This talk is based on the experiences I faced while working with the public sector on mapping and try to identify some of the impacts that made and answering 3 questions which arise:
* How much Money should I spend?
* How much Accuracy do I need?
* How much Human Involvement?
In this talk, I will be explaining experiences faced while working on some of the major projects in public sector related to FOSSGIS and where all we could implement OSM into.
Some of the major projects are as:
##### Utility mapping of State Electricity Board:
Comprehensive solution for mapping was developed for Kerala State Electricity Board. The solution included a. Mobile field survey and mapping tool b. Map editor for post production and drawing c. Map viewer d. Map printing e. various intermediate data processing and conversion tools. Complete tool chain was designed and field tested. KSEB used our approach to map 11Kv electric poles of distribution department. This covered around 14 Lakhs electric poles. The original cost estimate for the work by KSEB using traditional approach and proprietary systems was around Rs 200 crores. Technological solution developed by ICFOSS will dramatically reduce cost of mapping and lead to substantial saving of public exchequer. The benefit through utilisation of the map data like electricity loss minimisation and quality improvement is also to be noted. For the original price, work would not have happened. The entire process was based on technologies and standards around
OpenStreetMap.
##### Participatory mapping of Govt. Offices
Government of Kerala aims to build a spatial database of whole Kerala based on OpenStreetMap. A participatory model was planned for the field survey and the execution was planned in different phases; Government Institutions mapping, Road and Waterways mapping, etc. As preliminary phase, govt. Offices mapping was done by developing an HTML5 based Laravel web application. And this will be later on validated and uploaded to OSM.
##### Route analysis for Govt. Fiber Optic Network
A dedicated Optic Fibre Network (Kerala state Fibre Optic Network) connecting 30000 of Government Institutions including schools and other departments was planned. Substations of KSEB (Kerala State Electricity Board) across the state were chosen to create the backbone network installing PoPs (Point of Presence) at each substation. As part of the planning phase, total length of fibre cable required was to be found. Based on GIS based routing techniques and derived methodologies, cluster of networks and total length estimate were identified.
##### Canal digitisation within 42 sq.km. paddy area
Government of Kerala aims to map canal system within Thrissur Kole Wetlands an area of around 4300 hectares to measure total water holding capacity of the system. A drone based aerial survey model was planned for the data collection and further digitisation and volume measurements were done using OpenDroneMap and OpenStreetMap based toolchain.