Spatineo Inc. and its partner GIS-kvalitet i Norden supported Lantmäteriet, the National Land Survey of Sweden, in answering an essential and important question “What is the economic benefit of national harmonization and standardization of geodata and the national platform for access of geodata?”. The companies made together a project to Lantmäteriet in which they assessed the potential economic benefit of the use of geodata in the digital urban planning and building process in Sweden. The estimated annual economic value is 22,6 – 42,2 billion Swedish crowns.
Goal of the study
The urban planning and building sector is the biggest sector in Sweden that effects on the built environment. Therefore, Lantmäteriet has been commissioned by the Government to work for a streamlined digital urban planning process. The goal is a more effective interaction between authorities, citizens and businesses. This is promoted by providing all actors the most important national basic datasets as a geospatial service from the national platform. National basic datasets are mainly produced by cities and municipalities.
It was already stated by Smart Built Environment in 2016 that an “unbroken” information flow in urban planning and building process can save billions of crowns. The main goal of our study was to analyse in more detail the economic benefits of the subprocesses and show the estimated total value.
Method
Our study is a meta-analysis of both Swedish and international studies in which the economic impacts of the use of geodata have been analysed. Results from international studies has been applied to Swedish conditions so that national statistics related to number of units and users, revenues, salaries etc. have been used. One core requirement for the existing studies that has been utilized in this study is that geodata has been an essential part of application, service or product that produces the benefits to users. Without geodata the economic benefits would not have been realised.
Economic benefits
The urban planning and building process includes the following subprocesses: general planning, detailed planning, real estate formation, building permit, building and construction planning, groundworks and construction, and maintenance. Our analysis shows that the biggest economic benefit can be gained in the groundworks and construction, in total 19,4-38,8 billion Swedish crowns. The second biggest economic benefits can be gained in building and construction planning, 3 billion Swedish crowns.
Open geodata
In our analysis of the potential economic benefits we have not taken into account whether the geodata is open or not. However, it is emphasized in the report “Nationella basdata från stat och kommun” by Geodatarådet in 2017 that fully financed open geodata from a national service is making the digitalization of public processes much easier and faster, and stimulates innovation and growth of small and medium size private companies.
Lantmäteriets report “Nationellt tillgängliggörande av geodata i samhällsbyggnadsprocessen” is based on Spatineo’s and GIS-kvalitet’s report “Ekonomisk nytta av geodata i samhällsbyggnadsprocessen i Sverige”. You can download the full study for free here.
Download the study for free!
Spatineo Inc. (www.spatineo.com) is specialised in providing SaaS and professional services in the field of quality assurance for spatial web services, Spatial Data Infrastructures and impact assessment.
GIS-kvalitet i Norden AB (www.giskvalitet.se) is owned and operated by Helena Ringmar, the GIS strategist and certified business architect with over 30 years of experience in running projects and get the benefit of geographical information to businesses.
