Rutland’s Historic Highways mapped

UK aerial mapping company Bluesky has completed a project to create a digital map of Rutland County Council’s highway network. More than 400 individual paper maps, some over thirty years old, were scanned to create very high resolution digital image files, creating a seamless map of the whole County. The digital map base, which was georeferenced to match the Council’s current Ordnance Survey mapping, is already being used to improve the management of works on the highway and will form an essential source of information for a project to create a detailed highway asset inventory.

“The original maps provided an invaluable record of the Council’s highway network and related assets. Used on a daily basis to confirm the status and extent of the public highway, they were the first stop when dealing with enquiries or works related to the highway,” said Dave Brown, Acting Head of Highways. “By transforming the paper archive into an integrated digital map base we have increased both the efficiency and accuracy of our day-to-day operation, improved accessibility to a valuable information resource and ensured the long term security of the data.”

Bluesky, a specialist in aerial imaging and remote sensing data collection and processing, was awarded the Rutland contract based on technical merit and previous experience. The 450 individual highway maps were scanned at 600 dpi giving resulting images a final ground resolution of 12.5 cm equivalent to a map scale of 1:500. Each image was then geo-referenced to the Ordnance Survey National Grid and mosaiced together to produce a seamless map base of the whole county.

The digital map layer was supplied to Rutland Council in a compressed format (ECW) for use within the authority’s corporate geographical information system (GIS) from MapInfo where it will be used to assist with the day-to-day management of the highway and for long term strategic projects. “Now we have a digital record of our transport infrastructure we can begin the task of updating the base information and creating a detailed asset inventory for future management of highway network,” concluded Mr Brown. The data will also be accessed using the Council’s Intranet based mapping service providing desktop access to the valuable information resource to other departments such as planning and legal services.

Bluesky is a UK based company specialising in aerial imaging and remote sensing data collection and processing. With projects extending around the globe it has an international reputation for the creation of seamless, digital aerial photography and 3D landscape / cityscape visualisations. BlueSky’s national mapping centre provides digital mapping, site plans, satellite imagery and detailed aerial photography.

Visit www.bluesky-world.com