Lagos State’s Global Positioning System (GPS)

Lagos State Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) declared last year that Lagos State’s Global Positioning System (GPS) and Continuously Operating Reference Station (CORS) have been successfully completed.
GPS is a satellite-based radio navigation system, which allows users to determine their location anywhere in the world at any time of the day.

CORS operates continuously from a permanent and stable location to track down GPS and Global Navigation Satellite (GNS) contact points; receives and stores the data; removes errors and transmits the enhanced satellite data to users in real time. Geo Qinetiq was the company that handled the project.

Governor Fashola expressed satisfaction and confirmed the successful completion of the project.
The Managing Director of Geo Qinetiq Limited, Juliet Ezechie, said that the CORS data will soon be made available to MDAs, contractors, construction companies, engineers, and surveyors to enable them fix and validate exact position information in the field throughout Lagos to an accuracy of under 1cm.

Juliet Ezechie said that, when the GPS/CORS platform is formally launched, Lagos state will blaze the trail in establishing world-class, ultra-modern technologies that provide a solid basis for the transformation of Lagos State and provide the technological foundation for successful implementation of the Lagos Mega City.

This GPS/CORS initiative, according to her, will help build a new Lagos and get the traffic moving again by tracking road congestion, road safety, and improving public transportation.
She explained that the entire project started when the state governor in 2007, set up a five-man advisory committee of experts headed by the former Surveyor-General of the state, who is now the Special Adviser to the Governor, Mr. M.A.O Durowoju, to deliver a fully-digital mapping and enterprise Geographic Information System (GIS) for Lagos state.

According to Ezechie, the report of the advisory committee was presented to the state executive council in September 2007. The report was also presented to a technical committee under the chairmanship of Dr Femi Hamzat, the state Commissioner for Science and Technology. This committee was tasked with the initiative to examine and recommend the best sustainable mapping and GIS solution for Lagos state
Geo Qinetiq Limited, a leading geophysical, geospatial, and logistics solutions provider in Nigeria was contracted to design, install, commission, and train GIS and geomatics professionals from the office of the state Surveyor-General in the operation of the state’s first public Continuously Operating Reference Station (CORS), with a view to later creating a network of such CORS stations across the State.

The newly completed CORS system is based on Swiss-based Leica Geosystems’ ultra-modern GRX1200GG GNSS reference station receivers along with the Leica spider GPS network control software. This software will be incorporated into an integrated network of CORS stations deployed at strategic location across Lagos state, to provide very high accuracy real-time data for a wide range of surveying and construction applications.

Great news.

Eko o ni baje lai lai.