OS Open Roads
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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.
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.
By underpinning your reporting tool with OS Open Roads, you’ll give highways teams a head-start on fixing issues like potholes.
To access additional documentation and resources relating to this product, please refer to the following:
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 product instead.
Access to this OS OpenData product is free through the .
The overview introduces OS Open Roads and gives context for all users – highlighting key features, providing examples of uses, and listing details such as file sizes, supply formats, etc.
The technical specification provides detailed technical information about OS Open Roads. It is targeted at technical users and software developers.
The downloads page provides links and resources to support the application of OS Open Roads within your environment.
This product is available to try out online using one of our three sets of sample data (Exeter, Newport and Inverness) through the OS MasterMap Product Viewer: