything that might help a self-driving car. https://arstechnica.com/gadget... [arstechnica.com] Google has invested a lot in waymo, which will never mass-produce cars; what they will sell is their cloud-integrated AI to provide the brains for cars.

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[Cederic]

Ordinance Survey and Open Street Map are two very different organisations. One is government funded and has a legacy of creating exceedingly accurate and detailed maps that cost too much to buy, and the other provides crowd sourced maps at no cost but varying levels of quality.

Ordinance Survey wont release their data for free because it costs them a lot of money to gather and process, and because the Government believes in making a profit.

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[shortscruffydave]

OS does make some of its data available for free, but the really good stuff like MasterMap remains a pay-for (although some institutions like government departments and education can licence it a more attractive rates)

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[coofercat]

For anyone who doesn't know, OS maps are pretty much *the* maps to use if you want to go for a hike or bike ride or whatever. They have incredible levels of detail of just about every feature of the landscape (on or off roads). They're most definitely not free either - and in fact are quite expensive, especially if you sit them along side a 'road atlas' or some such. But as I say, if you want to find an obscure landmark in the middle of the woods, an OS map will get you there, where no googles or OSM will e

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[AHuxley]

The bollards go up and down.

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[Cederic]

You haven't disabled autoplay in your browser?

autonomous driving must have an data plan? and wha

[Joe_Dragon]

autonomous driving must have an data plan? and what about dead zones? caps? roaming? overages? domestic data roaming?

Public money, then charge for use

[Chrisq]

Good old Ordnance Survey, using public money to map the country then licensing the usage. To be fair it is getting better and has released some maps on a free license, but why charge for any?

Zdnet now on my banned website list

[kkoo]

That's the last time ZDNet will get visited by me for auto-playing a video with sound in Chrome.