More about roads & street mapping

Road and street digital mapping data can be used in a variety of different ways. For example, street level datasets allow you to accurately route door to door drops, whereas lower scale maps can be used when exacting detail is less important. E.g. for performing drive-time catchments (how far your vehicles can travel from a given point within a certain amount of time).

Other popular uses of digital mapping data include GIS & locational market analysis, fleet management and asset tracking.

Digital mapping data includes details such as roads, streets, rivers, towns and railways in addition to properties such as buildings, contours, waterways and other points of interest. The level of detail will depend on the scale and specification of the dataset.

Raster or Vector?

Raster maps look like a printed map when displayed on screen. A cartographer will have placed each label so the map is really clear and often has the familiar look and feel of paper products.

Each raster layer is best viewed at a specific scale, but many products such as the AA and Andes series offer a range of rasters suited for different levels of zoom. Commercial raster maps tend not to have attributes which are used for analysis e.g. population counts, speeds, etc.

Vector maps are completely flexible. Exclude or include individual features (towns, roads, etc.) as required. Easy to change colours and styles, thicken boundaries to emphasise your territories or exclude water features to remove clutter.

Vector maps can be drawn at any scale without a loss of definition.

Each line, point or polygon in a vector map is a separate object and can have a wide range of additional attributes. For example, add the number of customers to each street or purchase vector maps with added details such as banned turns or one-way streets.

What Scale?  As when choosing a paper map, you need to decide how you plan to use the map. Do you need to see whole regions at once and route between large towns? If so, a road map might be most suitable. Or do you need to plot home delivery territories at street level? In this case, a more detailed map is needed. To help you choose the best maps for you the product directory separates road-level mapping from street-level options.

Contact us now to discuss your mapping data requirements.