OS Open Roads
Here you will find all documentation for the OS Open Roads product.
OS Open Roads is a high-level digital representation of Great Britain's road network. The links represent an approximate central alignment of the road carriageway and include roads classified by the National or Local Highway authority (for example, A roads) and unclassified roads, which together make up Great Britain’s road network.
OS Open Roads is a generalised product which is automatically simplified from Ordnance Survey large-scale data. Generalisation is the process of reducing the scale and complexity of the data whilst maintaining the important elements and characteristics of the features. The appropriate product scale is 1:25 000, with a recommended viewing scale range of 1:15 000 to 1:30 000.
Capture answers to road questions
How many miles of roads are there in the country? What and where’s within 10miles of this location? OS Open Roads lets you answer questions like these.
Work with definitive road information
By underpinning your reporting tool with OS Open Roads, you’ll give highways teams a head-start on fixing issues like potholes.
The OS Open Roads product may be used for applications such as, but not limited to:
Assigning information to the road network for both personal and business use.
High-level analytical queries, for example, how many kilometres of road there are in Great Britain, an individual country or a region and simple drive time analysis, for example, what is within a 25-minute drive of any given location?
Identifying community problems and reporting back to a relevant authority.
Detailed turn-by-turn routing is not supported in OS Open Roads; this requires the additional detail and complexity available in OS MasterMap Highways Network.
Definitive details of the responsibility for road maintenance are not supported in OS Open Roads; this requires the additional detail held in OS MasterMap Highways Network – Routing and Asset Management Information (RAMI).
Access: Download
Category: Networks
Data theme: Transport
Data structure: Vector – Topologically structured link and node network
Coverage: Great Britain
Scale: 1:15 000 to 1:30 000
Format: ESRI Shapefile, GeoPackage, GML 3.2.1, vector tiles
Ordering area: All of Great Britain
Publication months: April, October
OS Open Roads coverage
OS Open Roads is available to download as a national set. The product has been split into 100km² so you can work with the specific area you require easily.
In-vehicle navigation requirements
OS Open Roads is not suitable for use for in-vehicle navigation systems. For the route restriction information that your users would need (such as one-way systems, width and height restrictions), we recommend using the OS MasterMap Highways Network – Routing and Asset Management Information (RAMI) product instead.
How to get this product
Access to this OS OpenData product is free through the OS Data Hub.
Sample Data
Visualise OS Open Roads sample data online
This product is available to try out free online using one of our three sets of sample data (Exeter, Newport and Inverness) through the OS MasterMap Product Viewer:
What's next?
To access additional documentation and resources relating to this product, please refer to the following:
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