Transport Network

The OS National Geographic Database (NGD) Transport Network Collection provides a topologically structured link and node representation of Great Britain's road, ferry, rail and path networks. This collection provides information on road classification; road and path function; primary routes; road node classification; names associated with the road and path networks; path surface type, and connectivity between the road network and the ferry, rail, and path networks.

From September 2023, a rail network was added to the Transport Network Collection, with the feature types: Railway Link, Railway Link Set, and Railway Node. Additionally, the presence of pavements on the road network was added against the Road Link feature type, and a new Pavement Link feature type added.

From March 2024, tram track attribution indicating the presence of tram tracks on a road is supplied as against Road Link features and a new Tram On Road feature type has been added. 

Images showing the feature types available are shown below.

Example image showing what a selection of the feature types that comprise the routable network in the Transport Network Collection look like in the data. A background map has been included to provide context.

Example image showing what a selection of the Rail network feature types in the Transport Network Collection look like in the data. A background map has been included to provide context.

Example images showing what a selection of the Pavement Link feature type in the Transport Network Collection look like in the data. The images indicate the presence of pavement on the left and right side of the road, respectively. A background map has been included to provide context.

Collection applications

The OS NGD Transport Network Collection allows you to:

• Ensure your transport data is always up to date with monthly updates.

• Identify the authority responsible for naming, numbering and maintaining a street.

• View ferry routes which start and end in Great Britain.

• Create statistics for evidence-based policy making, such as school transport allocation, funding distribution and meeting sustainable transport policies.

• Visualise the connectivity between the road network and path network.

• Examine the surface type, function and names associated with paths.

• Visualise a simplified topographic representation of rail networks across Great Britain providing better understanding of connectivity for passengers and freight.

• Understand the overall presence of pavements that are associated to road links and have access to a new linear feature (Pavement Link) that represents the extent of pavements with associated attribution.

• Identify road links which have a tram track on them and visualise the extent of tram tracks on the road network.

Key elements

• Monthly updates to data.

• Plug and play – the data is simple and quick to implement as you don't need to pre-process it before you use it.

• Rich attribution ensures the data is straightforward to navigate and query.

• Simplified attribute naming helps make names easier to understand.

• Persistent unique identifiers with lifecycle information.

• New cross-references make it easy for you to link data in this collection with data from other OS NGD collections.

• Geometry available for every feature.

Coverage

Great Britain.

Default coordinate reference systems

British National Grid + ODN Height (EPSG: 7405) for most feature types in the collection; British National Grid (EPSG: 27700) for the Ferry Terminal, Path, Road, Road Junction, Street and Pavement Link Feature Types.

Temporal filtering

The earliest date on which you can request a one-off snapshot of a date in the past for data in this collection is noted at the top of the individual feature type pages.

Supply formats

GeoPackage, CSV (comma-separated values), GeoJSON or vector tiles (the latter format is only available for the following feature types in this collection - Rail, Road Track or Path, Road Line, Path, Path Link, and Road)

Supply mechanism

Accessed through the OS Data Hub via:

• OS Select+Build

• OS NGD API – Features

• OS NGD API – Tiles (only available for the following feature types: Rail, Road Track or Path, Road Line, Path, Path Link, and Road)

Using our data

• Included in the Public Sector Geospatial Agreement (PSGA) – therefore, it's free at point of use for Public Sector organisations.

• Available to OS Partners for commercial resell in your solutions.