In the ocean…
Poor geographic data gives rubbish results. Recently I read in Railways Africa:
“Electronic files of Southern California’s rail system can be downloaded from the Federal Railroad Administration’s website,” the Los Angeles Times says, “but are riddled with errors, placing hundreds of rail crossings at points far from any railroad tracks. Many are shown in the Pacific Ocean.
Source: LEVEL CROSSINGS IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN Published 2009-10-02
The article goes on to report that level crossing (aka grade crossings in the USA) accidents are porly recorded, and a number of known accidents do not appear in the database.
In the state of New South Wales, careful analysis of level crossing data found that where trains involved in level crossing accidents were not exceeding 120 km/h (75 MPH), derailment and loss of life to those on the train was avoided, and led to the max speed limit reduced from 160 to 120 km/h. So you would think that accurate rail accident statistics are vital in saving life.
But lest you think that southern Californian railway companies are the only culprit here, see the New South Wales Government shows a water monitoring site OURIMBAH CREEK UPSTREAM OF WEIR about 10 km offshore…
How do you plan to monitor fresh water in a river 10 km into the Pacific Ocean?
Two different NSW Government web offerings for the same location reveal a data quality problem:
1. The HITS site shows longitude 151.771 degrees East
2. The Real Time data sites shows longitude = 151.344 degrees East. This location makes more sense:
So in this case we can probably assume that the offshore coordinates are wrong. But when we find two differing sources of data, how do we determine which is accurate?
Inaccurate location data can cost utilities big money. And in the case of inaccurate level crossing locations, it can cost lives.
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