Decoding the OS National Geographic Database – the opportunity for Utilities

Containing half a billion data insights on Britain’s landscape, the Ordnance Survey’s National Geographic Database (OS NGD) could be nothing short of a game-changer for utility companies… but uptake has been sluggish. We explain what it is, why your organisation needs it and how to migrate at pace.

Launched in 2022, the intention of the OS National Geographic Database is to bring together every piece of authoritative geographic data for Great Britain in one location. Data that has been redesigned and reengineered so it’s easier to access and easier to understand. Data built for better analysis.

As a single store of all Ordnance Survey (OS) data, it contains over half a billion geographical features and descriptive information – for Buildings, Addresses, Land, Land Use, Structures, Transport and Water networks.  Information includes building use, land use, building age, construction materials, building description, basement presence, enhanced land cover… and with 20,000 updates submitted every day, the list really does go on.

Plus, as well as being more current, more consistent and more accurate than any previous dataset, it also provides greater flexibility in data use. OS has described it as “the biggest step change in access to OS data in a generation.”

Empowering utilities

Simple and direct access was one key aim of the OS NGD’s conception; another was making insights and information more discoverable.

Hence, the OS NGD data structure and categorisation makes the data you need easy to search, find and analyse. Which can empower utilities companies in three ways: it can streamline the efficiency of managing assets, biodiversity and carbon offsetting; it can improve the identification of network disruption and potential risk, and of customer base profiling; and it can optimise land estate, network planning and adapting for climate change. Business model futureproofing, in other words.

Piqued your interest already? Skip ahead to our full Idox Geospatial report: Navigating the National Geographic Database

Weeks to hours

“Currency is another major benefit of the NGD,” says Dean Paulley, OS Head of Product. “From our surveyors and other data sources, we make about 20,000 updates to our database every day. You can imagine, if you are on the old, six weekly update cycle, just how far out of date your data has become in those six weeks.”

All the above sounds incredible, obviously, but what does it mean for your utility company?

The OS NGD’s data allows utilities to derive opportunity from and understand more about risk to their building and infrastructure assets, their networks, and their customers. As Daniel Slater, Commercial Director of Idox’s Geospatial division points out, “For utility companies, it’s an enhancement for their base map. The OS NGD provides an analytical database that allows them to do more. A lot more.”

Mapping risks and opportunity

Utility companies map their own networks. But often, not the things that have an impact on those networks. Understanding more about risk to building and infrastructure assets, their networks or indeed their customers, is transformative.

As Idox Geospatial’s Daniel Slater notes, those are all areas where OS NGD can provide invaluable insight, “Utility companies need to map their assets in the ground, they need to map risk, and they need to know where their existing customers are, and new customers will be. To that end, all factors in the NGD will have a value to utility companies.”