OS agrees Mobileye deal to map roadside utility assets

Ordnance Survey’s latest service, a partnership with Intel company Mobileye, is aimed at the energy and infrastructure market – mapping roadsides for manhole covers to lamp posts.

The new data, gathered by cameras on cars, will also be used by OS to support the rollout of technologies for 5G, intelligent mobility and connected autonomous vehicles.

Find out more about us partnering with @Mobileye to gather and share map data to manage infrastructure for smarter cities and safer roads: https://t.co/B1oWNWSg9A #geospatial #av pic.twitter.com/vVwhMlgjsn

— Ordnance Survey (@OrdnanceSurvey) January 8, 2019

Neil Ackroyd, Ordnance Survey CEO, said: “At OS we work hard to enable an environment that supports new technologies and data services across the public and private sector. OS appreciates its role as a trusted advisor in existing and new markets and will continue to invest and innovate to support our utility customers and in new discovery projects such as CAV, 5G and IoT.

“One key, and common, learning is that detailed and accurate geospatial data is a must for the success of these projects. We envisage this new rich data to be key to how vehicles, infrastructure, people and more will communicate in the digital age. Our partnership with Mobileye further enhances our commitment to supporting Britain as a world-leading centre for digital and tech excellence.”

Using the Mobileye technology, vehicles will gather large volumes of location data on road networks and roadside infrastructure. The collected data – which includes lamp posts, manhole covers, and road markings – is then cross-referenced with existing geospatial datasets, such as OS MasterMap, to help develop accurate maps of Britain’s roads and surrounding infrastructure with amazing detail and precision.

Prof Amnon Shashua, president and CEO of Mobileye, based in Israel, said: “Using maps to improve operations between businesses and cities will bring us closer to the realisation of smart cities and safer roads.”

Utility companies are set to benefit from the data, enabling them to maintain the precise location of their assets on the ground, such as manhole covers, lamp posts, network boxes, and more. By enabling a stronger view into over-ground and underground assets, companies can more efficiently plan and manage maintenance needs, service upgrades or other necessary work.

The partnership unveiling, at CES 2019, follows a successful year of pilot projects in 2018 where Ordnance Survey worked with data collected by Mobileye and successfully integrated it into the geospatial database for Great Britain. In addition, a number of Ordnance Survey vehicles have been fitted with Mobileye 8 Connect™ to collect data on the roads of Britain. The pilots are delivering a new level of roadside data which through the partnership will benefit customers across the many sectors including utilities, infrastructure and telecommunications.