Unlocking the potential of spatial information through data sharing: it's a two way street

Abstract

The majority of spatial information and mapping has traditionally been captured, managed and controlled by the public sector agencies. Over the past decade with the value and potential of spatial information slowly being realised, and the gradual down-sizing of government mapping agencies, the private sector has now become a significant holder of spatial information, particularly street and road information. However, the exchange mechanisms for value adding of spatial information are still only primarily one-way. The improvements in quality of many data sets which are undertaken in the private sector are not finding their way into the public sector databases. Data exchange arrangements have still not yet matured to enable a full two way exchange of value added data. The result is a significant duplication of effort by both sectors which inevitably leads to inefficiencies and reduced data quality. This paper will look at the developments in the spatial information industry in the past decade, particularly the rise of the concept of information infrastructures and specifically spatial data infrastructures (SDI). The concept of data sharing will be examined with a focus on the issues that limit the effective sharing of information. The data being utilised for vehicle navigation will be used to illustrate the complexity of data sharing models. Finally, a possible model for the two way exchange of spatial information is presented and its wider application to the industry is discussed.