Satnav and lack of Postcodes highlighted on RTÉ's Six One.

DMC · 02-05-2007 07:38PM #1

http://www.rte.ie/news/6news/ (the link might change tomorrow)

Scroll down to the bottom of the page, its the last item before the Sports News.

Flaws in Irish satellite navigation systems
Samantha Libreri reports on calls for Irish digital maps to be kept up to date and for post codes to be introduced

JHMEG · 02-05-2007 07:59PM

AFAIK, Ordnance Survey Ireland maps are not used primarily because they are too expensive.

County councils etc have no obligation to inform anyone other than OSI (ie Navteq/Tele Atlas) about changes to road layouts, new roads etc.

Post codes will NOT improve the quality of the underlying maps.

No-one is to blame for the poor coverage other than the govt and public service.

I like the statement about GPS being an "emerging technology"...:rolleyes:

Krusty_Clown · 02-05-2007 10:30PM

Didn't get to see the article (links are already knackered), but, hats off to NavTeq who took on the burden of mapping the country by themselves. I'm sure they're profiting nicely from the exercise, but it's still a hell of an achievement. It's a shame that the OSI (publicly funded) mapping data isn't made available to the general public, other than through archaic paper maps, or incredibly expensive hiking products.

Planning departments and county councils should be obliged to make road and area changes available to the public. After all, where does the funding for these road and area changes come from?

Interesting sidenote: Ireland (in 1846) was the first ever country to be completely mapped to a scale of six inches to a mile. Then we had to wait until 2006 for a private company to re-do the entire exercise so we had close to 100% coverage for Ireland for enduser GPS devices. Great work OSI!

parsi · 03-05-2007 08:35AM

You should note that Navteq map other countries themselves as well not just Ireland - see http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/04/24/060424fa_fact

Road area changes are publicised.

Before you get too carried away Navteq may be doing a great job but they are also charging nicely for it and it's only in the last few years that they saw a profit to be made here.

For an example of a good site using online versions of paper maps matche dwith satellite imagery go to www.geoportail.fr

JHMEG · 03-05-2007 09:44AM

There is no centralised mechanism for co councils etc to notify interested parties of road changes or new roads.

It would have been very costly for Navteq to drive the entire country (except central Dublin, which was done by aerial photography), and it may be quite a while before they see a return on their investment. Indeed it's interesting that the Ireland maps are stuck in with the UK ones. If the Ireland maps were sold individually, they'd never make their money back, even if every car owner in this country bought a GPS device.

Krusty, good point. Ordnance Survey Ireland mapped the country 150 years ago, yet it takes a foreign company to provide us with maps for our GPS.

If only the govt here had any wit, they'd give the maps away (afterall we paid for them through our taxes), like the Canadians are now doing.

DMC · 04-05-2007 10:49AM

Here is the archived link to the story.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0502/6news.html and look for "Flaws in Irish satellite navigation systems"

Krusty_Clown · 04-05-2007 01:42PM

parsi wrote:

Road area changes are publicised.

Not according to that RTE link. Thanks DMC! "The NRA (national roads association) say it's not part of their mandate" RTE.

parsi wrote:

Navteq may be doing a great job but they are also charging nicely for it

Which I pointed out in my original post. They're no heroes, but without them, we'd still by using (and paying a premium for) OSI paper maps.

parsi wrote:

For an example of a good site using online versions of paper maps matched with satellite imagery go to www.geoportail.fr

That is indeed a nice site (very fast!), but just proves the point. The equivalent OSI maps are not available for this kind of community use. And God forbid you scan an OSI map an put it up on a webserver. You'll be on a first-name basis with the OSI's solicitors in a matter of hours..

Sundy · 05-05-2007 12:38AM

Krusty_Clown wrote:

Which I pointed out in my original post. They're no heroes, but without them, we'd still by using (and paying a premium for) OSI paper maps.

..

And why would you not use the OSi digital maps?

JHMEG · 05-05-2007 07:29PM

Sundy wrote:

And why would you not use the OSi digital maps?

Which OSI digital maps would they be?

Krusty_Clown · 06-05-2007 09:17PM

Sundy wrote:

And why would you not use the OSi digital maps?

They have two consumer products:
OSI Trailmaster - Around 400 quid for coverage of about 50% of the country. Although reputedly excellent for serious walkers / hikers, it's not a road navigation product.
OSI Streetmaster - New product for Smart phones only - 50 quid for Dublin (ouch!), but at least it's progress in the right direction.

Sadly, I'll stick with Navteq. My upgrade to v9 (for all of Europe) came to 60 euro.

JHMEG · 07-05-2007 07:53AM

Trailmaster is really only for hillwalkers. It doesn't work too well either, there is no support aside for a forum run by Star Informatics (who wrote the software) in Belgium. From a GPS perspective it's useless, as all you can do is upload sections of a trail/walk to a GPS device.

I haven't seen Streetmaster in the flesh, but it appears to be the Dublin Street Guide digitised.

Both are poor attempts by OSI, and both are missing the mass market (GPS for road navigation). But then again, being a state monopoly, why should they be bothered about what the public wants...:rolleyes:

Satnav and lack of Postcodes highlighted on RTÉ's Six One.

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