When OpenStreetMap (also referred to as OSM) first appeared, it caused a stir; here was free data that had detail and information, was updated daily, if not hourly, and contained data that couldn’t be found in some of the proprietary data sources — such as agricultural land use as well as retail establishment names and type. It is believed that when the U.K. government announced its plan to open non personal geospatial data in January 2010, the uptake and philosophy behind OSM played a large part in the decision.
One last type of data I'll talk about, maybe it's the most exciting. Before I came down here, I looked it up on OpenStreetMap. The OpenStreetMap's a map, but it's also a Wiki. Zoom in and that square thing is a theater — which we're in right now — The Terrace Theater. It didn't have a name on it. So I could go into edit mode, I could select the theater, I could add down at the bottom the name, and I could save it back. And now, if you go back to the OpenStreetMap.org, and you find this place .
OpenStreetMap, sometimes called the “Wikipedia for maps”[1] is crowd-sourced data. This means that information and data is input by volunteers. What makes it so exciting is that data can be created or edited by anyone, then uploaded live[2] in a matter of minutes, making it available rapidly. This capability is life-saving. When humanitarian crisis occurs there are mapathons (map creation meetings) in conjunction with the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT)[3] and users work together to map areas which have been devastated by flood, earthquakes, and other natural and human-made crises to map the current situation and previous topography from aerial imagery to aid emergency services and rescue bodies.
In response to the Haiti earthquake in November 2021, the OSM HOT team sent a call for action[4] Haiti Earthquake — after Tropical Storm Grace passed over the earthquake zone, wind and rain added complications to the emergency response efforts and caused additional damage. Around 1,558 volunteers, over a 10 day period, mapped over 207,000 buildings and 747 sq. km of road, enabling better identification of where rescue and emergency efforts were required.
When looking deeper into OSM, there is a wealth of data that is hard to find in off-the-shelf topographic products. In fact, some data is hard to find anywhere. For instance, the example below shows a tank training area near Bournemouth in the south of the U.K.
In this next example, all the buildings within the Sellafield nuclear site, Cumbria, England can be seen.
One of the notable aspects of OSM is cycling data — in the UK there is almost 100% coverage of the complete cycling network, even including shortcuts through forests and woods. The data is routing enabled and can be used in a phone to navigate by. Further, almost all of the guided routes and paths for hiking are available in OSM, with attribution that provides further detail and sometimes images. Even the Ordnance Survey’s flagship product, Mastermap, doesn’t have this level of attribution or information though it retails for more than £4million ($5.3 million) for full U.K. coverage.
There is so much information available that it is sometimes hard to extract value from it. This also highlights one of the biggest issues with OSM — consistency. With so much data being created by users from all over the world, a school site might be captured and digitized with all the buildings and play areas in one city, but in another city it might just be to the extent of the primary building. OSM has worked hard to try and enforce some consistency, while retaining the freedom to add data. There is a huge amount of information on how data may be added, even advice on how data should be tagged.[5] This however, can sometimes lead to more confusion for the casual editor. For example, looking at something like the U.K. public rights of way, one can find some footpaths under the ‘highways: footway’ tag but also under the ‘path’ tag which then makes for some confusion when using the data for analysis.
To really understand the value of OpenStreetMap, one must remember that OSM aims to be the Wikipedia of maps. Much like Wikipedia, the data is crowdsourced and has detail hard to find but there is an inherent worry with regard to information sources (even though many are cited). The quality also varies from place to place, but could there be a world without Wikipedia? Maybe not, and the same goes for OSM. Where local users have provided data, there is far more value and detail in places; which could never be obtained from a sterilized consistent national mapping data. A great example of this, in addition to the example of Sellafield, is the play trail at Moors Valley Country Park near Ringwood, a walk through the woods (originally designed for children) that has play equipment along the walk. Not only has OSM got the trail marked up with the stops, it also has the route direction.
On its own, OSM data is not suitable for business, but combined with a consistent and maintained national mapping data, this data becomes a highly valuable asset to enhance
information where it exists. At present, there are a plethora of global and national vector topography data which many geospatially minded companies will already have invested in, or will be using the open-source government-based solutions. By overlaying the OSM data it is possible to gain further insights in to the current status of information and other information which might not be shown.
In location intelligence for retail, the use case sits around situational awareness and the location of where other retail establishments and competitors may exist, besides information about access, greenspace, and other items like construction. OSM may provide that up-to-date view of a nearby construction site, with detail in many areas on exactly which shops own a building and further showing a large amount of land use information.
For architects, OSM is often used in Esri CityEngine.[6] This software uses the OSM buildings to generate ‘3D massing models’ (general 3D buildings without texture) that they can use alongside their designs to generate potential visualizations.
There is another way to consume a better OSM product, which is to fund, donate, or even get involved in providing data. Often companies using geospatial software and mapping products happily pay large license fees, forgetting to thank the open-source data they often rely on. The donations go towards incentivizing, digitizing, and maintaining the data quality. More funding gets better data.
An interesting method to ‘pay back’ can be seen in some businesses whereby they host ‘mapathons’ or allow a certain amount of time off work to provide data to OSM. This is extremely useful for businesses that may work in specific project areas as it not only pays back OSM, but also gives the company much-needed updated data in advance of the project start, thus allowing access to data to all members in the company and not just siloed to the geospatial team(s).
In conclusion, OpenStreetMap is a vital resource for any business as long as it is used in consideration, and with maintained primary sources. To really make OpenStreetMap shine, it needs more investment from the businesses using it so that it can be an accurate Wikipedia of maps.
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