from-the-public

Ordnance Surveyors use Twitter to share progress

In a bid to get the general public on their side, Ordnance Surveyors are now using Twitter to detail their day to day activities. Paul Beauchamp of the Ordnance Survey team said he hopes that by using the microblogging site, surveyors will face less resistance from the public and “help people understand better the role they play”. A lack of general understanding surrounding the role Ordnance Surveyors has encouraged the team to embrace social media and reach out to the public. For the first time, fourteen surveyors across the country will tweet as they go about recording and measuring changes for the map. The Twittermap allows users to find out what the surveyors in their area are up to and gain insight into the role of the Ordnance Surveyor’s office. Work is constantly underway on the OS Mastermap as surveyors up and down the UK record the ever-changing landscape of the country, with up to 5,000 alterations every day. The map is used for everything from directing ambulances to planning bus routes or feeding GPS systems, which can be accurate to a couple of centimetres. Beachamp said: “Working in a range of roles, from surveyors mapping the outer reaches of Scotland and inner city London to a member of Ordnance Survey’s Flying Unity, each will be tweeting as they go about their work and providing an insight into modern mapmaking.” Though the prospect of tweets about recording where houses have been put up or taken down, where roads are built or streets renamed may not exactly seem riveting, Beauchamp detailed some of the more hair-raising exploits of the surveyors. “I was told recently about a surveyor and his boss who had to ask a landlord for permission to measure on his land.

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Ordnance Surveyors use Twitter to share progress