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Unique IDs make it easier and cheaper to attach data to geospatial entities, such as buildings, streets, places, etc.
The Overture Maps Foundation, a collaborative effort to build interoperable open map data, today announced general availability of its groundbreaking Global Entity Reference System (GERS). GERS provides a unique ID for every geospatial entity, making it easier to build richer mapping solutions across industries such as automotive, local search, urban planning, ride-sharing, logistics, and more.
Mapping applications and spatial analysis have benefited from an explosion of new data types, but that comes at a cost. Combining data from various sources requires significant time and money to ensure that the data is correctly associated with the right entities in the map. That cost to evaluate and conflate data can exceed the cost of licensing the data, which ultimately will discourage its use.
The GERS IDs enable organisations to more easily join datasets, share information, and onboard new data using open and accessible identifiers – while avoiding the high costs and complexity of reconciling data from different sources.
GERS IDs are a defining characteristic of Overture’s open map datasets. Each “entity” in the base maps carries a unique ID, including 2.6 billion buildings, 61 million places, nearly 447 million addresses, and 321 million road segments. These datasets form the foundational layers for anyone building mapping applications and are governed by open-source data licenses, allowing free use in applications and analyses. By incorporating GERS IDs into any data that needs to be associated with those base layers, users can easily combine relevant data to build richer applications.
