I’d just like to recommend that everyone who rides anywhere vaguely off the beaten track has this app on their phone. I have to thank my mate Kit who as a mountain guide told me to install it a few years ago.

OS locate

It allows you/your riding mates to relay an accurate OS grid reference to give emergency services if you’re in the unfortunate position to need to do that.

As a side issue I think a campaign to get MTB trail maps redone with OS grid references and any marker post numbers on them is a must also. Singletrack magazine fancy putting their weight behind that?

Sounds like a good idea on the posts more and more places around the world I see post exit strategies and contact details for help. Part of that is also the owners and developers working with emergency services to provide some nav/mapping for them to work to and access points.

What mapping formats can the emergency services work with?

I remember once in an emergency, being told that the new motorway marker system was no good to them. However, at the time, it was all I could see. As I’d not been driving, I wasn’t paying attention to junction numbers.

Mountain rescue can you would assume but I’m not sure regular emergency services know what to do with grid ref.

https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/shop/os-locate

My local council are in the process of tagging all of their gates and stiles as a part of an inventory/maint program.

I asked about getting the tags marked with the grid ref of the thing they were attached to. They don’t have the budget to do it so each item will just have a numbered tag attached. The council rangers will have a document tying each number to a grid reference but said there was no point sharing the doc with the emergency services as there’s no agreed way of storing/retrieving it in the call centres.

Seems a missed opportunity to me but I understand the reasons why it’s happened – £100 for a bag of 200 numbered tags off the shelf or £000’s getting them individually made.

Loaded the app, anyway, so thanks OP 🙂

Paramedic (and MRT) here. Our ambulance control will take a grid reference (and motorway markers……..). However, if you are away from roads, ring mountain rescue first: 999-police-mountain rescue. MRT local knowledge will trump regional emergency control rooms any time. MRT will also arrange appropriate helimed/ coastguard heli/ ambulance resource.

Second the OS locate app, free and easy to use.

FWIW the OS mapping app (OS Map Finder on iOS at least) can also give you a grid reference from an arbitrary point, which is useful if you need to move substantially to get a signal.

What mapping formats can the emergency services work with?

Last time I phoned 999 for an ambulance I gave them a grid reference from my OS mapping app, and they were happy with that. Interestingly a friend who works for the police and spent some time on the 999 response desk told me that the system can’t handle postcodes directly so whilst you’d think that would be useful in a city, they basically need to google them…

Downloaded, cheers op that looks like a handy tool.