Pilots
Why have pilots?
Successful pilots are a very effective way to elicit buy-in and engagement by politicians and senior management to the aims and objectives of the UKLP, by demonstrating future capability and potential in a way that senior decision makers can best understand and appreciate. This in turn secures resources for the UKLP and the wider community through demonstrable mutual benefit; that is inclusive and co-operative across all stakeholders. The experiences gained within pilots will be cascaded across the community to accelerate understanding and use of the UKLII. Pilots also have a more practical objective to assist in the testing of the UKLII and its population with published data and services.
What are the characteristics of a pilot?
A key requirement of the pilots is to demonstrate the innovative use of location information, i.e. that they bring together data from disparate sources through web services, rather than are examples of the use of location information within a single organisation. Pilots can either act as a platform for the subsequent development of fully operational solutions and typically have a lifecycle of around 18 – 24 months or simply be built upon an element of an active or planned operational project that demonstrates best practice in the UKLII principles; this will depend on the nature and scope of the pilots. It is essential that pilots will be managed and resourced directly by the stakeholder organisations.
What pilots have been selected?
The search for suitable pilots for the UKLP began in September 2009 when the Location Council members identified a long list of candidate pilots. This was then filtered using an agreed set of criteria and a shortlist of candidate pilots produced. The shortlist of candidates is currently being evaluated and reduced to a maximum of four pilots. Two pilots have already been agreed with the Location Council:
The Coal Authority - Reducing the risk to public safety through collaborative asset management
For more details please see the case study of the Coal Authority Pilot Project
Atlantis Initiative – Supporting Civil Contingency Response to Natural Hazards
A new, simpler set of criteria guiding pilot selection was agreed by the UK Location Council at their meeting on the 18th June 2010. This will support a wider set of less complex pilot projects. These will be announced incrementally throughout 2010.
EDINA Web Services in support of UK Location Pilots
EDINA, with the assistance of Ordnance Survey, has created a number of INSPIRE Annex I Web Feature Services (WFS) that are compliant (as far as possible) with version 3 of the Data Product Specifications. The Annex I themes supported are:
- Administrative Units (National Coverage);
- Geographical Names (National Coverage);
- Transport Networks (National Coverage); and
- Cadastral Parcels (limited dataset from Registers of Scotland – but could be extended).
EDINA has offered these web services to the UK Location programme to support and trial these services within pilots. Organisations that would like to use these services within a pilot environment should contact the programme team.
Do you have a candidate pilot?
If you believe that you have a good candidate pilot proposal that meets the criteria below then please e-mail as at:
uklocationprogramme@defra.gsi.gov.uk
Pilot section criteria:
- can be built upon an element of an active or planned operational project with a funded business case;
- will require data from at least two separate organisations;
- will use the technical infrastructure as defined in the UKLII Blueprint, or will migrate to it; and
- the pilot generates lessons learned and will be an exemplar that can be shared and applied widely within the pilot’s sector and beyond.