Circa 20,000 segments have been edited or inserted and their cartographic projection DATUM changed

From all the CEM georeferenced cartographic files referring to São Paulo’s Metropolitan Region, the thoroughfare database (streets, avenues, lanes, bridges, and overpasses) may be considered the most important. In addition to representing the city’s road infrastructure, allowing one to infer the location of squares, parks, hydrographic channels and to distinguish the city’s urban design, the tool is the perfect instrument for locating and geocoding specific phenomena (people, events, equipment, etc.). In 2014, 10,000 segments were made available in the database. In this update, the total number of edited segments reaches 20,000 and circa 2,500 were inserted.

The database comprises a total of 327,000 segments (each road stretch – from corner to corner), of which 80% have name, building number, and postal code (CEP). This number is quite significant if we take into account the exceptional dynamics of the metropolitan urban space. Even with the trend toward densification and stabilization at the expense of the expansion of the urban fabric, the SPMR still incorporates a large volume of changes: new settlements, residential implants, condominiums, road and urban transport axes, major facilities, etc. which determine important impacts across different cartographies, geometric representations, or attributes.

Providing these georeferenced databases in CEM's website may also be considered a pioneering act. The dissemination of georeferenced cartographic production in Brazil is no more than a decade old. Even the business environment witnessed a significant delay in the assimilation of geoprocessing. Currently, municipalities and state and federal agencies increasingly operate grounded in GIS, but very few produce cartographic databases with the appropriate setting for a geoprocessing environment. An even smaller number of government agencies are concerned with making the databases available.

Database improvements

Updating maps is a permanent demand. If the geographic space is dynamic and ever-changing, then maps must accompany such changes.

The amendments refer to the design or outline, technically called "geometry" (adjusting or correcting a position), or the data for each segment. These data are the "attributes": road name, type, housing number, district or municipality to which it belongs, zip code, etc.

Thus, just as files on parks, schools, stations or main roads, the SPMR thoroughfare database is a map undergoing permanent development. New geometries or attributes are incorporated from several processes: research conducted at CEM/CEBRAP, online research on images and databases, such as Google or official city websites and other public agencies, and even in loco incursions when indirect sources are insufficient. However, we should clarify that the Center for Metropolitan Studies drafts its cartographic matrices in order to support and ground research developed at the Centre, with no intentions toward commercial production. More information regarding the update is available in the "Dictionary" file accompanying the data set.

Lastly, we underline changes introduced in the cartographic projection of CEM files: the file currently available for thoroughfares has the SIRGAS 2000 datum, the new standard adopted. New versions for other databases will be made available in the upcoming months and shall follow this standard.

CEM is a Cepid (Research, Innovation, and Diffusion Center) of FAPESP, headquartered at the University of São Paulo and CEBRAP. The website is http://web.fflch.usp.br/centrodametropole/. The Digital Thoroughfare Cartographic Database - 2016 Edition can be freely accessed through the database field in the website simply by filling out a brief registration form.