Were you aware that councils, as registered Public Sector Geospatial Agreement (PSGA) members, get free, unlimited access to Ordnance Survey’s Premium Maps API?
Peterborough City Council were, and so, using an API key, we’ve just completed some work updating the OS maps displayed on their instance of FixMyStreet Pro – and don’t they look magnificent?
So what’s different about these maps, aside from being very nice to look at?
Well, the high-level OS maps available in this way show a lot more detail to citizens, especially when tiles are zoomed in, which should help them to make more accurate reports about streets and highways defects.
Using the API should also produce a faster loading time for tiles and removes the need for watermarks.
Another benefit of displaying maps like this is that councils don’t need to provide us with the source data for the maps or worry about keeping it up to date; OS will take care of that.
Of course, councils who have their own map servers can already display data in this way via FixMyStreet Pro, but for those who don’t host their own map tiles, the OS Maps API offers a really neat solution.
You can find out more about our FixMyStreet Pro service here.
Or, if you’re a council already using FixMyStreet Pro and you would like to explore connecting up your OS Maps API, let us know.