The following percentages are indicative only. They were correct as of August 2019 but are subject to change at each quarterly supply without notice.

Additional Suppliers to Points of Interest

(supplying <3% of total features between them)

This product information document describes the main features of the product, suggests how customers can use the data and explains how the data is supplied. Everyone reading this document will gain an understanding of the key concepts of the data and the benefits an organisation can obtain from using it within location-based applications.

The Points of Interest product is a comprehensive location-based directory of all public and privately owned businesses, educational institutions and leisure services in Great Britain. It contains over four million records, which are sourced and quality-checked from over a hundred leading listing suppliers. It’s updated four times a year, so you’ll always be working with current information.

Product applications

For the public sector, Points of Interest lets you identify gaps in services and analyse changes in city centre retail space over time. This helps you to maintain a quality environment for residents, shoppers and visitors.

Using the Points of Interest product, you can:

• Identify places by their use and function as well as by their postal address or location. Each record also contains a telephone number, web address and brand, where appropriate.

• See commercial addresses for organisations across Great Britain, including phone numbers and web URLs for major businesses. Over 45% of Points of Interest records are businesses.

• Use the detailed company classifications linked to addresses to conduct detailed competitor and site analysis to help you identify the potential location of your next high street outlet.

• Access information on the following themes: accommodation, eating and drinking, commercial services, attractions, sport and entertainment, education and health, public infrastructure, manufacturing and production, retail and transport.

As each feature is provided with a national grid coordinate, it can be visualised as points on a map using a geographical information system (GIS).

Common applications for which customers are already using Points of Interest include:

• Citizen information services

• Distribution and provision of facilities and infrastructure

• Emergency planning

• Location-based services

• Tourism

Each feature comes with a set of attributions that can be manipulated and analysed within a GIS or database so that customers can customise the data and learn more about the facilities within their chosen geographic areas.

Roles and responsibilities

Points of Interest is created and maintained by PointX, an independent company in the joint ownership of Ordnance Survey and Landmark Information Group. Ordnance Survey is the sole ‘data only’ distributor for Points of Interest.

PointX collects data from around 140 suppliers, including Ordnance Survey. It receives updates from these suppliers on an ongoing basis. The suppliers are chosen for being the most authoritative source for the particular type of feature they supply, and for the quality and completeness of their data. It should be noted however, that for many types of features there are no absolute definitive source, nor can any list of the types of features found in Points of Interest be said to be complete. Points of Interest therefore comes with a number of indicators as to the likely currency and positional accuracy of any given set, which should be taken into consideration when using the data.

PointX runs verification checks, provides National Grid coordinates, and classifies each feature. The data is sent quarterly to Ordnance Survey who distributes it to customers. Ordnance Survey manages the customer relationship.

The suppliers are responsible for providing the data to PointX in a manner and timescale agreed between them.

Coverage

Coverage is Great Britain.

Product supply mechanism and file size

Points of Interest customer orders are currently supplied via a Secure URL. The current size of a full supply is about 1Gb.

Product update schedule

Points of Interest is supplied to customers quarterly in March, June, September and December, incorporating any updates made by the revision programme.

Points of Interest data can be used within a table format, such as a spreadsheet or a database, to create gazetteer or list-type applications that allow people to search for a particular facility or resource. These applications make use of the attributes supplied for each feature and depend on the application system having a searching or querying facility that the customer can supply with search criteria.

To achieve the greatest possible value from the data, it is best viewed and analysed within a GIS. The combination of Points of Interest with topographic mapping gives context to the features, which cannot be derived from using it within a table or spreadsheet. Depending on the functionality of the GIS, it also provides the opportunity to:

• Group the features into other subsets of data.

• Combine the data with your own complementary datasets or with other Ordnance Survey products.

• Customise the appearance of the Points of Interest features to suit your requirements. To get customers started, Ordnance Survey provides a suggested set of symbols, which are available from the Links and downloads section of the Points of Interest Product Support page on the OS website.

• Extend the queries on the attributes by using a spatial element.

Viewing the data

Points of Interest can be displayed within a GIS by using the Easting and Northing coordinates to display each feature’s geographic location as a point. The National Grid coordinates that accompany each feature allows it to be displayed as a point, in its correct position with regards to the National Grid and any other map based on the same reference system.

The simplest way to display the product is to render all points with a single colour and shape, as shown below. These can then be labelled with the classification code to understand what each point represents. By providing the context of the physical environment within which the Points of Interest features exist can add another dimension of meaning to the data. It allows a spatial understanding of the features to develop.

Points of Interest is completely customisable in terms of the way you choose to symbolise the points. The way in which the data appears on a screen is likely to be a combination of your wishes and the functionality of the system being used to display the points.

Styling the data

Most GIS have tools that provide options for rendering data on screen. Ordnance Survey has developed a set of symbols to use with the Points of Interest dataset, so that customers can render the data very quickly. This suggested set of symbols is available to view and download from the Links and downloads section of the Points of Interest Product Support page on the OS website.

Using a symbol set that makes use of Category level of classification means that the viewer can understand the information quickly. Comparing the figures above showing Points of Interest data rendered with a set of the supplied symbols, it is possible to get an idea of the range and type of features that are in this area without querying the attribution.

The symbol sets are supplied in:

• Black and white bitmaps

• Colour bitmaps

• TrueType font

Refer to the Points of Interest symbology page for the colour symbols for the 52 available categories and their classes.

Backdrop mapping

The real benefits of Points of Interest within a GIS can be seen when displaying the features over some backdrop mapping. This adds real-world context to the features. Points of Interest features are best used in combination with a large-scale product such as OS VectorMap Local, an example of which is used in the 1:3 000 image below. This allows both clarity and the ability to derive additional value from both products. A slightly smaller scale backdrop, such as OS VectorMap District, can also provide the necessary context. An example is shown below.

Whilst it is possible to view the data at any scale, the smaller the scale, the harder it is to see what real- world feature the point represents. There are problems of points either being difficult to distinguish from each other or, if they are set to enlarge as the map is zoomed out, they can disappear behind each other, as shown in the VectorMap District 1:10 000 image.

Classification

Classification provides structure to the data which helps when storing it. It provides a way of ordering the data, a means of visualising it, and a way for customers to find the features they are interested in quickly.

Points of Interest has its own classification scheme with each feature assigned to a Class within the system. The classification is central to the Points of Interest dataset as it provides a hierarchical structure to the data that makes it efficient to store in a computer system and easier to search. It also provides a means of subdividing the data so that customers can order only the features they want.

The classification was created by PointX. It is designed to be comprehensive, intuitive and easy to use. It provides the necessary level of detail to be useful and flexible without being so complex that it becomes difficult to use the product in applications. There are three levels of classification: Group, Category and Class.

Level 1 comprises nine Groups and provides the broadest categorisation. Level 2 comprises 52 Categories which are broken down into more than 600 Classes to form the third level of the classification scheme. This is the most specific level of classification. The full classification is given in a separate Classification Scheme page. Over the life of the product, some Classes have been changed, added or merged with other classes, which is why numbers in the tables are not sequential.

Having three levels of classification enables customers to make general searches. For example, at the Group level, education and health, specific searches at the Category level, such as primary, secondary and tertiary education, or specialist searches, such as special schools and colleges, at the Class level.

You can order Points of Interest at either the Group or the Category level. Features are allocated a classification based on either:

• A classification provided by the original data supplier.

• Where no classification is provided, PointX uses its experience and understanding of the dataset itself, or elements within it, to allocate a classification.

Classifications make it easy to use database or GIS tools to search, analyse and display features based on their Class. When used in conjunction with the attribution, it is possible to compile, for instance, a list of the names and addresses of estate agents within a given geographic area. In the figure below, the classification has been utilised to display all Bus Stops within an area using the classification code 10590732.

This breaks down as:

Group: 10 = Transport Category: 59 = Bus Transport Class: 0732 = Bus Stops

The structure of Points of Interest can be described as relational in nature. Each Group has one or more Categories below it. Each Category in turn has one or more Classes related to it. This type of structure is used extensively in database management technologies as it provides a way of storing the data in a way that reduces the amount of space required and speeds up the retrieval of information. Having this classification, therefore, provides an opportunity to store the data in an efficient way.

Supplier data is supplied to PointX in a wide variety of formats. Some of the data is supplied without grid references and specific attribution, therefore efforts are made to supply this data. The success of this identification is measured by the accuracy flags such as positional accuracy and match indicators.

Positional accuracy

Ordnance Survey data and specialised geocoding software is used to achieve positional accuracy and to provide a confidence level indicator for each record. Data that cannot be given coordinates due to insufficient location or address detail are not supplied in the Product. It is very important that customers take the positional accuracy value of the feature into account when using it in applications.

The positional accuracy falls into one of the following categories:

• Positioned to the address or location, usually within the building footprint.

• Positioned to an adjacent address or location for non-addressable features.

• Positioned to the road within the address or location.

• Positioned within the geographical locality.

Typically, most records are positioned on or adjacent to the address or location of the feature. A very small proportion of records are positioned to the road within the address or location, or within the geographic locality of the feature. A positional accuracy code of 3 or 4 is used only for ATMs (cash machines), Wi-Fi hotspots and public telephones, where the data is sourced from a single authoritative and non-duplicated source. Continuous efforts are made to improve the accuracy of the geocoding, as shown in the table below showing the range of positional accuracy codes.

If the positional accuracy is stated as ‘1’, the coordinates should fall within the footprint of the real- world feature in question, typically a building or structure.

Where the positional accuracy is stated as ‘2’, the coordinates will either be placed centrally in the text that relates to the feature – and may be within the extent of the feature – or will be positioned close to the true location of a part of the feature. In practice, it will probably be within 10 metres of either the feature or an edge of the feature’s geographic extent, although this cannot be guaranteed.

A positional accuracy of ‘3’ indicates that the coordinates are placed centrally on the correct road. As road lengths vary and the central position could be very near or a long way from the true location on the road, it is difficult to say exactly how far these instances might be shown from their true location. In the majority, it is to be expected that the assigned coordinate could be up to a kilometre away, with a small number being even farther.

A positional accuracy of ‘4’ means that the location assigned is in the correct geographic locality, such as the right village or industrial estate, and that it has not been possible to locate to a specific relevant road. Depending on how big the geographic locality in question is, the record’s true location could in reality be up to a few kilometres from the reported coordinates.

USRN match indicators

Each Points of Interest feature is matched to the closest road by performing an attribution and spatial match between the feature and OS MasterMap Highways Network. This results in each feature being given a Unique Street Reference Number (USRN). The match accuracy between the Points of Interest feature and the OS MasterMap Highways Network is determined from the USRN Match Indicator attribute. It is again very important that customers take this match indicator value of the feature into account when using it in applications.

If the match indicator is stated as ‘1’ the Points of Interest feature has been matched against the OS MasterMap Highways Network using the Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) from AddressBase and the USRN.

Where the match indicator is stated as ‘2’, the feature has been matched spatially to the road which appears in either the address detail or street name attributes. For more information on these individual attributes please see the Technical Specification.

A match indicator of ‘3’ indicates that the USRN has been spatially matched to the nearest road in the OS MasterMap Highways Network.

Please be aware that a match indicator of 3 may not necessarily be the access road to the feature.

Addressing

The data contains both addressable and non-addressable records. Structured address information is only provided for those records that are addressable and can be successfully matched against AddressBase Plus.

AddressBase Plus contains current properties using addresses sourced from Local Authorities, Ordnance Survey and Royal Mail for England, Wales and Scotland. The Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) is the unique identifier for every addressable location in Great Britain.

Records that have been successfully matched will have a UPRN. Attempts have been made to provide address information where possible when not matched against AddressBase Plus.

Unique referencing

Records have been attributed with both a TOID and TOID version that have been directly derived from area features within OS MasterMap Topography Layer based on the grid reference of the feature. There will be a number of features where a TOID value will not be provided because the feature does not sit within the correct OS MasterMap Topography Layer polygon, and these will have a TOID value of Not Assigned and a TOID version of ‘0’.

Sources of data

There are two main sources of data that provide approximately 80% of the Points of Interest features. The authoritative source for a type of feature is used to build the dataset where possible. Approximately

Classification

PointX relies upon approximately 140 data suppliers to provide the initial classification of each of the records. This is then used to allocate the appropriate class to the feature which can lead to examples where different classes are applied to the same real-world feature, dependent upon the base classification used by the different data suppliers. Part of the production process for the current product involves the removal of multiple instances of what is believed to be the same feature, it is possible that individual instances of what are, in fact, the same type of feature can be reported in different classes.

Symbology: Categories

Symbology: Additional Classes – colour bitmaps