OpenStreetMap

Reliability of Open Street Map

Posted by lolkins on 28 August 2010 in English.

I am currently planning a project on determining the accuracy and reliability of open street map data and attributes in relation to Ordnance Survey map data (in the Nottingham area). If anybody has a spare 5 minutes I would be very grateful if they could answer the following:

How long have you been using OSM?
Approximately how often do you use and edit OSM?
What are your incentives for editing in OSM?
What is your preferred method of attaining data to upload (e.g. GPS points, digitizing, uploading photographs)?
Do you feel there is much disparity in the reliability of OSM data?
If so, do you think this could be the result of the socio-economic dynamics of an area or the method of attaining data etc?

Thank you for any help you can provide, it would be very much appreciated :)

Laura :)

Location: Staveley CP, Staveley, Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England, United Kingdom

Discussion

Comment from lolkins on 29 August 2010 at 12:05

I'd read a couple of those, but thank you very much for the rest!

Cheers again,

Laura

Comment from Niels Elgaard Larsen on 29 August 2010 at 17:04

>How long have you been using OSM?
4 years

>Approximately how often do you use and edit OSM?
once or twice a month. Copenhagen where I live is close to completed for roads at least, so whenever I travel outside Copenhagen.

>What are your incentives for editing in OSM?
To contribute to an important project.
Privacy.

>What is your preferred method of attaining data to upload (e.g. GPS points, >digitizing, uploading photographs)?

GPS-points.

>Do you feel there is much disparity in the reliability of OSM data?

not much.

If so, do you think this could be the result of the socio-economic dynamics of an area or the method of attaining data etc?

Certainly the method. I.e. Copenhagen and surrounding (East half of
Sealand) have good Yahoo images, the rest of Denmark does not. It is
very obvious that this makes the difference in coverage.
http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=55.753&lon=12.018&zoom=10&layers=M

Popular remote tourist areas are probably most reliable because they are
mapped by many different people with good GPS-coverage.

Comment from Sanderd17 on 29 August 2010 at 19:11

>How long have you been using OSM?
I have been using OSM since I had my android phone a few months ago. On that platform, there are serveral apps that make use of OSM maps. When I tried those apps, I saw my street was only half mapped. So a few days later, I mapped the other half. That way I started editing OSM maps about 4 months ago.

>Approximately how often do you use and edit OSM?
Since that day, I use and edit OSM almost every day. If I have to be somewhere and I think this isn't yet in OSM, I fire up my tracking app and in the evening I take a look if those streets were already in OSM.

> What are your incentives for editing in OSM?
I want to provide an accurate map of the areas where I have to be a lot.

>What is your preferred method of attaining data to upload (e.g. GPS points, digitizing, uploading photographs)?
As said, I mostly use gpx tracks. When I ran out of GPX tracks, I try to correct easy "keep-right" errors (from the site keepright.ipax.at)

>Do you feel there is much disparity in the reliability of OSM data?
In my area, all OSM data is user-contributed, the Belgian government doesn't like sharing data. So there are no outdated sources and from time to time there is a contributer that tries to draw streets without data, those streets are quite fast corrected. So OSM data in my region is poor but reliable.

>If so, do you think this could be the result of the socio-economic dynamics of an area or the method of attaining data etc?
Explained in previous question.

Comment from Chaos99 on 29 August 2010 at 21:04

>How long have you been using OSM?
approx. since two years
>Approximately how often do you use and edit OSM?
Use: about 2-3 times a week (on my garmin gps unit)
Edit: about once a month
>What are your incentives for editing in OSM?
Getting better maps mostly. Sometimes the fun of editing itself.
>What is your preferred method of attaining data to upload (e.g. GPS points, digitizing, uploading photographs)?
GPS traces by my garmin etrex, personal memory and sometimes field notes.
>Do you feel there is much disparity in the reliability of OSM data?
Yes, and even more from country to country than from urban to rural areas.
>If so, do you think this could be the result of the socio-economic dynamics of an area or the method of attaining data etc?
I don't think the method of attaining data differs that much. It's simply a matter of how many mappers cover an area.

Comment from Opk on 30 August 2010 at 10:36

> How long have you been using OSM?
As my primary map site for over two years but have used it a bit for four.

> Approximately how often do you use and edit OSM?

At least a couple of edits a week during the summer. Much less during the winter.

> What are your incentives for editing in OSM?

Originally it was due to the lack of any accurate maps of the local forest tracks that I regularly cycle on. These are now well mapped and I still do mapping because I enjoy it.

> What is your preferred method of attaining data to upload (e.g. GPS points, digitizing, uploading photographs)?

GPS points.

> Do you feel there is much disparity in the reliability of OSM data?

I find it fairly reliable in general. There's more disparity in terms of completeness. In Germany it is very good, especially around cities. Other places like Finland suffer from a sparse population.

> If so, do you think this could be the result of the socio-economic dynamics of an area or the method of attaining data etc?

OSM data is best where there is a large tech-savvy population. It's hard to know what effect tourists have. Greek islands I've been to are not well mapped at all but if you compare the ski areas of Austria to some of the non touristed parts in the East of the country, there's a big difference. Southern Europe in general is less well mapped.

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