# items

guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395883144047931311.post-8028602295554813560
url: http://tlatet.blogspot.com/2015/08/osm-retail-survey-part-12a.html
title: OSM Retail Survey: Part: 12a
updated: 2015-08-02 10:51:50.372000
published: 2015-08-02 10:51:00.003000
fetched: 2019-10-09 09:30:14.485340
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.354066
updated_at: 2019-10-09 09:30:14.758777
content:
  Retail outlets in OSM are represented in different ways.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qHzeKuXIW5g/Vb3rW727GVI/AAAAAAAAAjs/tZKn8QGtDVE/s1600/retailrepresentation.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="181" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qHzeKuXIW5g/Vb3rW727GVI/AAAAAAAAAjs/tZKn8QGtDVE/s320/retailrepresentation.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />Very few shops have been added as a relation. Around two-thirds are a node, and one-third an area (almost always a closed way, occasionally as a relation between multiple ways).<br /><br />Larger types of outlet (supermarkets, motor trade outlets, petrol station, furniture showrooms, etc.) are more likely to be recorded as an area (with around 50% in that form); while smaller outlets such as post-offices, and pharmacies more likely to be recorded as a node (around 85% in that form).<br /><br />In effect, about a third of retail features are represented only by their location. In around two-thirds of cases there is more information on the geometry. The most common ways of representing the geometry of a retail outlet are<br /><br /><ul><li>as an area which represents both a shop and a building</li><li>as a node or area that represents a shop, and lies within an area that represents a building</li></ul><br />These two cases are equally common in the data. In the real world, some shops are always going to be closely associated with a specific building, while others are always going to be perceived as a facility that happens to be located within a particular building. So it is reasonable to expect data users to find both of these approaches acceptable.<br /><br />Tagging indicates that almost all (87%) of areas that have been marked as a retail outlet are equivalent to a building footprint - i.e. they hold both a "shop" tag and a "building" tag. Among the remainder, some areas are tagged to represent landuse, and a few represent road surface, but most others carry no indication of what physical feature the area represents (i.e. no relevant tag added alongside “shop” or some type of “amenity”). The proportion of contributors who have used an area to represent landuse varies by the type of retail. &nbsp;In the case of petrol stations, for example, it is 3%, and in the case of garden centres it is almost 25%.<br /><br />When a retail outlet is drawn as a closed area, with a “shop” tag, but no other indication of what that area represents, it is most likely that the area is intended to represent a building. A random check suggests that this is what contributors normally intended, but renders cannot be certain, so the most likely outcome for retail features mapped as an area, without a “building” or “landuse” tag is that these features will not be rendered at all.<br /><br />Where landuse is specified on a retail area it is normally “retail” (76% of cases). Of the other generic urban landuse terms, “commercial” represents 16%. The remainder are mostly more specific terms such as “landuse=plant_nursery”.<br /><br />Of the retail outlets that do not have their own area defined, and are represented only by a node, just under half are contained within a (separately defined) building. In most cases (75%) the type of building is not defined further (“building=yes”), and in 10% the building is described as a retail building.<br /><br />There are a couple of thousand retail buildings containing at least one shop. The biggest clusters of retail nodes within such buildings represent individual outlets within large shopping centres (e.g. the St James Centre in Edinburgh). However, these only account for a small proportion of the total. &nbsp;Most buildings that contain shops only show a single shop node, and it is common for a single building to contain only a few retail outlets.<br /><br />In around 20% of cases, the retail node within a building is the only retail feature within that building. It might be assumed in this case that a single shop occupies the whole building, but renderers cannot be certain whether there are other, unmapped shops within the same building. Their only safe option is to render both building and shop, and place the node in the position marked.<br />Although we can safely assume that almost all retail outlets should exist within a building, something over a third of all retail outlets in the database have no representation of a building associated with them. This is an indication of areas where building data is likely to be incomplete, but the information is of little value otherwise.<br /><br />Some large retail outlets are made up of numerous different components: petrol stations and garden centres are common examples. For petrol stations there is relatively clear guidance on how the various components should be mapped. Guidance is less comprehensive when it comes to garden centres.<br /><br />I've found 3,772 examples of “amenity=fuel” in the UK data, of which 70% are mapped as nodes, and 30% are areas. To map a service station as a node is simply to indicate the location. To map it as an area suggests that the contributor is at least aiming to provide more detailed visual information for rendering. Adding further detail on the products and services available, and detailed mapping of routes through the forecourt suggest that the contributor is aiming to support more sophisticated applications for more demanding users. To function properly, viable applications that can handle such complexity will require some consistency in the way that petrol stations are described.<br /><br />My interpretation of the mapping guidance for petrol stations is that:<br /><br /><ul><li>the building in the forecourt should be tagged as “amenity=fuel”: this guidance is generally followed, and is the approach in around 75% of cases where the petrol station has been mapped as an area. In around 3% of cases the area marked as “amenity=fuel” is also tagged to indicate retail landuse, which suggests it covers the whole site. In around 2% of cases it is also tagged as a shop, which suggest that it is intended to represent a building. However, renderers and applications cannot be certain that either is what the contributor intended. In around 20% of cases there is no indication from the tagging what the “amenity=fuel” area represents. Inspection suggests that in most cases it is the paved area around the pumps</li><li>the area around the pumps should be mapped as an area of highway: in practice this approach is only used in around 2% of cases, although there are a few more cases where the forecourt area is tagged as “amenity=parking”</li><li>use the shop tag alongside “amenity=fuel” to indicate other retail formats within the petrol station, such as a kiosk, or convenience store: this guidance is not generally followed – a shop tag is only used in 10% of petrol stations marked as an area, and only 5% of those marked as a node. Some of these petrol stations may truly have no other retail facilities, of course, but experience suggests that there are not many fuel outlets these days that only offer &nbsp;fuel</li><li>the routes through the forecourt should be mapped as one-way service roads: (this I've not measured)</li><li>any canopy should be mapped as “building=roof”: (this I've not measured)</li><li>add a node for toilets as an amenity: because fuel is treated as an amenity in the tagging, there is little problem in tagging coexistence of a petrol station with with retail formats that are tagged as a shop, but there are potential issues around how best to tag co-existence with other common amenities. This guidance helps with adding toilets, but there is no guidance yet for other common amenities, such as a café&nbsp;</li><li>there is no guidance yet on how to map the wider extent of the site – which may include customer parking, children's play areas, etc.</li></ul><br />The result is that rendering for some petrol stations presents a reasonable interpretation of the different components on the ground, but this is too unusual, and the underlying data is too inconsistent to be of further use.<br /><br />Representing the perimeter of a complex retail outlet would provide geometry information that would be particularly useful for data users. This would offer a mechanism for aggregating different components within the same facility that have been mapped separately (such as identifying a petrol station with toilets and a cafe) . However, for contributors there is confusion over how best to do this. The community is probably nearest to consensus on "landuse=retail", or "landuse=something more specific". However, this approach isn't widely adopted. In any case, it is virtually useless for anything more than rendering, because it loads the "landuse" tag with more than one meaning. Data users are not able to distinguish between cases where the "landuse" tag defines the outline of a specific outlet, and cases where it encompasses a wider area and more retail outlets.<br /><br />In summary, the largest gap in the information on the geometry of retail premises is a lack of any information on the footprint for around two-thirds of retail features. In around 4% of cases there is some basic information on footprint, but data users will face considerable difficulty in interpreting what it means.<br /><br />Where there is information on retail geometry it can help to identify gaps in data, particularly for building footprints.<br /><br />The database also contains information on some more complex retail footprints, but this is not presented in a consistent way, and the various components are not sufficiently well-integrated for applications to make use of the information (other than basic rendering). There is some guidance for contributors on mapping more complex retail features, but this is not widely followed, and I have found no feedback mechanisms to encourage more consistent tagging of &nbsp;complex cases.


guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395883144047931311.post-1914579926025738860
url: http://tlatet.blogspot.com/2015/07/osm-retail-survey-part-12.html
title: OSM Retail Survey: Part-12
updated: 2015-07-31 10:58:23.247000
published: 2015-07-31 10:51:00.001000
fetched: 2019-10-09 09:30:14.485340
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.356977
updated_at: 2019-10-09 09:30:14.761429
content:
  I see that most readers of these posts come from outside the UK. I hope the information is of some interest and use to others, but I should probably emphasise that this is just a survey of UK retail data on OSM. The structure of the retail industry differs from place to place. The UK, for example, has a relatively high proportion of retail turnover through large retail chains: i.e. fewer small retailers than France, and fewer mid-sized retailers than Germany. It would be interesting to know whether similar patterns of OSM data are found elsewhere, or whether there are differences that we can all learn from.<br /><br />After the most basic information on the location and type of shop, the most common (and for many data users, the most useful) supplementary information in OSM is the name of the retailer. Some form of name is provided for around 90% of retail premises, but the proportion is lower for certain types of outlet. Most UK Post Offices, for example, do not have a name tag.<br /><br />Names will probably be most useful to the data user because they allow searches for a specific retailer. In the UK, understanding the name of the chain may carry relatively high value, because the name often gives a clear idea of the format and range of goods on sale (most people have an idea of what to expect in a branch of Argos, even if the tagging of shop type is inconsistent).<br /><br />Names are also a useful characteristic when analysing retail data. Where chains have multiple similar branches, this provides a vehicle for checking tagging consistency across a chain, and information can be extracted on OSM coverage of the larger chains.<br /><br />There are numerous variations in the way names are provided by contributors. These fall into several groups:<br /><br /><ul><li>Variation in capitalisation: Aldi / ALDI, &nbsp;Asda / ASDA, Spar / SPAR, Lidl / LIDL, Pets at Home / Pets At Home</li><li>Variations in the use of abbreviations: Co-op, Co-Op / Co-operative, M&amp;S / Marks &amp; Spencer / Marks and Spencer, Toni&amp;Guy / Toni &amp; Guy / Toni and Guy, B&amp;Q / B &amp; Q / B and Q</li><li>Variations in the use of a possessive, with or without apostrophe: Sainsbury / Sainsbury's / Sainsburys, Wilkinson / Wilkinsons / Wilkinson's, McColl / McColl's, Jewson / Jewsons, Maplin / Maplins</li><li>Variations in the use of a definite article: Co-operative Food / The Co-operative Food, Money Shop / The Money Shop, Body Shop / The Body Shop, Carphone Warehouse / The Carphone Warehouse</li><li>Variations in spacing: WHSmith / WH Smith / W H Smith, Kwik Fit / Kwik-Fit, One Stop / One-Stop / OneStop, Phones 4U / Phones4U, TK Maxx / TKMaxx&nbsp;</li><li>Including or omitting the location of the branch in the name: “Tesco, Swansea Marina”, “Batley Tesco”, “Tesco Barnstaple”, “Tesco Extra, Hartlepool”, “Tesco - Biggin Hill Express”, “Tesco (Greenock)”, “Tesco Rugeley Superstore”, “Tesco Ystrad Mynach”, “Tesco Extra (24hr) Maldon”, “Tesco South Tottenham Superstore”, and many, many more.</li></ul><br />Different names for different formats within a chain are a slightly different issue. Tesco, Tesco Metro, Tesco Express and Tesco Extra can all be considered valid names for different retail formats used by Tesco. Similarly, Sainsbury's and Sainsbury's Local. These cannot really be considered variations in the same name. There is evidence, though that they are not used consistently, so “Tesco” is sometimes used as a synonym for the various different formats (and at other times it isn't).<br /><br />It is difficult to put a firm number on how many times all these different kinds of inconsistency occur, &nbsp;but it certainly runs into thousands (i.e. between 1% and 10% of mapped shops). So they are likely to cause some data users a degree of frustration. However, &nbsp;similar patterns recur, and some names are particularly prone to certain variations. With varying degrees of effort data users who place a high value on standardised names will probably be able to find ways to work round many of the differences that are most important to them.<br /><br />Occasionally the name will appear as the value in the "shop=" tag, but this is very rare. Various other tags are used to hold different types of name: primarily “name”, “operator”, and “brand”. &nbsp;In around 4% of cases the contributor has provided a name, plus details on the operator, brand, or both, and in less than 2% of cases they have provided information on the operator, or brand, but not the name of the outlet. There is some inconsistency in the way that “operator” and “brand” are used, which will make life a bit difficult for data users.<br /><br />Data users who ignore “operator” and “brand”, and use just the “name” field will lose information from around 6% of recorded retail outlets. However, there are certain sub-sectors where the operator or brand tag are more widely used.<br /><br />In the case of petrol stations, for example, both are used, but both the brand of fuel and the operator are scattered quite widely across the name, operator and brand tags. For car showrooms contributors normally use the name tag to show the name of the outlet, but it is not uncommon for the name tag to show the car manufacturer. In around 11% of cases the manufacturer appears under brand, but in some cases it appears under operator. This inconsistency in the use of names could be a lost opportunity to provide additional information to data users, but it is difficult to know how much of a problem it will really give them. Anyone who wants to search for a Volkswagen Dealer, for example, will need to search for “VW” or “Volkswagen”. If they are capable of doing that on the name tag, then they will be able to search the name, brand and operator tags almost as easily. If they go to this amount of effort, they will currently pick up around 30 VW dealerships in the UK. This is well short of the true figure of around 200. Again, missing data is a bigger problem here than inconsistent tagging. Sensible end-users who want to find a VW dealer will use the manufacturer's dealer search rather than OSM data.<br /><br />For most types of retail there is no major issue with misuse of the “brand” tag. On the whole it is used consistently for car dealerships and filling stations, and little used elsewhere. There is, though, some confusion around tagging of convenience store names. In the UK these are often independently owned and operated, but trading under a well-known national franchise. Examples include SPAR, Londis, Costcutter, Premier Stores and Nisa. Together these represent around a third of the convenience store sector in the UK, so they have a significant presence, but none of the various combinations of “name”, “operator” and “brand” really captures the business model. As a result the way they are tagged is quite inconsistent (roughly 80% of the time the franchise is tagged as “name”, roughly 13% as “operator”, and 6% as “brand”).<br /><br />Address details are attached to about a third of retail properties in OSM, but only 15% have a postcode, and the proportion with a complete street address is in the region of 5-10% (depending on what components a user requires in order to regard the address as complete).<br /><br />Contact details (web site, or phone) are provided for around 10% of retail properties, although for certain types the proportion is higher. For restaurants and bars, for example, the proportion with contact details is around 20%, and for estate agents around 25%. Is is more common to find a web site than a phone number, and comparatively rare to find both. In the case of restaurants, for example, 15% are tagged with a web site, 10% with a phone number, 5% with both, and 80% with neither. Restaurants have a higher level of coverage for contact details than most retail sectors on OSM, and yet, out of 60,000 restaurants in the UK, OSM has contact details for just over 2,000. This looks long way from being a set of information that is viable enough to attract data users.<br /><br />Information on accessibility (“wheelchair=”) is provided for around 4% of retail properties, with a higher proportion for cafés and restaurants (7%) and for supermarkets (8%). Where wheelchair information is provided the value is “yes” in 63% of cases, but “no” in 20% of cases, and “limited” in 16% of cases.<br /><br />Information on opening hours is provided for under 3% of retail properties. The types of outlet that fare better than average for this information are an odd mixture: Supermarkets (but not Convenience Stores), Bars (but not Pubs), Pharmacies (but not Post Offices) and Bicycle Shops. Cafés and Restaurants rate only slightly higher than average.<br /><br />It's worth looking more closely at an example where the opening hours have been provided more often than average, and where they could play an important role in any feasible application. If I wanted to find a pharmacy near to home, that is open on a Sunday afternoon, then the nearest pharmacy where I can check “opening_hours” on OSM is nearly 50km away (and as it happen, it isn't open on a Sunday afternoon). There are four pharmacists within 100km that OSM tells me are open on a Sunday afternoon, but only one of them shows a phone number. This is potentially an application area where the tagging structure is ready to support a viable application. In London, and a few other towns and cities contributors have been diligent in adding sufficient detail to make a search viable (Stoke on Trent, Norwich,...). &nbsp;But across most of the country, it doesn't look to me as though the data content is anywhere near ready to attract users to this type of data.<br /><br />In summary, OSM has the potential to support more sophisticated searches of retail data than a simple location search, in the sense that data structures are in place to hold much valuable information. Where these are used, they are used fairly consistently. However, in most cases coverage of supplementary data is an issue. There is a considerable way to go before the supplementary data is sufficiently complete and consistent. The first priority is probably to work towards more consistent naming. Beyond that, at present, the potential applications for this data are hypothetical, and it is too early for an informed debate on priorities.


guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395883144047931311.post-6748887340569238013
url: http://tlatet.blogspot.com/2015/07/osm-retail-survey-part-11.html
title: OSM Retail Survey: Part-11
updated: 2015-07-27 10:16:42.695000
published: 2015-07-27 10:00:00
fetched: 2019-10-09 09:30:14.485340
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.359707
updated_at: 2019-10-09 09:30:14.764461
content:
  The occupants of a retail premise will change over time, and as a result we should expect retail data in OSM to continually evolve as well.<br /><br />Most of the retail data within OSM is less than 5 years old, so the chances are that the bulk of this is still more-or-less current. Around 5% of the data is 5-years old, and 2% is 6 years old. A growing proportion of this older data could now be inaccurate, but across the country it is likely that the proportion of data that is out-of-date will only represent a few percent of the total.<br /><br />In some places (e.g. Islington, Leeds, and Sheffield), more than 10% of shops were added to the database over five years ago. In parts of Kent more than 30% of the shops were added more than five years ago. So there may be a case for some local reviews of older data, to update anything that has changed since it was last recorded.<br /><br />In most locations, though, the current priority will still be to add missing data, then later work towards greater accuracy.<br /><br />In the longer term, that picture is likely to change. In the last 12 months 28,000 retail properties in England have been edited. That's 5% of retail properties that have either been added to OSM, or updated. Some of the changes in OSM data over the last year will have been to correct a spelling, or to adapt tagging, and will not have involved a re-survey. But we can't easily measure how much has been fully updated. So for now, let's be optimistic, and assume that every edit brings that particular shop up to date.<br /><br />If nothing changed on the ground, then at this rate it will take more than a decade to approach complete coverage of retail. But the situation on the ground does change. In 2014 the average length of a retail lease was less than nine years, and almost half of retail leases were for less than four years. Retail leases used to be for a longer period, and because of peaks in construction activity in 1990 and 2000 an unusually high number of 25-year, and 15-year leases are currently due for renewal.<br /><br />&nbsp;Not all retail property is leased, leases will sometimes be renewed without change of occupant, and some might carry forward for generations. So I don't know what proportion of OSM high street data we should expect to change over a year. If only 5% changes then current levels of editing activity are sufficient to maintain existing data, and gradually close the gap of missing data. But if we assume 10% of existing retail premises change over a year then the current rate at which OSM retail data is being edited will not be enough to deliver and maintain complete and accurate data on all retail properties in England.<br /><br />Nationally, perhaps something like 7,000-14,000 entries on the database should be updated each year. Around where I live, the rate of change looks closer to 10% per year, rather than 5%, so I'm guessing a decent estimate of the national picture will be closer to the higher figure.<br /><br />As database volumes rise there will be more to maintain. If contributors concentrate on adding missing retail properties, then by the time coverage reaches about 50%, the existing data will be going out of date as fast as new data is being added. If contributors concentrate on maintaining what has already been added, then they will have no time to add the missing 50% of retail properties. Either way, for the foreseeable future, there is going to be a lot of retail data that is either missing from OSM, or incorrect on OSM.<br /><br />&nbsp;If we can wait long enough, other factors might help. A decline in the number of retail premises would also accelerate progress towards 100% coverage, and the chart shows the effect of a 2% reduction in the number of retail properties each year. Even if this is factored in, reaching a worthwhile level of retail cover still looks like a slow process. Too slow.  <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HNujsR8G5Ls/VbYAShMAmAI/AAAAAAAAAjc/h9RT5FwohFo/s1600/RetailCoverageProjected.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HNujsR8G5Ls/VbYAShMAmAI/AAAAAAAAAjc/h9RT5FwohFo/s320/RetailCoverageProjected.png" /></a></div><br />It is not only individual shops that change. Retail business models also evolve, and over the long term we should expect this to affect the choice of tags. Some formats which once were common on the high street no longer exist (ironmongers into hardware, then homeware). A traditional grocery, or a video rental shop is now unusual.<br /><br />On the other hand, perhaps candle shops are returning to the high street (“shop=candle”), and e-cigarettes are a recent arrival. The data on chains of mobile phone shops may be an example of how this process continues. Currently these chains are tagged with a mix of “mobile_phone” (95%), and “electronics” (5%). Perhaps contributors are adapting their tagging, in recognition that an established speciality has now matured, and the offer is starting to evolve as retailers extend into adjacent markets.


guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395883144047931311.post-6187747598592030218
url: http://tlatet.blogspot.com/2015/07/osm-retail-survey-part-10.html
title: OSM Retail Survey: Part: 10
updated: 2015-07-26 21:19:50.496000
published: 2015-07-26 18:56:00.004000
fetched: 2019-10-09 09:30:14.485340
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.362232
updated_at: 2019-10-09 09:30:14.769585
content:
  Specialised types of shop offer a narrow range of categories, but provide wide choice within their specialist area. Generalist retailers offer a broad range of product categories, with less choice within each category. Large generalists (e.g. supermarkets) are able to offer both numerous categories and broad choice.<br /><br />We use different terms for a large “supermarket” (with breadth and depth), a small “convenience” store (with some breadth and less depth), and a "butcher" or “newsagent” which we expect to be more more specialised. We expect a newsagent to offer a wider choice of newspapers and magazines than a convenience store, but we would still expect a convenience store to offer newspapers. We expect a convenience store to offer much more than newspapers, and we would be surprised if a newsagent offered nothing but newspapers. We expect a butcher to offer a wider choice of meat than a convenience store. Ours does excellent sandwiches, ready meals, pies, vegetables, and various other items as well. Although the principles are fairly clear, the precise boundaries between retail categories are always going to be difficult to pin down.<br /><br />As a result, it doesn't matter how clear the definitions are for different terms covering different levels of specialisation. We should still expect some inconsistency in the way that different tags are used. Some retailers have a business model that is closer to the boundary than others, so it is inevitable that there will be a grey area where it is difficult to maintain a consistent boundary. The proper question isn't whether tagging ought to be consistent. It's whether there should be more consistency than we find.<br /><br />To my mind there are several areas where the data does not look consistent enough. This is particularly true in the case of large stores which sell a broad range of goods (the big generalists).<br /><br />For example, a data user who searches for “supermarket” and relies on the wiki for the definition, will expect to find “a large store for groceries and other goods” “a full service grocery store that often sells a variety of non-food products as well”. They will assume (perhaps because the wiki tells them) that “stores that do not provide full service grocery departments are generally not considered supermarkets”.<br /><br />In practice they will find results that include a high proportion of outlets that fit this description, including most branches of the major chains that they will expect to find: ALDI, ASDA, Booths, Co-op, Iceland, Lidl, Morrison's, Sainbury's, Tesco, Waitrose, etc. However, they will also pick up a lot of convenience stores, and some stores tagged “supermarket” where few shoppers would expect to find groceries: Argos, Homebase, Matalan, Mothercare, Pets at Home, etc.<br /><br />I estimate that around 10% of the data that they retrieve will not be what they expect.<br /><br />Commercial search engines face a similar problem, because &nbsp;smaller convenience stores often call themselves a supermarket, and this is inevitably picked up in their keyword searches. But OSM has a more structured data model. We should expect to perform better.<br /><br />The situation with department stores is even more difficult for data users. The major chains are well covered, but they only represent about half of all retail outlets tagged as a department store. Data users who rely on the Wiki definition will be expecting “a large store with multiple clothing and other general merchandise departments”. They probably won't expect to pick up Poundstretcher, Argos, Matalan, Pets at Home, Staples, Superdrug, TK Maxx, etc. - but they will.<br /><br />Wilkinson's (Wilko) is a difficult boundary case - with a particularly wide range of different key values for different branches. &nbsp;My own view is that something like “homeware” would be the best description of their format, but only about 2% of contributors agree with me. And in practice, what should matter to data users is not what I think (even when I am right). What has to matter to data users is the consensus that develops across the majority of contributors. And in this particular case there is little consensus. It is difficult for anyone to know whether to consider Wilkinson's a department store or not. What is even more unsatisfactory for data users is that 25% of Wilkinson's stores are considered to be a department store, and even though that's the most popular option, 75% are tagged differently.<br /><br />Neither of these examples is the result of a problem with the definition of the tags for a supermarket or a department store. The problem is that the same tags are being quite widely used for branches of chains where most contributors prefer an alternative. Good data on department stores and supermarkets is polluted by inconsistent data on other retail formats.<br /><br />Looking further, the confusion lies partly in representing scale consistently, and partly in representing the degree of specialisation consistently.<br /><br />Most specialists offer some categories of product that fall outside their main area of activity. Some position themselves as specialists in more than one area. As a result contributors can find it difficult to draw a consistent distinction between a specialist and a generalist outlet. If they are uncertain about the right specialist term to use, they tend to look for something more generic, and fall back on terms intended for generalists. This isn't entirely unreasonable behaviour. For a long time, the guidance, when in doubt, is to pick a popular tag that best fits the situation (rather than inventing a new one). Contributors don't necessarily have an understanding of all the tags &nbsp;in use, and the result is that popular tags that were originally intended to apply to large outlets which offer a broad range are quite commonly used for smaller outlets offering a broad range, and for unusual specialists that are difficult for contributors to classify.<br /><br />Looking at this another way, we have a choice of terms for shops which offer a broad range. Contributors who find it difficult to pick an appropriate tag veer towards picking one from a higher row in this table - they are the ones that are most widely used.<br /><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><table cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="page-break-inside: avoid; width: 100%px;"> <colgroup><col width="41*"></col> <col width="72*"></col> <col width="72*"></col> <col width="72*"></col> </colgroup><thead><tr valign="top">   <th style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: 1px solid #000000; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0.1cm;" width="16%"><span style="color: #999999;"><br />     </span></th>   <th style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: 1px solid #000000; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0.1cm;" width="28%"><span style="color: #999999;">Primarily food</span></th>   <th style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: 1px solid #000000; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0.1cm;" width="28%"><span style="color: #999999;">Primarily non-food</span></th>   <th style="border: 1px solid #000000; padding: 0.1cm;" width="28%"><span style="color: #999999;">Hardware / building materials</span></th>  </tr></thead> <tbody><tr valign="top">   <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="16%"><b><span style="color: #999999;">Large generalists</span></b></td>   <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="28%"><div align="center"><span style="color: #999999;">“supermarket”</span></div></td>   <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="28%"><div align="center"><span style="color: #999999;">“department_store”</span></div></td>   <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0.1cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="28%"><div align="center"><span style="color: #999999;">“doityourself” (or sometimes “trade”)</span></div></td>  </tr><tr valign="top">   <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="16%"><b><span style="color: #999999;">Other generalists</span></b></td>   <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="28%"><div align="center"><span style="color: #999999;">“convenience”</span></div></td>   <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="28%"><div align="center"><span style="color: #999999;">“general” (rare) or “variety” (for     pound shops)</span></div></td>   <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0.1cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="28%"><div align="center"><span style="color: #999999;">“hardware”</span></div></td>  </tr><tr valign="top">   <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="16%"><b><span style="color: #999999;">Specialists</span></b></td>   <td bgcolor="#c0c0c0" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="28%"><div align="center"><span style="background-color: yellow; color: #999999;">“bakery”, “butcher”, “cheese”, etc.</span></div></td>   <td bgcolor="#c0c0c0" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="28%"><div align="center"><span style="background-color: yellow; color: #999999;">“clothes”, “beauty”, “houseware”,     etc.</span></div></td>   <td bgcolor="#c0c0c0" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0.1cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="28%"><div align="center"><span style="background-color: yellow; color: #999999;">“garden_centre”, “paint”, etc.</span></div></td>  </tr></tbody></table><br /><br />One result of tending towards tags for larger generalists is that supermarkets are over-represented in OSM. Industry figures show 6,410 stores in this category in the UK, whereas I found 7,045 (110%) in OSM. Convenience stores, on the other hand are under-recorded. I found 9,717 out of 48,303 identified by the industry (i.e. just 20%).<br /><br />It is obvious from the data that contributors find it difficult to to make a distinction between a supermarket and convenience store. In England and Wales the law on opening hours varies for different sizes of store, with restricted hours on Sunday for those of more than 208 sq. metres (3,000 sq. ft.) So a supermarket of less than 280 square metres (3,000 sq. ft.) would be normally be considered a convenience store, and a convenience store of more than 280 square metres would be considered a supermarket. However, in OSM, at least 9% of outlets marked as a supermarket in OSM (and recorded as an area rather than a node) have a floorspace of less than 280 sq metres. Around one in three of the stores operated by one of the major convenience store chains is tagged as a supermarket. Convenience stores don't have to offer extended opening hours, we can't really expect contributors to measure the footprint, and the situation is further confused because some convenience stores describe themselves as a supermarket. The upshot is that almost a thousand convenience stores in OSM are marked as a supermarket. And meanwhile, because convenience stores are generally under-recorded, around 30% of the general grocery sector has yet to be added to OSM.<br /><br />Changing tack, department stores sell a range of general merchandise, typically including clothing, household appliances, toys and games, personal-care products and garden equipment. Some also sell food, but non-specialised food stores are properly classified as supermarkets. With very few exceptions the major UK department store chains, such as John Lewis, Debenhams, and House of Fraser are tagged correctly as a department store. However, not all retail premises tagged “department_store” comfortably fit the description.<br /><br />Examples include branches of Argos (normally tagged “catalogue”), TK Maxx and Matalan (normally tagged “clothes”), Poundland (normally tagged “variety_store”, sometimes “convenience” or “supermarket”), Mothercare (normally “baby_goods”, sometimes “clothes”), Wilkinson's (“department_store” for 25% of branches, plus a wide range of different alternatives).<br /><br />The Wiki describes Do-It-Yourself-stores as being similar to hardware stores, except generally larger, stocking a wider range of products, and targeting customers who are non-professionals working on home improvements, redecorating, gardening, etc. Pure DIY stores are well covered in the database, and consistently tagged. In the case of Homebase, B&amp;Q and Wickes, for example, more than two-thirds of branches are in the database, &nbsp;and well over 90% are tagged as “doityourself”.<br /><br />The same is not true of builders' merchants (which according to the documentation are properly tagged as “trade”). Fewer than 10% of Jewsons, and Travis Perkins branches are in the database, and they are tagged with a mix of “doityourself”, “hardware”, and “trade”, with “doityourself” as the most common.<br /><br />There seem to be two issues here. One is that many trade outlets also serve non-professionals, so their business model overlaps with the scope of “doityourself” (this is accepted in the documentation on “shop=trade”, but contributors are either uncomfortable with it, or simply don't recognise these as trade outlets). The other issue is that there are different degrees of specialisation in the trade side of the market. Specialists in supplying the trade with building materials, timber, plumbing, bathroom furniture, electrical goods, tools, etc. all seem to be under-recorded, and inconsistently tagged. Again, where there is no clear consensus, contributors have fallen back on common tags such as “doityourself” and “hardware”, that were originally intended for generalists supplying the non-professional, and so are more widely used.<br /><br />Branches of Wilkinson's and Robert Dyas don't fit comfortably into any of the most common categories, so they tend to suffer from highly inconsistent tagging (department_store, doityourself or hardware). We could blame contributors, but surely some of the tagging inconsistency shows that there may be a need for:<br /><br /><ul><li>more specific options to cover particular retail format that do not comfortably fit the current categories</li><li>more generic options, so that contributors have an alternative to popular tags intended for large generalists&nbsp;</li></ul>


guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395883144047931311.post-3773808067607122890
url: http://tlatet.blogspot.com/2015/07/osm-retail-survey-part-9.html
title: OSM Retail Survey: Part-9
updated: 2015-07-25 09:06:46.515000
published: 2015-07-25 09:06:00.004000
fetched: 2019-10-09 09:30:14.485340
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.365082
updated_at: 2019-10-09 09:30:14.772242
content:
  <h2>False synonyms</h2>True synonyms add to the confusion, provoke debate, and may discourage some data users, but in practice I suspect “false synonyms” are a bigger problem. By this, I mean tags that are used interchangeably by contributors, even when they are not true synonyms according to the guidelines. Again, we can use major chains to do some cross-checking of whether tags with similar meanings are applied consistently.<br /><br /><ul><li>Almost every major chain of pharmacies has a mix of outlets tagged as “shop=pharmacy” and “shop=chemist”.&nbsp;</li><li>Similarly “alcohol”, “wine”, “beverages” seem to be used interchangeably for chains of off-licences and wine merchants, with “alcohol” as the most common of these. The less common “off-licence” is not widely used on retail outlets</li><li>For chains such as Ladbrookes and William Hill, “bookmaker'” is the most common, but “betting” and “gambling” are also quite common&nbsp;</li><li>There is a lot of overlap between outlets that are described by the relatively common “doityourself”, and the less common “hardware”, “building_supplies”, “trade”</li><li>For “mobile_phone” the less common alternatives are “phone” and “electronics”. Tagging "electronics" could be a symptom of an evolving retail format. Phone looks like a false synonym.</li></ul><br />The documentation in the wiki makes it reasonably clear that the above are not true synonyms, but contributors have treated them as synonyms in the sense that similar branches of the same chain use a mix of different values. As a result, data users are unable to tell where there is a true difference, and where there is imprecise tagging. In effect data users are being pushed to treat these as synonyms, even though they are documented as having different meanings.<br /><br />These are examples of retail formats that contributors have difficulty with. Data users, those who maintain the documentation, and those who advocate changes to tagging need to be sensitive to where these occur. We'll look in more detail at some common examples shortly.<br /><h2>Multi-specialists</h2>The above are all examples of specialist retailers. Multiple specialities are another area that give contributors a problem. Halfords is one of the most easily identified examples. How best to tag a store that offers both bicycles and car parts? The solutions that contributors have come up with include around 30 different variants:<br /><br /><ul><li>Choosing just one of the options: “bicycle”, “automotive”, “car_accessories”, “auto_accessories”, “car_parts” and ignoring any other area of specialisation</li><li>Contributing a list of options separated by semi-colons: “bicycle;car_parts”, “car;bicycle” “bicycle; car_accessories”, “motor;bicycle”</li><li>Using a more generic category: “doityourself”, “hardware”</li></ul><br />The usual way to assign multiple values to a key is a list separated by semi-colons. In practice this is not widely used for shops (less than one in a thousand examples), but there are examples which give an idea of other multiple specialities that are giving contributors problems:<br /><br /><ul><li>“hairdresser;beauty”</li><li>“kitchen;bathroom”&nbsp;</li><li>“greengrocer;florist”</li><li>“dry_cleaning;laundry”</li><li>“art;frame”</li><li>“car;bicycle”</li><li>“shoe_repair;key_cutting”</li><li>“bicycle;car_parts”</li><li>“tattoo;piercing”</li></ul><br />Noticeably, these are all pairs. Happily, there don't seem to be any long lists of shop types. Contributors recognise that the intention is to record mixed types of speciality shop, not to list all the categories of good for sale.<br /><br />The limited number of examples mean that these won't give data users a great problem. If they chose to ignore them they won't lose much data. If they prefer to break out the list then it won't give the much difficulty. More importantly, to my mind, contributors are sending signals here about retail formats that they find it difficult to categorise. This could be valuable information for those who maintain the documentation, and those who advocate changes to tagging.


guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395883144047931311.post-6776282760674022258
url: http://tlatet.blogspot.com/2015/07/osm-retail-survey-part-8.html
title: OSM Retail Survey: Part-8
updated: 2015-07-24 09:19:42.809000
published: 2015-07-24 09:19:00.001000
fetched: 2019-10-09 09:30:14.485340
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.367881
updated_at: 2019-10-09 09:30:14.774820
content:
  <h2>Consistency</h2>One way to assess tagging consistency is to examine differences in tagging across similar outlets of the larger retail chains. Contributors don't always agree on how to tag similar shops, they don't always follow the guidelines, the guidelines aren't static, and they aren't always consistent.<br /><br />Regardless of what the documentation might say, and the merits of any minority view, in practice data users will have to follow the consensus that has been adopted by the majority of contributors.<br /><br />In principle crowd-sourcing will end up tagging most of a retail chain with the “correct” tag. By examining variations in tagging across a retail chain we can get an idea of the proportion of outlets that have been tagged according to the consensus, and how many fall outside the consensus. Data users will be able to accommodate variations, to some extent, but they won't be able to accommodate all of them.<br /><br /><ul><li>In the case of banks, for example, there is very little variation in tagging: 100% of Barclays, &nbsp;HSBC, Natwest, and Lloyds / TSB branches are tagged “amenity=bank”.&nbsp;</li><li>In other sectors, Subway doesn't fall far behind the consistency of banks at 95% tagged “amenity=fast_food”.</li><li>At the other extreme there are more challenging examples. Wilkinson's seems to be one of the more difficult chains for contributors to classify: “department_store” is the most common choice, but only accounts for 25% of examples. “hardware”, “variety_store”, “doityourself”, “supermarket”, “general”, “convenience”, “household” and “houseware” are also popular. Robert Dyas, with a similar retail format, faces similar difficulties.&nbsp;</li><li>In the case of Halfords 42% of branches are tagged “shop=bicycle” (which doesn't really capture their business format) and the rest use a wide variety of tags.&nbsp;</li><li>Argos has 40% tagged “shop=catalogue” and the rest a variety.&nbsp;</li></ul><br />In general the most specialised chains tend to be tagged more consistently, and the most consistent tagging of all is found within chains of smaller outlets, with a well-established, widely understood, &nbsp;unambiguous specialisation (“estate_agent”, “funeral_directors”, “hairdresser”, “toys”, “optician”, “laundry”, and “travel_agency”). <br /><br />Less consistent tagging is found in chains where the specialisation is more ambiguous (“gift”, “catalogue”, “accessories”).<br /><br />There are many shops that are not part of a chain, and we can't easily assess how consistently they are tagged. But if we assume that the pattern of tagging inconsistencies across retail chains is repeated across the whole of the retail market, then we can get some idea of how consistent tagging might be overall. In practice there tends to be more consistency across larger chains, and less across smaller chains, so results vary according to how widely we cast the net. As a broad indication we should probably anticipate that something in the region of 20% of retail outlets have been tagged with a value that differs from the one that the majority of contributors would choose (and hence the value that data users would have to expect).<br /><br />Some variation is inevitable: retail business models evolve over time, and vary from place to place; different contributors place different emphasis on different characteristics; tagging guidelines change as they are refined. However, if 20% of existing data is tagged with a value different to the one that most contributors would chose, then across England there are almost 30,000 retail premises in the database that data users will find it hard to recognise, and which should perhaps be brought more into line. After the 385,000 missing retail premises, it seems to me that this must rank as the second largest data quality issue.<br /><h2>Synonyms</h2>Many community discussions of tagging inconsistencies revolve around synonyms. The controversy often lies in deciding when different contributors are using different terms to describe exactly the same thing, and when they are using different terms to describe subtle differences.<br /><br />Any list of synonyms invites debate, but examples that are unlikely to be controversial, and where the difference is more than a spelling mistake would probably include travel_agent / travel_agency, newspaper / newsagent, jewellery / jewelry, and deli / delicatessen. I suspect that most would also count baby / baby_goods, seafood / fish / fishmonger, bathroom_furnishing / bathroom, beauty_salon / beauty, etc. &nbsp;as true synonyms.<br /><br />If this is anywhere near a complete list, then true synonyms do not look like a significant problem across all retail data. Including spelling mistakes they account for fewer than 1% of all shops in the database. However, they represent a higher proportion of data within some categories of shop, and they can account for a significant proportion of the more unusual categories.<br /><br />The retail categories where synonyms are likely to present the greatest problem are where they account for a significant proportion of an important category. Everyone will have different ideas of what makes a proportion significant, and a category important, so it is worth considering a couple of real examples.<br /><br />I reckon there are about 2,500 delicatessens in the UK, and I can find just under 500 in the database. Of those, 456 are tagged “shop=deli”, and 39 are tagged “shop=delicatessen”. Any data user who searches for “shop=deli” will miss 39 delicatessens in the database with the “wrong” tag value, and will miss about 2,000 delicatessens that aren't in the database at all (or at least not with a recognisable tag). Of the two, the bigger problem is surely the 2,000 missing delicatessens.<br /><br />On the other hand, some synonyms have a more balanced mix of values. Out of 950 independent fishmongers in the UK, 80% haven't been recorded at all. &nbsp;Of the 20% of fishmongers that are in the database, 47% are tagged “shop=seafood”, 44% are tagged “shop=fishmonger”, and 9% are tagged “shop=fish”. This is more problematic, because anyone who looks for just one of the values is going to miss about half of the available data. Nevertheless, I suspect that anyone who is thinking of trawling the data for a fishmonger is still going to be scuppered by the 80% that are missing from the database altogether, not the inconvenience of testing for two or three different tag values.<br /><br />I reckon that even within the more problematic categories the issues with synonyms aren't difficult to manage. Where data volumes are small, it is not difficult to fix the data. Where data volumes are large, and one value is dominant, then data users who don't look for a synonym will only lose a small proportion of the data. Where volumes are large and synonyms equally matched then keen data users will go to the trouble of testing for several different values.<br /><br />Problems with spelling and synonyms are not difficult to fix, but they are relatively small in number, so not the highest priority. The bigger challenge is to achieve greater consistency in the choice of tag for similar shops. The data can provide some pointers on how to do that, but they will wait for the next post.


guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395883144047931311.post-8997893501896978764
url: http://tlatet.blogspot.com/2015/07/osm-retail-survey-part-7.html
title: OSM Retail Survey: Part-7
updated: 2015-07-23 22:42:47.685000
published: 2015-07-23 17:13:00.001000
fetched: 2019-10-09 09:30:14.485340
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.370860
updated_at: 2019-10-09 09:30:14.777421
content:
  This material seems to be generating quite a bit of interest, and I'm starting to get questions asking about what it means in practice. We'll come to that, but first I'd like to consider a different aspect of data quality. So far most of the focus has been on coverage: what proportion of retail features have been added to the database.<br /><br />Coverage of one common category of shop has not been considered yet, though. In around 1% of cases the intent of the contributor was clearly to indicate that this was a shop that was not in use. These include “shop=closed”, “shop=empty”, and most commonly “shop=vacant”.<br /><br />High street vacancy rates across the UK are currently averaging around 10%. Out of around 50,000 vacant shops, we have data on just over 1,000 (2%). This is one of the lowest levels of coverage that we have identified. We can probably assume that contributors are most active in the most vibrant high streets (i.e. those with fewest vacancies), but this still suggests that vacant shops are badly under-recorded in OSM. It is difficult to say whether that means the missing vacant shops are completely un-recorded, or recorded in a way that is difficult to recognise. Either way they are not readily available to data users. However, that probably doesn't matter greatly. It's difficult to imagine many users who would value an application that can find the nearest vacant shop.<br /><div><br /></div>But data quality is not just about completeness. We must also question whether the recorded data accurately represents what is on the ground.<br /><br />In my efforts to uncover as many retail premises as possible I've identified over 2,000 different tag combinations. Around 80 of those account for more than 95% of retail premises. The most common 26 account for 85%. Among the 2,000 are around 200 minor spelling mistakes. These represent 10% of the tagging variations, but a much smaller proportion of the data.<br /><br />My estimate of the number of spelling mistakes is based on calculating the Levenshtein distance between different values of the shop tag. Where there are only one or two differences in spelling between one tag and another, my initial premise is that the less common variant is a spelling mistake for the more common alternative. However, this approach also picks up some correct values of the shop tag, that have to be eliminated manually from the sample (“shop=car” and “shop=card” for example only differ in one character, but are not spelling variations of each other). The approach is bound to miss some more complex spelling mistakes, but hopefully not too many. I think it is capturing the great majority.<br /><br />Variations in the use of plural and singular forms account for around 60% of these errors; differences in capitalisation for around 8%; and differences in hyphenation and underscores around 6%). The remaining 25% of near matches are more diverse. Overall this approach detected spelling mistakes in around 0.7% of shop tagging.<br /><br />The "proper" values of “shop” that are most commonly misspelled are “card” (cards), “carpet” (carpets), “solicitors” (solicitor), off_licence (off_license, offlicence, off-licence).<br /><br />Given the controversies over bulk editing, it may be worth noting that<br /><ul><li>the number of retail features in the database which contain a spelling mistake in the shop key is in the order of 1,000 (compared to 385,000 missing retail premises).&nbsp;</li><li>around a third of the spelling mistakes in the shop tag are unique occurrences</li><li>many spelling mistakes are an unusual spelling of a value which itself is comparatively rare (or a non-standard use of the “shop” tag)</li><li>data users are probably just going to ignore these - the volumes of lost data are too small to justify a lot of effort on their part&nbsp; &nbsp; </li></ul>In other words, it looks as though very few of these cases are suitable for bulk editing: virtually all either need to be checked and fixed manually, or can be more easily fixed manually than with a bulk edit.<br /><br />Examples of spelling mistakes which occur more than a couple of times include:<br /><br /><table cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="page-break-inside: avoid; width: 642px;"> <colgroup><col></col> <col></col> <col></col> <col></col> </colgroup><tbody><tr valign="bottom">  <td height="9" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;"><b>Less common&nbsp;</b><br /><b>value</b></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;"><b>Occurrences</b></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;"><b>More common</b><br /><b>equivalent</b></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;"><b>Normal</b><br /><b>occurrences</b></td> </tr><tr valign="bottom">  <td height="9" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">cards</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">60</td><td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">card</td><td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">77</td> </tr><tr valign="bottom">  <td height="9" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">carpets</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">32</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">carpet</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">494</td> </tr><tr valign="bottom">  <td height="9" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">solicitor</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">22</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">solicitors</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">32</td> </tr><tr valign="bottom">  <td height="9" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">crafts</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">16</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">craft</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">152</td> </tr><tr valign="bottom">  <td height="9" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">kitchens</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">15</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">kitchen</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">287</td> </tr><tr valign="bottom">  <td height="9" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">bathrooms</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">14</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">bathroom</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">72</td> </tr><tr valign="bottom">  <td height="9" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">antique</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">13</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">antiques</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">395</td> </tr><tr valign="bottom">  <td height="9" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">game</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">13</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">games</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">29</td> </tr><tr valign="bottom">  <td height="9" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">chandler</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">13</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">chandlery</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">15</td> </tr><tr valign="bottom">  <td height="9" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">bookmakers</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">12</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">bookmaker</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">1,542</td> </tr><tr valign="bottom">  <td height="9" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">opticians</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">12</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">optician</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">1,226</td> </tr><tr valign="bottom">  <td height="9" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">communications</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">12</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">communication</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">14</td> </tr><tr valign="bottom">  <td height="9" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">beds</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">11</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">bed</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">100</td> </tr><tr valign="bottom">  <td height="9" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">tile</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">11</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">tiles</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">67</td> </tr><tr valign="bottom">  <td height="9" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">window</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">11</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">windows</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">35</td> </tr><tr valign="bottom">  <td height="9" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">fireplaces</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">11</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">fireplace</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">26</td> </tr><tr valign="bottom">  <td height="9" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">printers</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">11</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">printer</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">25</td> </tr><tr valign="bottom">  <td height="9" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">furnishing</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">10</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">furnishings</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">23</td> </tr><tr valign="bottom">  <td height="9" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">off_license</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">10</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">off_licence</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">17</td> </tr><tr valign="bottom">  <td height="9" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">grocer</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">9</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">grocery</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">52</td> </tr><tr valign="bottom">  <td height="9" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">estate agent</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">8</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">estate_agent</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">1,656</td> </tr><tr valign="bottom">  <td height="9" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">accountants</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">8</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">accountant</td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;">23</td> </tr></tbody></table>


guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395883144047931311.post-8225685507847676971
url: http://tlatet.blogspot.com/2015/07/osm-retail-survey-part-6.html
title: OSM Retail Survey: Part-6
updated: 2015-07-22 18:34:15.869000
published: 2015-07-22 16:48:00.003000
fetched: 2019-10-08 18:30:15.395622
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.373714
updated_at: 2019-10-08 18:30:15.648281
content:
  To assess how OSM data compares to commercial services similar searches of retail data were compared across different types of platform. I have not yet managed to do this programmatically, but a broad impression can be gained by comparing the results from a commercial search engine with the results of searching a similar area for equivalent tags on Overpass Turbo (<a href="http://overpass-turbo.eu/">http://overpass-turbo.eu/</a>). The comparisons cannot be carried out precisely, so the approach relies on general impressions, and the findings are more qualitative than quantitative. &nbsp;Because this approach is so subjective, it would be interesting to hear the impressions that others have of similar comparisons.<br /><br />OSM was searched by specific categories of shop. The equivalent searches of commercial engines relied on using similar keywords. While these two different approaches can produce similar numbers of results, there were also differences in the specific results that were obtained.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="page-break-inside: avoid; width: 500px;"> <colgroup><col width="100"></col> <col width="100"></col> <col width="100"></col> <col width="200"></col> </colgroup><tbody><tr valign="top">  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: 1px solid #000000; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0.1cm;" width="100"><b><span style="color: #cccccc;">Scope</span></b></td>  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: 1px solid #000000; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0.1cm;" width="100"><b><span style="color: #cccccc;">OSM</span></b></td>  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: 1px solid #000000; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0.1cm;" width="100"><b><span style="color: #cccccc;">Commercial</span></b></td>  <td style="border: 1px solid #000000; padding: 0.1cm;" width="200"><b><span style="color: #cccccc;">Notes</span></b></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="100"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Supermarkets and convenience stores around Maidenhead</span></td>  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="100"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Around 50 examples</span></td>  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="100"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Around 50 examples</span></td>  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0.1cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="200"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Similar coverage, and similar mix. Both identify many    convenience stores as a supermarket</span></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="100"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Pet shops in Truro</span></td>  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="100"><span style="color: #cccccc;">None</span></td>  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="100"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Three, plus some variants, such as pet charities</span></td>  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0.1cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="200"><span style="color: #cccccc;">OSM retail coverage is incomplete. Commercial search is more effective</span></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="100"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Fishmongers across Norfolk</span></td>  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="100"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Around 60 examples</span></td>  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="100"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Around 40 examples</span></td>  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0.1cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="200"><span style="color: #cccccc;">OSM coverage better within Norwich (though some duplicates) but    thin elsewhere. Commercial search produces more results in coastal    towns which are less well-mapped in OSM</span></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="100"><span style="color: #cccccc;">DIY on Tyneside</span></td>  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="100"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Around 80 examples</span></td>  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="100"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Around 40 examples</span></td>  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0.1cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="200"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Both find branches of major chains. Commercial search picks up    smaller stores by name match, including some false-positives. OSM    picks up some smaller hardware shops based on DIY tagging</span></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="100"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Cafés in Harrogate</span></td>  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="100"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Around 20 examples</span></td>  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="100"><span style="color: #cccccc;">Around 70 examples</span></td>  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0.1cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="200"><span style="color: #cccccc;">OSM retail coverage looks incomplete. Commercial search better    at finding in-store cafés and similar, but also includes many    false positives (e.g. restaurants)</span></td> </tr></tbody></table><br />Inherently, the OSM search was looking for a particular “key=value” pair. I have no inside knowledge of exactly how commercial search engines do this, but it's well understood that - given a particular keyword - they use subtle algorithms to find equivalent matches within bodies of text. This includes some fuzzy searching using inflexions, synonyms and various matching algorithms to expand the scope of results beyond the specific keywords that were requested. For example, if we ask a search find “pharmcy” we are not surprised when it corrects the spelling to “pharmacy” and then retrieves “pharmacies”, pharmacist”, etc. We expect such a search to find retail pharmacies, but we are not surprised that it also retrieves university courses, job vacancies, drug manufacturers, and work by Damien Hirst as well.<br /><br />I suspect that commercial search engines are also embedding some assumptions about major retail chains. So, for example, if I search for a hardware shop they seem to have some understanding that branches of B&amp;Q and Wickes will also be of interest. <br /><br />By contrast, the assumed behaviour of data retrieval in OSM is that it will be based on a search for nodes, ways and relations that satisfy a specific set of documented values within a limited subset of available keys. This implicit assumption about how data retrieval will work has an effect on the way that contributors chose how to represent data.<br /><br />Certainly this model has advantages, and opens up opportunities for users of OSM data that may be difficult to achieve with services that operate on a different search techniques. For example (and for some encouragement about the quality of data that OSM is already able to deliver), try searching for a café with wheelchair access in London.<br /><br /><ul><li><a href="http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/axN">With Overpass Turbo</a></li><li><a href="https://www.google.co.uk/maps/search/cafe+with+wheelchair+access/@51.5062899,-0.1095472,11.5z/data=!3m1!4b1">With Google Maps</a></li></ul><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qgbHR6E5ics/Va_IfcrkwrI/AAAAAAAAAiA/fNi4qDqRH-M/s1600/LondonCafeWheelChair.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="241" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qgbHR6E5ics/Va_IfcrkwrI/AAAAAAAAAiA/fNi4qDqRH-M/s320/LondonCafeWheelChair.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />It may, of course, be a reasonable assumption, that future OSM data retrieval will be heavily based on searching for combinations of specific key=value pairs, but this may also be too limiting as a way to think about how things will work. For example, an application that is asked to find a cycle shop could search both "shop=bicycle" and "name similar to Halfords". A search for a hardware shop could well re-cast this as a search for any combination of shop=hardware / doityourself / trade, or any outlet that is part of a chain that has a name like B&amp;Q, Homebase, Wickes, Jewson, etc.<br /><br />In summary: at its best, OSM is capable of outperforming a commercial search engine in terms of both the quantity and precision of the results obtained. Generally searches based on OSM data should retrieve fewer false positives because they can draw (to a greater extent) on a degree of data structure. However, successful retrieval of data from OSM relies heavily on the volume of data recorded, of a particular type of shop, within a particular area.<br /><br />OSM coverage tends to vary more from place to place. In areas where OSM coverage is around 50-60% of retail premises then my impression is that data users can expect the results of a search of OSM to match the volume of data retrieved from a commercial search engine. Commercial search engines do not find every retail outlet, so in places where OSM coverage is almost complete data users can expect better results from OSM. However, for most retail formats, across much of the UK a search for retail premises on OSM is less effective in retrieving results than a commercial search engine.


guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395883144047931311.post-2229903146980424360
url: http://tlatet.blogspot.com/2015/07/osm-retail-survey-part-5.html
title: OSM Retail Survey: Part-5
updated: 2015-07-23 23:40:43.936000
published: 2015-07-22 12:41:00.002000
fetched: 2019-09-29 07:30:14.945800
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.376302
updated_at: 2019-09-29 07:30:15.193220
content:
  Apart from estimating overall coverage, it should also be possible to provide feedback on the type of coverage within a town or similar area. In one small town that I am fairly familiar with, pubs had been thoroughly mapped, but none of the cafés or shops had been mapped. It is relatively easy to measure that kind of discrepancy in the OSM data, and contributors might find that kind of feedback useful as a pointer to areas that need more attention.<br /><br />It isn't difficult to derive some broad rules of thumb about the balance between different types of retail premises that might suggest where coverage looks incomplete. Across all of the data that I have extracted, 48% of retail premises are shops, and the rest offer either refreshments or services. There are a number of places where the mix is quite different. Of course it may be that some of these towns have an extraordinarily large number of cafés and pubs. More likely that contributors haven't got round to adding many shops yet.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TpqCL6dZiA0/Va-NgYtA0uI/AAAAAAAAAhQ/2QZWsYrxVe4/s1600/ShopMix.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="209" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TpqCL6dZiA0/Va-NgYtA0uI/AAAAAAAAAhQ/2QZWsYrxVe4/s320/ShopMix.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />Similarly, there are towns where there don't seem to be as many cafés and pubs as one would normally expect. Again, this could reflect reality on the ground, but it might also point to areas that deserve some more attention.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--LYIFGa_Cu4/Va-Nrga4V9I/AAAAAAAAAhY/wglhVy0izHI/s1600/RefreshMix.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="209" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--LYIFGa_Cu4/Va-Nrga4V9I/AAAAAAAAAhY/wglhVy0izHI/s320/RefreshMix.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />Following the same line of thought, it ought to be possible to measure the mix on individual shopping streets. For this experiment I used the centre of Nottingham. I have no local knowledge of Nottingham, but the coverage of retail premises there is comprehensive - so the data is relatively easy to work with. Here the mix of retail premises is highlighted on any street where there is a decent sample to work with. The proportion of Shops is shown in Cyan; Refreshments (cafés, pubs, etc) in Yellow, and Services (banks, estate agents, etc) in Magenta. Green implies areas where shops and refreshments predominate. Orange implies that refreshments and services predominate (i.e. comparatively few shops). The idea was to test whether it is possible to give contributors an overall impression of the contents of the map which they can compare against local knowledge of how the town centre is organised – at a broader level than the detailed location of individual shops. It has flaws, and the data is difficult to manipulate - so I'm not convinced the approach is practical - but it might point a way towards better alternatives.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WrsiQa0Y1Ao/Va-N3bmh8xI/AAAAAAAAAhg/ue1JCW5Gu5U/s1600/RetailMixNottingham.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="208" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WrsiQa0Y1Ao/Va-N3bmh8xI/AAAAAAAAAhg/ue1JCW5Gu5U/s320/RetailMixNottingham.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />Contributors with an interest in mapping particular types of retail may be able to take advantage of the fact that similar types of retail tend to cluster together. On OSM, 85% of clothes shops have another clothes shop with 100 metres (25% have at least 10 more clothes shops within 100 metres); 70% of banks have another bank within 100 metres; 60% of estate agents and 60% of fast food outlets have an estate agent / fast food outlet within 100 metres; 40% of pubs have another pub within 100 metres. Identifying this kind of cluster might be helpful for some kinds of location search, and it may also provide useful feedback to contributors, who are able to compare the state of the map against local knowledge to identify clusters that look incomplete.<br /><br />Here, for example is a map of Manchester showing clusters of clothing shops that can be identified from existing data. The analysis began with a broad definition of a clothing shop (shop=clothes, shoes, fashion, boutique, or department store) then used R clustering capabilities (the DBSCAN algorithm) on a data extract to find areas where there are more than five clothing shops within 100 metres of each other. This particular example is probably of limited use to those of us who are unfamiliar with Manchester (and also, for that matter, for those of us who are unfamiliar with shopping for clothes). But on the face of it, there must be quite a lot of missing clothes shops in Manchester, and the presence and absence of clusters in the data might point local fashion-conscious mappers to areas that deserve attention.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mjKW7PcepJ4/Va-OEGIQ7tI/AAAAAAAAAho/Vyn8LbQ40aw/s1600/ManchesterRetailClothesClusters.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="253" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mjKW7PcepJ4/Va-OEGIQ7tI/AAAAAAAAAho/Vyn8LbQ40aw/s320/ManchesterRetailClothesClusters.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">SK53 has just pointed out that it should be possible to extend this kind of approach using Food Hygiene data to identify retail areas, and compare them with OSM data. I haven't tried yet, but it sounds like a promising idea.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><hr /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Here is an additional example, picking up on the idea that Food Hygiene data might be used to identify suburban areas that need more attention. The Food Hygiene data shows location and food hygiene status for a variety of retail outlets, including pubs, supermarkets, takeaways, restaurants, cafes and some other types of retailer.&nbsp;Of course, the same data could also be used to identify individual outlets that are missing, but since the data only covers certain types of outlet, the aim here is more general. The idea is to identify suburban areas where there may be several missing retail outlets, including some that don't offer food.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">These are Liverpool suburbs where there is Food Hygiene data on at least five retail outlets, but none appear in OSM. Relatively few areas in the UK fit these rather crude criteria. More sophisticated approaches must be possible, but refining them will need more experimentation, and that will take longer. Meanwhile this suggests that the general approach should work in principle.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Y3HT5TNQlgs/VbAdDjeYH8I/AAAAAAAAAiQ/BzpYqVgNZqY/s1600/LiverpoolSuburbs.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="182" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Y3HT5TNQlgs/VbAdDjeYH8I/AAAAAAAAAiQ/BzpYqVgNZqY/s320/LiverpoolSuburbs.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><hr /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And another example, covering Sunderland. This uses the more granular ONS Lower <span class="st">Layer Super Output Areas. Those rendered are where OSM contains no retail outlet, but the Food Standards Agency has at least one Food Hygiene Record (for a high-street business type). The darker the polygon, the more FSA records it contains, and hence the more retail outlets are likely to be missing from OSM.&nbsp;</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="st"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-obz9MB-hFII/VbFRbLS8EDI/AAAAAAAAAi8/LQiqKExFXDk/s1600/FoodHygieneData.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-obz9MB-hFII/VbFRbLS8EDI/AAAAAAAAAi8/LQiqKExFXDk/s320/FoodHygieneData.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="st"><br /></span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"></div><hr /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">And a third example, for Sheffield, showing the difference between the number of Food Hygiene Records (for high-street business types), and the number of OSM retail features that fall within each LSOA. Once again, the figures aren't directly comparable. The aim is to highlight areas where the OSM data is implausibly thin, so the figures are no more than a proxy measure of how great the shortfall is likely to be. Areas are not coloured where the volume of OSM data is equal to or larger than the FSA Food Hygiene figure - but this doesn't necessarily imply that they are complete. The real message is "if you go to the dark red areas you should find lots of unmapped shops to add".</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1zvyUH85Nb0/VbF6UYr6EjI/AAAAAAAAAjM/iyfkHd0hsFY/s1600/FoodHygieneDataSheffield.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="293" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1zvyUH85Nb0/VbF6UYr6EjI/AAAAAAAAAjM/iyfkHd0hsFY/s320/FoodHygieneDataSheffield.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><br /><br />


guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395883144047931311.post-8303048168232461012
url: http://tlatet.blogspot.com/2015/07/osm-retail-survey-part-4.html
title: OSM Retail Survey: Part-4
updated: 2015-07-22 12:29:14.584000
published: 2015-07-22 09:49:00.002000
fetched: 2019-09-19 06:30:29.926625
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.379379
updated_at: 2019-09-19 06:30:30.349631
content:
  It is often useful to raise our sights from the data that has been recorded in OSM, and consider the data that hasn't been recorded. As discussed above, the overall level of retail coverage in England is 27% of retail premises. However, there are variations in the extent to which different types of shop are recorded.<br /><br />There are a number of ways to assess OSM coverage of a specific sector at a national level. The approach, broadly, is to count the number of shops of a particular type that are already recorded in OSM, estimate the total number that should be there, and compare the two.<br /><br />There are various sources of statistics that give basic information on numbers of different types of shop at a national level. Getting useful estimates of numbers at a more local level is a bigger challenge.<br /><br /><br /><ul><li>It isn't difficult to find information on the number of branches for major retail chains - through their own publications, from business reporting, or from Wikipedia. The OSM Wiki has a detailed page on major UK Retail chains.&nbsp;</li><li>There are national statistics which can be used for some sectors and types of shop (for example, see UKBA01a Enterprise/local units by 4 Digit SIC and UK Regions; and Retail Hereditaments by Administrative Area issued by the Valuation Office Agency).&nbsp;</li><li>For independent specialists, many trade associations publish figures on the size of their sector.</li><li>Press articles and market research companies will sometimes publish figures on the number of different types of retailer.&nbsp;</li><li>When all else fails, searching a directory &nbsp;(such as Yellow Pages) can give some idea of the likely number of outlets.&nbsp;</li><li>Where retailers need to be licensed (tattoo parlours, for example), I thought it would be easy to obtain figures at a local authority level. No doubt this would be possible (through FOIA, for example), but so far I haven't found a more accessible source of licensing statistics. Local figures may be easier to find from the licensing authority, and any ideas would be welcome on where to find national figure.</li></ul><br />For specific retail locations:<br /><br /><br /><ul><li>within the OSM community, Robert Whittaker has tools relating to Post Offices on his Post Hoc pages (<a href="http://robert.mathmos.net/osm/postboxes/">http://robert.mathmos.net/osm/postboxes/</a>).&nbsp;</li><li>Beyond the community, most large retail chains publish a list of branches, and some have given permission for this information to be added to OSM.&nbsp;</li><li>Trade associations for specialist independent retailers don't normally seem to provide information on the location of individual members, but some may,</li><li>The NHS provides lists of pharmacies and opticians.</li></ul><br />Using this approach, and taking three examples where we might expect levels of recording to be relatively high:<br /><br /><ul><li>There are 11,696 post offices in the UK, and I have found 7,622 (65%) of them in OSM. Around 90% of built-up areas with a population of more than 5,000 have a post office in OSM. The 72 that don't might be good places to find missing post offices. More generally, post offices can be used as an indicator of a wider gap in coverage. They are one of the types of retail outlet that are likely to be added before other retail properties. So a larger settlement with a missing post office is likely to contain other retail properties that need to be added.&nbsp;</li><li>There are 11,647 community pharmacies in England. I found 4,225 tagged as a pharmacy (36% of the total), and another 483 tagged as “chemist”. Strictly speaking “chemist” is for shops that don't supply prescriptions, but has been quite widely used as a synonym for “pharmacy”. Taken together we locate about 40% of community pharmacies. More than half are missing. I imagine that towns the size of Braintree, Grantham, Peterlee, Melton Mowbray, Haverhill, Maghull, and Congleton have a community pharmacy – but none seems to be recorded in OSM (they are displayed in Google location searches). Only around half of the pharmacies in England are specialised shops – the rest are an operation embedded within another store. Community pharmacies that operate from within a large supermarket seem to be under-recorded in OSM.&nbsp;</li><li>There are about 2,500 specialist bicycle shops in the UK, and I have found 1,631 (65%) in the OSM database. The largest bicycle retailer, Halfords, has 465 branches across the UK, of which I found 364 (78%). I'm not sure how many of those offer bicycles, but OSM says that 151 of them do (41%). That must surely under-state the true figure.</li></ul><br />And some examples where I expected coverage to be relatively low:<br /><br /><ul><li>Figures suggest that there are about 1,400 pound stores in the UK. I've found 586 tagged with “variety_store”, and another 170 or so with alternative tagging. Which means that tagging is inconsistent, but suggests that coverage is over 50% - i.e. more than I expected. Perhaps my estimate of the total is too low</li><li>There are 8,500 Charity Shops in England, 900 in Scotland and 500 in Wales. I should find 9,900 in my data extract. Depending on how carefully I interpret the data, I can find between 1,751 and 1,994 (18-20%). Around 90% are tagged as “shop=charity” but there is a smattering of others tagged according to their specialisation: “shop=clothes”, “shop=secondhand” or “shop=books”</li></ul><span style="color: #999999;"><br /></span><span style="color: #999999;"><br /></span><br /><table cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" style="page-break-inside: avoid; width: 400px;"> <colgroup><col width="143"></col> <col width="73"></col> <col width="105"></col> <col width="92"></col> <col width="92"></col> <col width="63"></col> </colgroup><tbody><tr valign="top">  <td height="15" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="143"><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;"><b>Primary</b></span></span><br /><b style="color: #999999; font-family: Calibri, serif;">tag value</b></div></td><td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="73"><div align="left"><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><b>OSM    count</b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><b>(UK) </b></span>   </span></div></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="105"><div align="left"><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><b>OSM    count</b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><b>(England) </b></span>   </span></div></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="left"><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><b>Estimated&nbsp;</b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><b>&nbsp;actual (UK) </b></span>   </span></div></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="left"><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;"><b>Estimated&nbsp;</b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;"><b>&nbsp;actual (England)</b></span></span></div></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="63"><div align="left"><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;"><b>Approx.    coverage</b></span></span></div></div></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td height="15" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="143"><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">pub</span></span></div></td><td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="73"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">34,937</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="105"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">31,180</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">48,000</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="color: #999999;"><br /></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="63"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">73%</span></span></div></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td height="15" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="143"><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">restaurant</span></span></div></td><td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="73"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">16,062</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="105"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">13,855</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">60,000</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="color: #999999;"><br /></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="63"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">27%</span></span></div></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td height="15" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="143"><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">fast_food</span></span></div></td><td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="73"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">15,762</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="105"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">13,794</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="color: #999999;"><br /></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">41,295</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="63"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">33%</span></span></div></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td height="15" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="143"><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">cafe</span></span></div></td><td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="73"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">13,137</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="105"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">11,280</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">16,501</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="color: #999999;"><br /></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="63"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">80%</span></span></div></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td height="15" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="143"><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">convenience</span></span></div></td><td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="73"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">13,108</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="105"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">11,212</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">48,303</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="color: #999999;"><br /></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="63"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">27%</span></span></div></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td height="15" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="143"><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">supermarket</span></span></div></td><td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="73"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">8,720</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="105"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">7,352</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">6,410</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="color: #999999;"><br /></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="63"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">119%</span></span></div></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td height="15" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="143"><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">post_office</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="73"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">7,622</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="105"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">6,199</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">11,696</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="color: #999999;"><br /></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="63"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">65%</span></span></div></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td height="15" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="143"><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">hairdresser</span></span></div></td><td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="73"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">7,187</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="105"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">6,366</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">38,300</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="color: #999999;"><br /></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="63"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">19%</span></span></div></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td height="15" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="143"><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">fuel</span></span></div></td><td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="73"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">6,207</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="105"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">5,190</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">8,588</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="color: #999999;"><br /></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="63"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">72%</span></span></div></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td height="15" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="143"><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">bank</span></span></div></td><td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="73"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">5,946</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="105"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">5,089</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">8,961</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="color: #999999;"><br /></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="63"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">66%</span></span></div></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td height="15" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="143"><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">pharmacy</span></span></div></td><td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="73"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">4,871</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="105"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">4,225</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="color: #999999;"><br /></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">11,647</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="63"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">36%</span></span></div></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td height="15" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="143"><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">charity</span></span></div></td><td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="73"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">1,682</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="105"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">1,476</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">9,900</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">8,500</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="63"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">17%</span></span></div></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td height="15" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="143"><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">bicycle</span></span></div></td><td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="73"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">1,631</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="105"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">1,406</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">2,500</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="color: #999999;"><br /></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="63"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">65%</span></span></div></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td height="15" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="143"><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">beauty</span></span></div></td><td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="73"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">1,543</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="105"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">1,361</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">13,000</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="color: #999999;"><br /></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="63"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">12%</span></span></div></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td height="15" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="143"><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">bookmaker</span></span></div></td><td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="73"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">1,386</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="105"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">1,242</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">9,128</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="color: #999999;"><br /></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="63"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">15%</span></span></div></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td height="15" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="143"><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">optician</span></span></div></td><td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="73"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">1,161</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="105"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">1,041</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">7,250</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="color: #999999;"><br /></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="63"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">16%</span></span></div></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td height="15" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="143"><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">florist</span></span></div></td><td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="73"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">983</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="105"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">885</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">8,000</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="color: #999999;"><br /></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="63"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">12%</span></span></div></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td height="15" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="143"><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">alcohol</span></span></div></td><td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="73"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">784</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="105"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">665</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">5,575</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">4,195</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="63"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">14%</span></span></div></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td height="15" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="143"><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">variety_store</span></span></div></td><td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="73"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">586</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="105"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">528</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;">1,400    </span>   </span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="color: #999999;"><br /></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="63"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">42%</span></span></div></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td height="15" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="143"><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">deli</span></span></div></td><td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="73"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">456</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="105"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">391</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">2,500</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="color: #999999;"><br /></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="63"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">18%</span></span></div></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td height="15" style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="143"><div align="left"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">seafood</span></span></div></td><td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="73"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">87</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="105"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">70</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">950</span></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="92"><div align="right"><span style="color: #999999;"><br /></span></div></td>  <td style="border: none; padding: 0cm;" width="63"><div align="right"><span style="font-family: Calibri, serif;"><span style="color: #999999;">9%</span></span></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><br />It is interesting to consider in more detail at how data users might interpret some specific examples.<br /><br />Finding a pharmacist (i.e. someone who can dispense prescriptions) could be the basis of a useful application, and there have been various attempts to develop appropriate tagging, but the actual data is quite complex for data users to interpret.<br /><br />Values of “pharmacy” and “chemist” can appear for “amenity” and “shop”; “dispensing” can be set to “yes”, “no” or sometimes the name of the outlet. And all of these can be combined in different ways, alongside other values of “amenity” and “shop”.<br /><br /><ul><li>“amenity=pharmacy” alongside any value of “shop=*” and either “dispensing=yes” or no value for “dispensing”: this is in line with the various guidelines, and unambiguously indicates that prescriptions will be dispensed. This accounts for almost 90% of cases in the data</li><li>“shop=chemist” without any indication of “dispensing”: is correct tagging for a place where prescriptions will NOT be dispensed, but examining actual examples suggests that it is widely mis-used for pharmacies. So in practice it has to be regarded as ambiguous. It represents almost 10% of cases.</li><li>“amenity=pharmacy” with “dispensing=no”: is inconsistent tagging, and not in line with the guidelines, but can still be interpreted fairly confidently as a place where prescriptions will NOT be dispensed. It accounts for around 1% of cases</li><li>“shop=chemist” without “amenity=pharmacy”, and with “dispensing=no” is correct tagging, and unambiguously a place where prescriptions will NOT be dispensed. It only accounts for 0.1% of cases.</li><li>“shop=pharmacy”, “amenity=chemist”, with or without other values are examples of incorrect use of the tags, but small in volume (less than 0.5%), and often appear alongside a correct tag (e.g. “shop=pharmacy”+“amenity=pharmacy”): the incorrect tag values can safely be ignored by data users without sacrificing significant amounts of relevant data</li></ul><br />The above figures are calculated from pharmacies and chemists recorded in the database. So it is worth recalling that this only accounts for 40% of actual pharmacies, and around 60% of these outlets do not appear in the database at all.<br /><br />In practice data users are going to be reasonably confident that they have found a dispensing pharmacist where “amenity=pharmacy” is present, and “dispensing” is either absent, or set to anything other than “no”. They will have to treat “shop=chemist” as ambiguous in this context. In practice they will probably ignore everything else because the complexity of the logic increases out of all proportion to the quantity of reliable data that it can uncover. In summary they will confidently interpret 90% of the data in the database, and find just over one in three pharmacies. If they interpret the data more loosely they will be able to point their users to about 40% of real pharmacies. If they want to find more, then at present they will have to look elsewhere for their data.<br /><br />Next we will look at how coverage by type of retail outlet might be used to provide useful feedback to contributors and data users.....


guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395883144047931311.post-5415327608109683745
url: http://tlatet.blogspot.com/2015/07/osm-retail-survey-part-3.html
title: OSM Retail Survey: Part-3
updated: 2015-07-22 09:22:34.846000
published: 2015-07-22 09:22:00.002000
fetched: 2019-09-08 18:30:14.137518
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.382299
updated_at: 2019-09-08 18:30:14.567339
content:
  It is quite difficult to identify areas of incomplete retail mapping within a large conurbation.<br /><br />Initially I thought investigation of areas marked as “landuse=retail” showed promise, but they proved disappointing in practice. The meaning of this tag has been interpreted in different ways, and used inconsistently. Almost half of retail areas in OSM contain no retail properties, so they can provide some indication of gaps. However, some of them are very small, and two-thirds of retail properties already in OSM lie outside a marked retail area, so in general checking for data on shops within retail areas is unlikely to be efficient.<br /><br /><ul><li>A number of fairly large settlements don't have any retail area described in OSM (including Weymouth, Wellingborough, Grantham, and Newark-on-Trent).&nbsp;</li></ul><br />The reasons vary.<br /><br /><ul><li>In most of these the main retail area hasn't been marked as such, even though other types of urban landuse have been applied in other parts of the town.&nbsp;</li><li>In some cases the whole town is marked as “landuse=residential”,&nbsp;</li><li>In others an area that seems to be predominantly retail space has been described as “landuse=commercial”.&nbsp;</li></ul><br />Overall, there are too many exception cases to make productive use of retail landuse data.<br /><br />On a very traditional high street, individual shop frontages tend to be relatively narrow, and relatively consistent in length. In theory, if we could compare the density of shops in OSM with what we expect, then we should be able to get a sense of where the database looks thin. However, this can only give a broad indication.<br /><br /><br /><ul><li>A well-documented street with a few large shops will still look empty in comparison to a street where the data only includes a small proportion of numerous small shops.&nbsp;</li><li>There are practical difficulties in calculating density consistently when nearby shops may lie on opposite sides of a street, or in adjoining, and neighbouring streets.&nbsp;</li></ul><br />These challenges can be overcome to a degree, but my attempts have involved some intensive computation. In practice a simple heat map seems to be equally useful for flagging up suburban areas that already have fairly high levels of retail content. In conjunction with local knowledge of where retail outlets are clustered this could be sufficient to identify some larger suburban shopping areas that need attention.<br /><br />This is an example from Newcastle. Data on retail is dense in the centre of the city, the quayside, and along Gosforth High Street. Coverage of retail barely shows up in areas such as Jesmond, and along Westgate Road. Those with local knowledge might be able to use this kind of feedback to identify areas that are worth further investigation.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sv6g7YWevbU/Va9gBcJLMcI/AAAAAAAAAhA/LphuRrszNOY/s1600/RetailDensityNewcastle.jpeg.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="253" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sv6g7YWevbU/Va9gBcJLMcI/AAAAAAAAAhA/LphuRrszNOY/s320/RetailDensityNewcastle.jpeg.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />Finally, while the overall level of retail coverage in England is 27% of retail premises, there are variations in the extent to which different types of shop are recorded. Analysis of the mix can be useful at a national level, but it can also be informative at a local level.<br /><br />First, though, we will look at the mix at a national level.<br /><br />


guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395883144047931311.post-4309124407402195500
url: http://tlatet.blogspot.com/2015/07/osm-retail-survey-part-2.html
title: OSM Retail Survey: Part-2
updated: 2015-07-21 19:34:20.212000
published: 2015-07-21 15:51:00
fetched: 2019-09-03 19:30:17.977706
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.385191
updated_at: 2019-09-03 19:30:18.428536
content:
  With 528,000 retail premises in England for a population of 53million, there is roughly one retail property for every 100 people across the whole country. It would be handy if we could use this ratio to examine coverage at a more detailed level than local authority.<br /><br />The Office of National Statistics provides boundary data and population figures for Lower Layer Super Output Areas (LSOA) and Middle Layer Super Output Areas (MSOA). An LSOA has a population of 1,000 – 3,000 and an MSOA has a population of 5,000 – 15,000.<br /><br />So we would expect to find 10-30 shops in an LSOA and 50-150 shops in an MSOA. However, when we use these ratios to measure actual coverage in OSM we find wide divergence. It is particularly noticeable that rural areas seem to be exceptionally well mapped, while suburban / residential areas appear under-mapped.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TqFYBijWlLo/Va5f7M_M6AI/AAAAAAAAAf8/HGOs0FkPJro/s1600/SouthLancashirePlausibility.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="251" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TqFYBijWlLo/Va5f7M_M6AI/AAAAAAAAAf8/HGOs0FkPJro/s320/SouthLancashirePlausibility.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />The underlying problem is that the number of retail premises is not proportional to the population at this level of detail. Suburban areas are well served by city centres, so have fewer shops than we expect. Rural areas with a dispersed population tend to have relatively large numbers of small shops - i.e. more than we expect.&nbsp;<span style="line-height: 100%;">This diversity is demonstrated by examining how OSM coverage compares to the national average for different types of area. Sparse areas look well-mapped, even when they aren't. Urban areas don't look well mapped even when they are.</span><br /><br /><span style="line-height: 100%;">For what it's worth, at this level of detail, the correlation between the number of shops in OSM, and the number of residents employed in the retail sector&nbsp; is even worse than the correlation between numbers of shops, and total population. So retail employment is likely to prove even less useful as an indicator of how many shops to expect, and I haven;t pursued this further.</span><br /><span style="line-height: 100%;"><br /></span> <br /><table cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="width: 100%px;"> <colgroup><col width="128*"></col> <col width="128*"></col> </colgroup><tbody><tr valign="top">  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: 1px solid #000000; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0.1cm;" width="50%"><b>ONS Rural / Urban classification</b></td>  <td style="border: 1px solid #000000; padding: 0.1cm;" width="50%"><div align="center"><b>OSM retail units&nbsp;</b></div><div align="center"><b>as % of expectation&nbsp;</b></div><div align="center"><b>based on national average</b></div></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="50%">Rural town and fringe</td>  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0.1cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="50%"><div align="center">30%</div></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="50%">Rural town and fringe in a sparse setting</td>  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0.1cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="50%"><div align="center">83%</div></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="50%">Rural village and dispersed</td>  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0.1cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="50%"><div align="center">33%</div></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="50%">Rural village and dispersed in a sparse setting</td>  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0.1cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="50%"><div align="center">55%</div></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="50%">Urban city and town</td>  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0.1cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="50%"><div align="center">31%</div></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="50%">Urban city and town in a sparse setting</td>  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0.1cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="50%"><div align="center">61%</div></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="50%">Urban major conurbation</td>  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0.1cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="50%"><div align="center">32%</div></td> </tr><tr valign="top">  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: none; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="50%">Urban minor conurbation</td>  <td style="border-bottom: 1px solid #000000; border-left: 1px solid #000000; border-right: 1px solid #000000; border-top: none; padding-bottom: 0.1cm; padding-left: 0.1cm; padding-right: 0.1cm; padding-top: 0cm;" width="50%"><div align="center">51%</div></td> </tr></tbody></table><br />As a result of these variations this approach is of limited use to us.<br /><br />There are some variants that might be more useful. This example from North Tyneside highlights several Middle Layer Super Output Areas where there is no post-office recorded in OSM. Some of these might really have no post-office, but it's a fair bet that some of them really will contain a post-office, alongside other retail outlets that haven't been mapped yet.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Tk0AOnjyp7g/Va5gPkM5a2I/AAAAAAAAAgE/8EYZqbJJy3I/s1600/NorthTynesideNoPO.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Tk0AOnjyp7g/Va5gPkM5a2I/AAAAAAAAAgE/8EYZqbJJy3I/s320/NorthTynesideNoPO.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />So there may be some useful ways of using data from output areas based on population, but it turns out that it is probably more useful to examine the coverage of retail outlets across built-up areas.<br /><br />Of the retail properties that I have found in OSM, 85% fall within a built-up area. It makes sense to look for numbers of retail properties within settlements. Again the Office of National Statistics&nbsp;provides us&nbsp;with handy geography and population data to work with. Here I'm using their data on population and boundaries of built-up areas to compare the volume of OSM retail data in larger towns and smaller cities. This is a less reliable, but a more granular view than we can extract from VOA statistics on retail properties that are available at local authority level.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I43oH6F7KAI/Va5g1B7496I/AAAAAAAAAgM/GEUAhFcLW3o/s1600/RetailPer1kPopulation.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="209" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I43oH6F7KAI/Va5g1B7496I/AAAAAAAAAgM/GEUAhFcLW3o/s320/RetailPer1kPopulation.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />This approach seems to work particularly well for mid-sized towns, and it can be adapted to make it useful for smaller towns and larger villages. We would expect most larger towns to be the main retail centre for the local population, so they should have roughly the average number of retail premises in proportion to the population. In practice, we find that well-mapped towns come close to this ratio. Where a town falls well short of the expected ratio it suggest that there is scope for improvement, and visual examination tends to confirm this impression.<br /><br />We can see that Exeter and Chesterfield have roughly half the number of retail premises in OSM that we would expect to find on the ground. In Hull and Lincoln perhaps two-thirds of the retail premises are missing from the data.<br /><br />Searches for retail locations will have higher utility to some people in some places than in others. If an application provider wants to use OSM retail data to support views of individual towns, then they might chose to begin with towns and cities of a manageable size, with large numbers of visitors, relatively high turnover in population, good technology infrastructure, etc.<br /><br />University towns, for example, can be expected to have a high turnover of technologically adept students,<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aJpqF-QozVo/Va5hQaNvJbI/AAAAAAAAAgU/_OzZ_3ooGtg/s1600/RetailinUniTowns.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="209" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aJpqF-QozVo/Va5hQaNvJbI/AAAAAAAAAgU/_OzZ_3ooGtg/s320/RetailinUniTowns.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />Cathedral cities are likely attract large numbers of visitors.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qwgR2_zkg3I/Va5hWTj-PgI/AAAAAAAAAgc/nF4D_qn6dcE/s1600/RetailinCathedralCities.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="209" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qwgR2_zkg3I/Va5hWTj-PgI/AAAAAAAAAgc/nF4D_qn6dcE/s320/RetailinCathedralCities.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />And so are Seaside towns.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RnATlVtynq4/Va5hgyMammI/AAAAAAAAAgk/auLIJLiQoIE/s1600/RetailinSeasideTowns.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="209" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RnATlVtynq4/Va5hgyMammI/AAAAAAAAAgk/auLIJLiQoIE/s320/RetailinSeasideTowns.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />Some towns fit into more than one of these categories, and quite a few of these look well-mapped (Bangor, Cambridge, Canterbury, Durham, Ely, Norwich, Oxford, Salisbury, Scarborough). &nbsp;Others probably wouldn't take a huge effort to bring up to a similar level of coverage (Exeter, Worcester, York).<br /><br />Measuring the ratio between retail premises and population begins to break down for smaller settlements. Retail is not evenly distributed, and we expect things to average out across a larger settlement, but not across a smaller settlement. The population of many smaller towns expect to travel elsewhere for some of their shopping. Some smaller settlements are predominantly residential. Others serve as retail centres for a wider area, so these have more than their fair share of shops and services. Similar variations apply in towns and villages that are popular visitor destinations. Nevertheless, it's unlikely that a settlement of 1,000 people would have only a couple of shops. It's not impossible that a town of more than 5,000 people will have no post office, or no pharmacy, but it seems unlikely. We should be able to use these assumptions (and others) to identify smaller settlements where retail is suspiciously under-represented in OSM.<br /><ul><li>There are 26 built-up areas with a population of more than 10,000, and 83 with a population of more than 5,000 where no Post-Office is recorded in OSM. The largest are Kirkby, Haverhill, Witham, and Formby.</li><li>There are 80 built-up areas with a population of more than 10,000; and more than 200 with a population of more than 5,000 where no Pharmacy is recorded in OSM. The largest are Braintree and Grantham.</li><li>There are 30 built-up areas with a population of more than 10,000; and 120 with a population of more than 5,000 where no food shop seems to be recorded in OSM.</li></ul>I've used a mixture of these assumptions to identify smaller settlements close to home where the number of shops in OSM is implausibly low. It pointed me to a couple places locally that needed attention, and I have started to add shops. However, my home area is not a good example to illustrate the principle. Here, the under-mapped towns turn out to be quite widely dispersed, and don't show up well on a map. I'm less familiar with the locations in the more densely populated rural area around Durham, but it is a better example to illustrate the principle. The city itself is exceptionally well-mapped, but some of the surrounding small towns and villages look as though they might benefit from attention.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xh9pWS54nJk/Va5iB1YH5dI/AAAAAAAAAgs/fWx9PQjmYdY/s1600/RetailCoverageBUA.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="218" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xh9pWS54nJk/Va5iB1YH5dI/AAAAAAAAAgs/fWx9PQjmYdY/s320/RetailCoverageBUA.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />This approach of measuring the content across built-up areas seems more promising than using Output Areas, but it still has limitations. Individual settlements lying within a more rural landscape can easily be highlighted in this way, but it is more difficult to identify areas of incomplete retail mapping within a large conurbation.<br /><br />To be continued....


guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395883144047931311.post-8659574273018451045
url: http://tlatet.blogspot.com/2015/07/osm-retail-survey-part-1.html
title: OSM Retail Survey: Part-1
updated: 2015-07-21 15:01:12.653000
published: 2015-07-21 15:01:00
fetched: 2019-08-22 17:30:15.585627
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.387999
updated_at: 2019-08-22 17:30:16.027078
content:
  According to the Valuation Office Agency (the organisation which assesses business rates in England), there were 528,000 retail premises in England in 2012. This includes shops, banks, post offices, &nbsp;cafés, restaurants, and take away food outlets, It doesn't include pubs or wine bars. It includes kiosks, some service providers (e.g. hairdressing salons), but it doesn't include filling stations.<br /><br />To get a comparable figure from the OSM database we need to extract a mix of tags: most shops, some amenities, and some offices. So far I have found 142,803 features in England that fit the VOA categories of retail property (27% of the expected total). The shortfall across England is 385,000 retail premises that VOA have counted, but which I can't find in the OSM database.<br /><br />The VOA statistics are broken down by local authority, so it is straightforward to compare OSM coverage at local authority level.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lIkWm9m1RIs/Va5c_qGIVDI/AAAAAAAAAfw/CsihSxrfAH8/s1600/RetailCoverageByLA.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lIkWm9m1RIs/Va5c_qGIVDI/AAAAAAAAAfw/CsihSxrfAH8/s320/RetailCoverageByLA.png" width="264" /></a></div><br />In notoriously well-mapped areas such as Nottingham and the neighbouring authorities of Broxtowe and Erewash the number of retail premises recorded in OSM is close to the number of retail premises reported by the VOA (Nottingham = 2,996 in OSM, 3,340 from VOA). In Tendring (Essex), the OSM tally is 95% of the VOA figure. In Oxford, and Cambridge it is almost 80% of the VOA figure.<br /><br />I'm sure I must be missing some retail properties that I should be counting, and counting some that I shouldn't. Overall, though, these well-mapped areas suggest that I must be quite close to capturing what I hope to capture.<br /><br /><ul><li>In 34 local authorities I reckon that more than half of retail premises are recorded in OSM,</li><li>In 24 local authorities less than one in ten of retail premises is recorded in OSM.&nbsp;</li><li>The lowest levels of retail coverage are in Burnley, Castle Point, Doncaster, Eastbourne and St Helens.</li></ul><br />Regionally, intense mapping around Nottingham means that the average coverage of shops in the East Midlands is relatively high (though not as high as the average across Inner London).<br /><br />The lowest levels of coverage tend to be in larger northern towns and cities. Picking a few at random, I found less than one in ten shops recorded in Bolton, Doncaster, Rochdale, South Tyneside, and Sunderland. In the south, towns like Basildon and Luton do not fare much better.<br /><br />Coverage of shops across rural counties is close to the national average. &nbsp;The most complete rural areas border intensively mapped cities (Nottingham, Oxford, Cambridge). The least complete rural areas are widely scattered.<br /><br />It doesn't really work this way, but imagine for a moment that the community collaborated to raise more areas to the standard achieved by leading examples such as Nottingham, Oxford and Cambridge. The obvious approach would be to prioritise areas that could be completed relatively easily, and the quickest wins would be where there is only a small shortfall between the number of retail premises reported by VOA and the number of retail premises recorded in OSM.<br /><br /><ul><li>The smallest shortfalls between the VOA statistics and OSM content include authorities like Rutland (140), Maldon (176), Eden (201), Redditch (261), and Wokingham (269).</li></ul><br />More generally, mapping of shops involves wandering around recording them. Comparing two authorities with a similar shortfall, it stands to reason that a more compact area would need less effort than the larger one:<br /><br /><ul><li>There are just four authorities where coverage is already in the top decile, and size in the bottom decile, and all are inner London Boroughs – Camden, Westminster, Islington and the City of London.</li><li>There are nine more authorities that rank among the smallest 20% by area, and highest 20% by coverage. All are outside London. In addition to Oxford and Cambridge they include Cheltenham, Norwich, Redditch, Southampton, Tamworth, Woking and Worcester</li></ul><br />By contrast, the local authority where I live covers a large area, has a low population density, and the proportion of retail properties recorded in OSM is below average. There is a long way to go before it ranks among the most thoroughly mapped. Random searching for shops could take a long time, so I need some way to prioritise.<br /><br />To be continued....


guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395883144047931311.post-1681353765214696441
url: http://tlatet.blogspot.com/2014/11/bandstands.html
title: Bandstands
updated: 2014-11-15 14:51:42.001000
published: 2014-11-15 13:44:00
fetched: 2019-08-18 20:30:17.199561
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.390772
updated_at: 2019-08-18 20:30:17.683703
content:
  <i>Bandstands are structures with a wide appeal, and the way they have been recorded in OSM throws a light on how contributors approach features that fall outside the mainstream. The OSM data on bandstands isn't complete, but the database may already contain one of the most comprehensive lists of existing bandstands in the UK.</i><br /><br />The most extensive list of UK bandstands that I have found is the list of Vintage Bandstands, <a href="http://www.satiche.org.uk/bandstands/" target="_blank">here</a>. This&nbsp;has 334 distinct entries, but I don't think they all still exist.<br /><br />In 2001 the Urban Parks Forum surveyed local authority parks in the UK. Out of the 438 bandstands they could identify 203 had already been lost, 186 were in use, or under repair, and 49 were abandoned or unused. Since then the Heritage Lottery Fund has been investing in the restoration and rebuilding of bandstands. I can't find more recent data, so for now let's assume that there are still more than 200 bandstands in public parks in the UK.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1b/Benkid77_Bandstand%2C_Sefton_Park_060809.JPG/800px-Benkid77_Bandstand%2C_Sefton_Park_060809.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1b/Benkid77_Bandstand%2C_Sefton_Park_060809.JPG/800px-Benkid77_Bandstand%2C_Sefton_Park_060809.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bandstand in Sefton park, from <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Benkid77_Bandstand,_Sefton_Park_060809.JPG" target="_blank">Wikimedia</a></td></tr></tbody></table><br />Across Britain, there are about 142 bandstands that are listed for architectural or historic interest. I have locations for those in England, and roughly three-quarters of them lie inside public parks, and roughly a quarter outside public parks. Around the same proportion of the bandstands in OSM are within a park, so it is probably fair to assume that by concentrating on parks, the survey by the Urban Parks Forum was primarily concerned with about three-quarters of the bandstands in the UK.<br /><br />So as a starting point I'm going to assume that there are about 275 bandstands left in Britain, of which about 213 are inside public parks, and 62 outside public parks - fewer than on the Vintage Bandstands list, and more than the Urban Parks forum suggests.<br /><br />I've managed to find 223 bandstands in the OSM data for Britain, which is about 80% of my estimated total. If&nbsp;these&nbsp;features really are bandstands, then that's an impressive result for a feature that I thought would fall well outside the mainstream.<br /><br />Our ancestors obviously knew how to build structures that would maintain their appeal, and that's part of the attraction of examining data on bandstands. But I also wanted to look closer at the data because the tagging of bandstands in OSM is particularly inconsistent, and I thought we might learn something from that.<br /><br />A fairly simple search of the OSM database for anything that mentions "bandstand" (and spelling variations) will pick up 247 features. On inspecting the data we find about dozen of these are false positives: completely different features with the word "bandstand" in the name. Ten appear to be duplicates. If two different features within a few hundred yards of each other both describe a bandstand then they are probably referring to the same structure in the real world. Some of the duplicates occur because contributors have added and tagged both a way and a node. Some may be because one attempt hasn't rendered and a later contributor thought the feature was missing. In a few cases contributors seem to have been uncertain how to tag the feature, so they have added more than one option.<br /><br />About 50 of the bandstands in the OSM database correspond to the 93 listed bandstands in England, so contributors have added more than half of the bandstands that are listed by English Heritage. Very few have been marked as a structure with listed building protection. If the overall totals are correct, then contributors have located more than 80% of all bandstands, but less than 60% of listed bandstands. I'm not sure what to make of that.<br /><br />For processing this data we really want to find bandstands based on well-defined attributes. Interestingly, with bandstands we find more variation in the choice of keys than in the choice of values. The most common contents of the value, by far, is "bandstand", with "band_stand" accounting for about one in thirty values. The keys that have been marked as a bandstand include "leisure", "amenity", "building", "historic", "type", "building:use", "tourism", "shelter_type", and "man_made". It's interesting that bandstand contributors choose quite a wide variety of different keys with quite a narrow range of values.<br /><br />There are 233 features that are recognisable as a bandstand from the data content. This includes 10 that appear to be duplicated, which mucks the numbers up slightly. I've slightly fudged this in the chart - to keep things simple.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lJWcBHA8N44/VGdL0JlOGuI/AAAAAAAAAfI/NRnrrJjt5rA/s1600/Bandstandpie.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lJWcBHA8N44/VGdL0JlOGuI/AAAAAAAAAfI/NRnrrJjt5rA/s1600/Bandstandpie.png" height="285" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />The tag "leisure=bandstand" is recommended in the documentation, and accounts for about 24% of all UK bandstands (30% of the ones I found, and almost half of the bandstands that have been coded in a structured way). The "amenity" and "building" tag with a value of bandstand account for another 18% of all bandstands. Less common tags such as "historic", "type", "building:use", "tourism", "shelter_type", and "man_made"&nbsp;account for another 2%. Low usage of "man_made" surprised me, because I thought this would have been seen as more appropriate than "building". Apparently not.<br /><div><br /></div>More than a third of bandstands can be identified in the database by the name, but not by other coding. This approach, of course is risky for automated processing, because the results need to be checked for false positives. However, for some purposes it is still worth looking at how bandstands are named. The form "name=bandstand" is the most common - almost as though the name tag is being used for coding, since this is not capitalised. Less common forms are "name=Band Stand", "name=The Bandstand" and "name=The Band Stand". I suspect contributors have been influenced here by labeling in the standard render. &nbsp;Together, these four values pick up 84% of the named bandstands. The rest mainly use names based on the location - such as "Southsea Bandstand".<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>The few remaining examples that I found are a mix of more obscure tagging, and spelling variations. These are of little interest, or value to data users.<br /><br />There are probably about 50 UK bandstands that don't appear in the database (yet).<br /><br />We have to be wary of false synonyms. I've looked at features in the database that correspond to the location of listed bandstands, and along with tagging variations in the OSM data these suggest that some contributors consider "gazebo" and "pavilion" as synonyms for "bandstand". Some just label the feature as a "shelter". A "gazebo" can look similar to a bandstand, although a bandstand is generally larger, raised higher above ground level, and clearly intended for a different purpose. The term "pavilion" might be acceptable as a technical description of the architecture, but in general data users will not be able to use it because it is so widely used to mark a sports pavilion. And "shelter" is a very general category, that doesn't help somebody who wants to identify bandstands.<br /><br />Now to draw some conclusions.<br /><br />Although we know for certain that some are missing,&nbsp;there's a case that the OSM database already contains one of the most complete lists of existing bandstands in the UK. With relatively little effort to plug the gaps, and verify existing data this is information that could be used productively, by anyone who wants to do so.<br /><br />If somebody wants to find bandstands in the database at present they will probably look for values of "leisure", "amenity" or "building" that contain "bandstand". That will uncover almost half of all examples in the database. It starts to get quite complicated for data users to seek out tagging variations and find the next few percent. Searching the "name" tag for variants of "bandstand" will turn up quite a few likely candidates, and might be appropriate in some circumstances,but it would not be reliable enough for systematic processing. Without manual inspection this approach also picks up theatres, cafes, and the like that have been named this way.<br /><br />The data on bandstands is fairly comprehensive and suggests that contributors can have quite different perspectives on these features. So this is an area where we could (and probably should), encourage more consistency, while tolerating quite a lot of variation in&nbsp;tagging. For the relatively small number of features in the database, bandstands demonstrate an unusually varied use of tags. Whether they realise it or not, different contributors have been marking bandstands according to their function ("leisure=bandstand" or "amenity=bandstand"), according to their form ("building=bandstand", "man_made=bandstand"), or according to their significance ("historic=bandstand"). These are surely all valid approaches, and they are not incompatible with each other. Indeed, quite often they are used together on the same feature. It is quite conceivable that one bandstand will be notable for its historic significance, but no longer in use as an amenity, while another might be in regular use as a leisure facility, but have no historic significance. Some might have changed function ("shelter:type=bandstand"). We don't know how this data might be used in future, so differences such as these ought to be reflected somehow in the tagging. However, the current documentation doesn't give guidance on such subtleties, so the current data probably doesn't record them accurately. All we can really say for now is that features with any of these tags have been recognised and recorded as bandstands.<br /><br />If the community wants to improve the current data on bandstands then the following might be priorities :<br /><br /><ul><li>locate the fifty or so missing examples</li><li>add structured tagging to the hundred or so bandstands which can currently only be found by name</li><li>fix inconsistencies - such as combining duplicates</li><li>encourage considered use of the existing tagging options to capture and retain information that can be collected in the field</li><li>add attributes (such as listed building status) that could be of interest or value to data users</li><li>find a group of bandstand enthusiasts who might be interested in verifying the data, finding innovative uses for it, and taking things further</li><li>celebrate with an outdoor concert</li></ul>


guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395883144047931311.post-7192731710285478078
url: http://tlatet.blogspot.com/2014/11/kennels-and-catteries.html
title: Kennels and catteries
updated: 2014-11-11 16:51:38.594000
published: 2014-11-11 16:47:00.001000
fetched: 2019-08-16 15:00:17.544752
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.393497
updated_at: 2019-08-16 15:00:17.986365
content:
  Kennels and catteries are commercial businesses where owners can leave their cats or dogs while they are away from home. They are part of a wider category of animal boarding that also includes donkey sanctuaries, and organisations that take in domestic strays, pets whose owners are no longer able to cope; and wildlife, such as hedgehogs. These are more likely to be run by charities.<br /><br />In England and Wales animal boarding establishments (including kennels &amp; catteries) are controlled by the Animal Boarding Establishments Act 1963. They have to be licensed by the local authority. The situation is similar in Scotland, but controlled by a different act.<br /><br />Because they have to be licensed I thought it would be straightforward to find statistics on how many kennels and catteries there are in the UK. I was mistaken. Published government figures on the business population don't go down to that level of detail, local authorities don't seem to publish any statistics, and I can't find figures from trade bodies. However, the Valuation Office Agency does publish figures for different types of property, including the numbers of kennels and catteries there are in Wales and the English regions. These figures are a bit old (2010), but broadly in line with the numbers that come up on a search of Yellow Pages. Unless anyone can come up with a better figure, I think we can be fairly confident that there are just short of 5,000 kennels and catteries in the UK.<br /><br />Of these I've been able to find just over 200 in the OSM database. Contributors have tagged roughly half of those as a kennel or cattery, and the other half can be identified (with reasonable confidence) as a kennel or cattery by the name.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-c9IQ_hAPAQ8/VF_I3GYdUAI/AAAAAAAAAeY/dMRTPW5sx94/s1600/OSMKennels.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-c9IQ_hAPAQ8/VF_I3GYdUAI/AAAAAAAAAeY/dMRTPW5sx94/s1600/OSMKennels.png" height="326" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />Mapping these clearly hasn't been a high priority for OSM contributors.<br /><br />I reckon that the data on kennels and catteries is too incomplete, and the tagging is too inconsistent for it to be of great practical use for rendering or other forms of data presentation (at present). The point of this post isn't to argue that things should be any different. These establishments are not particularly prominent features in the landscape. Dog and cat owners (in my experience, at least) will either have chosen their a preferred animal boarding service already, or they will find one through personal recommendation rather than searching a database. This isn't quite the same for animal rescue, where I could see a need for an application to find the nearest hedgehog sanctuary (for example). But it's hard to see how pressure from data users is going to create a surge of interest in data on animal boarding. One day we may see enthusiasts kick of an "Animal Boarding Mapping Project". But my guess is that these are more likely to be added by non-specialist contributors who are working on mapping a wide range of different features within their local area.<br /><br />In any case, the community will decide on priorities. My interest in looking at this is not to push for action on kennels and catteries. I'm more interested in seeing what we can learn about how contributors approach less commonplace features.<br /><br />We find three different models for tagging kennels and catteries.<br /><ul><li>The usual approach is not to label these as a kennel or cattery at all. Examples of kennels and catteries can be &nbsp;picked up fairly easily through the contents of the "name"<name><name>&nbsp;tag. There may be other, similar techniques that I haven't tried. In other words these features have been mapped, and named, but there is no further detail to indicate that they might be of special interest. In the chart they appear as "Name only"</name></name></li><li>The second most common approach is to use simple "amenity"&nbsp;<amenity>tagging. This makes use of user-specified values of the "amenity"<amenity><amenity>&nbsp;tag: "amenity=kennels" and "amenity=cattery". These aren't documented, but nevertheless, <amenity kennels=""> they<amenity cattery=""> represent more than half of the examples of kennels and and catteries that have appropriate tags attached in the database.&nbsp;</amenity></amenity></amenity></amenity></amenity>In the chart these appear as "Simple"</li><li>The third approach is more structured, and follows the tagging recommended in the documentation. This is based around "amenity=animal_boarding"&nbsp;<amenity animal_boarding="">&nbsp;<amenity animal_boarding="">with more detail&nbsp;added&nbsp;under "animal_boarding=..."<animal_boarding>. This approach represents almost half of the examples of kennels and catteries that carry specific tagging. Although it is the documented approach it is not yet the most widely used. It appears in the chart as "Structured".</animal_boarding></amenity></amenity></li></ul>As always, there are a few variants on both of the structured models. By the look of it most of these are a mix of typing mistakes, and misunderstandings. They don't make a significant difference to the totals. There are an even smaller number of intriguing examples, though, where a contributor has used tagging based on "pet="<pet boarding=""><pet><pet boarding="">. There are only a few of these, and it looks as though this might be an experiment that didn't go further, but it suggests that at least one contributor sees boarding kennels and catteries in terms of how they relate to other facilities for pets, rather than as a type of amenity, or as a service for animals.</pet></pet></pet><br /><pet><pet boarding=""><br /></pet></pet><pet><pet boarding="">The blindingly obvious conclusion is that there are serious limitations in the current data. Inconsistent tagging might be a deterrent for users who want to render or process this data: but the real blocker is the very limited coverage.</pet></pet><br /><br /><pet>In the case of kennels and catteries, it seems likely, as things stand, that anyone using this data&nbsp;</pet>is unlikely to be interested in rendering or presenting the data within an application.Simply because there isn't (yet) enough coverage to make this viable.<br /><br />There is no shortage of similar examples in the database, outside the mainstream, &nbsp;where coverage is low.<br /><br />To my mind this raises some interesting questions.<br /><br />When the community is debating about best how to tag features that fall outside the mainstream:<br /><br /><ul><li>Who is using this data, and what are they using it for?</li><li>Do current approaches meet the needs of data users, can they be improved, and if so, how?</li><li>Could contributors be encouraged to add more useful data?</li></ul><br />Presumably we think that one day coverage of these features will become sufficient to make rendering or application processing viable. If we don't think that, then why are we collecting this data at all?.<br /><br /><ul><li>Will the needs of data users change at that point?</li><li>If needs do change, how will that affect the data?</li><li>How will we tell when we have reached that stage?</li></ul><div>Obviously I wouldn't be raising these questions if I held the view that the needs of data users were the same for all types of feature, and that they were unchanging as the contents of the database evolves.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>To me, the key question is "how do we tell when we have reached the stage that rendering or data presentation becomes viable?". But this might touch on some contentious issues. It's probably best to stop at that point, and see what others think.</div>


guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395883144047931311.post-1821581686638651334
url: http://tlatet.blogspot.com/2014/11/bookies.html
title: Bookies
updated: 2014-11-08 13:18:08.933000
published: 2014-11-08 13:18:00.001000
fetched: 2019-08-13 18:30:19.615852
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.395968
updated_at: 2019-08-13 18:30:20.057079
content:
  The Gambling Commission publishes statistics on the number of bookmakers in Britain. Earlier this year they recorded 9,021 bookmaker premises, based on returns from operators. The number has been fairly constant in recent years.<br /><br />A data user will be able to find about 1,280 of these in OSM (depending on how determined they are).<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9bUBzkIoByQ/VF4Kn5x3Y1I/AAAAAAAAAeI/E5agntept9c/s1600/OSMbookies.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9bUBzkIoByQ/VF4Kn5x3Y1I/AAAAAAAAAeI/E5agntept9c/s1600/OSMbookies.png" height="313" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />The preferred tag is "shop=bookmaker". That picks up 8% of all bookmakers in Britain. The most common alternative is "shop=betting" and that will pick up about 4% of the total.<br /><br />There are a number of variants on these (shop=bet, bookmakers, betting_shop, bookies, turf_accountant) Together these pick up about 0.4% of the total.<br /><br />A few contributors have gone down slightly different routes. Using the "amenity" tag rather than the "shop" tag accounts for another 0.2%, and various bookmaker-related values for "gambling" account for another 0.4%.<br /><br />There are also some premises which look like a bookmaker (based on the operator or the name), but aren't marked as such. I found another 79 premises that might have added to the collection if they had been tagged with additional data. There are almost certainly more that I missed, but deep searches to find these get increasingly complicated and the results increasingly suspect.<br /><br />I'm unable to find around 86% of British bookmakers in the OSM data.


guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395883144047931311.post-7942178414563886712
url: http://tlatet.blogspot.com/2014/11/hotels.html
title: Hotels
updated: 2014-11-08 13:19:23.357000
published: 2014-11-08 00:06:00.001000
fetched: 2019-07-28 18:30:14.475638
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.398358
updated_at: 2019-07-28 18:30:14.931659
content:
  VisitEngland is the tourist board for England. It publishes statistics on the stock of different types of accommodation, broken down by local authority. These figures group all serviced accommodation together. So hotels, guest houses and B&amp;Bs are all counted together, but non-serviced accommodation, such as camp-sites and self-catering holiday accommodation is counted separately. Importantly, they count establishments rather than businesses.<br /><br />Comparing their figures with OSM data for hotels, guest-houses, hostels and B&amp;Bs suggest that the map currently contains about 7,500 out of 32,000 of these establishments in England (i.e. 23%).<br /><br />Roughly 15% are tagged as a hotel, roughly 6% as a guest house, 1% as a hostel, and under 1% as a B&amp;B. There are also a small number of motels and some pubs with accommodation that are conventionally tagged. As usual, there is a smattering of weird spellings, and a few &nbsp;misunderstandings of tagging conventions, but these only account for a couple of dozen entries. They don't make a significant difference to the totals. More than 75% of establishments that provide serviced accommodation are missing from the data (or at least not easily found).<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-X1KtY7Aem0U/VF1VQxNkFoI/AAAAAAAAAd4/9TzQVXeCk68/s1600/OSMHotelCoverage.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-X1KtY7Aem0U/VF1VQxNkFoI/AAAAAAAAAd4/9TzQVXeCk68/s1600/OSMHotelCoverage.png" height="400" width="362" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><br /><br />VisitEngland count all hotels together, and I've not been able to find a reliable-looking and detailed breakdown of different types of serviced accommodation. Smaller establishments seem to account for less than a third of the data, but I would think that they account for a lot more than a third of all establishments. Their trade association suggests there are about 25,000 guest houses and B&amp;Bs in Britain. OSM contributors have located about 14% of that number (note - this figure relates to Britain, others to England). It's possible that some of these have been tagged as a hotel rather than a guest house or B&amp;B, - but on the face of it, smaller establishments appear to be the most under-represented.<br /><br />Looking at the distribution by local authority, it seems that either VisitEngland is particularly sloppy at counting hotels in the Midlands, or OSM contributors are particularly diligent at mapping them. For the rest of us, this might be a good time of year to fill some gaps before visitors and proprietors start gearing up for the 2015 season.<br /><br />If anyone is planning to map serviced accommodation they will probably want to pick up tourism=hotel, guest_house, hostel, bed_and_breakfast or motel and amenity=pub with accomodation=yes.<br /><div><br /></div>


guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395883144047931311.post-7879076581246856846
url: http://tlatet.blogspot.com/2014/11/qgis-26.html
title: QGIS 2.6
updated: 2014-11-01 22:32:57.547000
published: 2014-11-01 22:18:00.002000
fetched: 2019-07-16 20:30:14.921096
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.400772
updated_at: 2019-07-16 20:30:15.347863
content:
  <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kScNd8_xlUk/VFVa_Bu2UOI/AAAAAAAAAdI/D3PP91a0ezI/s1600/SatelliteOSM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kScNd8_xlUk/VFVa_Bu2UOI/AAAAAAAAAdI/D3PP91a0ezI/s1600/SatelliteOSM.png" height="236" width="400" /></a></div>I have just downloaded the latest version of QGIS, and I'm using it as an excuse to play around combining different sources of data, Here is a mix of Bing Aerial imagery, hill-shading based on OS Opendata elevations (resampled) and OSM geometry for roads, buildings and water. Why not? It almost works.


guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395883144047931311.post-4209823722150025713
url: http://tlatet.blogspot.com/2014/10/dukes-footway.html
title: Duke's Footway
updated: 2014-10-14 19:12:41.174000
published: 2014-10-14 19:02:00.002000
fetched: 2019-07-16 20:00:19.367093
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.403388
updated_at: 2019-07-16 20:00:19.809024
content:
  I'm a few days late, but last Friday the dog and I explored another local walk. Today I've added it to the map. This one wasn't recorded by the Board of Health in their 1869 survey.<br /><br />At the time it wasn't clear whether the path existed or not. The reason was this.<br /><br />In the 1850's the Duke wanted to build a new wall around his park. He offered to build the wall 6 feet inside his own land, leaving the land outside as a footpath that anyone could use. Everyone thought this was a good idea, so it went ahead.<br /><br />A decade went by before people seem to have realised that the new wall blocked an ancient footway, and the Duke hadn't offered to build a footpath: just to make the land available. People felt cheated: they had lost an ancient right of way, without gaining a footpath. There was a bit of argy-bargy, and the path wasn't included in the 1869 survey. Things must have got sorted eventually, because today this counts as a public footpath.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2950/15310413477_1e4b0e27c2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2950/15310413477_1e4b0e27c2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>The path follows the wall that the Duke built in 1858. So it couldn't be easier to follow - just by staying close to the wall. The path itself isn't heavily used, or surfaced. But it is used, and fairly easy walking - though there are some muddy bits, and a couple of streams to cross. There are also a few stiles, but they have gaps in the fence that a labrador-sized labrador can get through. We know because we tested them.<br /><div><br /></div><div><div style="display: inline; float: right; margin: 5px 10px;"><a href="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5606/15310094419_8afef05734_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" rel="nofollow" style="background: none; border-bottom-style: none; color: #551a8b; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5606/15310094419_8afef05734_c.jpg" style="border-color: rgb(204, 204, 204) rgb(153, 153, 153) rgb(153, 153, 153) rgb(204, 204, 204); border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; padding: 7px;" width="320" /></a></div>As you climb the views east over town to the sea come and go with the roll of the land. There are&nbsp;less interesting views over the moor to the south. On reaching the top the views out to sea disappear, but there are fine views inland to the east and north.<br /><br />There is also a radar dome which provides long-range early warning and control for the UK Air Surveillance And Control System (ASACS). Basically this warns of intruders into UK airspace. The enclosure, apparently, is home to rabbits, stoats, newts, frogs, birds and sometimes adders.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3954/15497037635_045a4d446f.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3954/15497037635_045a4d446f.jpg" width="213" />&nbsp;</a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3940/15496692492_e15fa4129a_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3940/15496692492_e15fa4129a_z.jpg" width="320" /></a>It's worth the climb.&nbsp;<span style="text-align: center;">The top of the hill is called Cloudy Crags. I can't think why.&nbsp;</span><span style="text-align: center;">We were particularly lucky with the way the sun was breaking through.&nbsp;</span>The return journey was easier but less impressive. We came back on the road, and the rain started. &nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>


guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395883144047931311.post-3001410801571272835
url: http://tlatet.blogspot.com/2014/10/1869-footway-survey.html
title: 1869 footway survey
updated: 2014-10-03 20:57:21.328000
published: 2014-10-03 20:50:00.001000
fetched: 2019-07-14 19:00:18.833421
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.406179
updated_at: 2019-07-14 19:00:19.265945
content:
  I discovered a newspaper article from 1869 describing a survey of local footpaths. <br /><br />In 1869 the town was expanding and increased traffic was damaging some footpaths. Farmers were starting to make agricultural improvements that involved ploughing up paths, or interrupting them with new drainage ditches and fences. Turnpike trusts, who had managed local roads for the previous century or so, were coming to the end of their life.<br /><br />So it was an interesting time for footpaths.<br /><div><br />There were nearly thirty footpaths in the survey, and the dog and I went to explore one of them. It ran for about 1.5 miles, is clearly described in the newspaper article, and clearly marked on Ordnance Survey maps of the time. It doesn't really lead from anywhere, or to anywhere, but we made a round trip, resulting in a walk which took about three hours.<br /><br />This is still a public footpath, which pre-dates the later field pattern - so it cuts across the middle of fields and their boundaries. It is not marked with signposts, except at the start and finish, but it runs in a fairly straight line, and large stiles have been installed at all the fences. So the route is mostly easy to follow. The stiles, unfortunately, are almost 100% dog-proof, so following this path with a labrador involves quite a few diversions to discover suitable gates. <br /><br /><br /><a href="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2944/15217311798_9186722ee9.jpg"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2944/15217311798_9186722ee9.jpg" width="400" /></a><br /><br />The area has an interesting history. It went through two phases of enclosure and improvement. Early enclosures around 1700 increased the value of the land. Before that nobody seemed to care exactly who had what rights to the common land. With increased value there were a number of disagreements which led to court cases, and fences being pulled down. A second wave of improvement had to wait until the resulting disputes were resolved in the middle of the 19th century. <br /><br />The ruined house above dates from the second phase of improvement: around 1870-1890. From a similar period, the path crosses the old track-bed of the Alnwick / Cornhill railway, which was built between 1884 and 1887, and closed in 1953.<br /><br /><a href="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3897/15217255670_4518ece352.jpg"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3897/15217255670_4518ece352.jpg" width="400" /></a><br /><br />Nearby is a farm that was owned in the 18th century by an eccentric mathematician, who divided his estate into highly regular square fields, fathered five sons and at least five daughters, but still found time to build an organ for a local church, design a threshing machine, and build a flying machine, from leather and feathers. After summoning friends and servants to witness his first flight, he jumped off his granary stairs, and landed (unhurt) in a gooseberry bush.<br /><br />"Chapeau" to him.<br /><br />The path wasn't traced on OSM, but I've added it now. It's a pleasant walk, with more than a bit of interest. The weather was fine, I enjoyed myself, and the dog seemed happy. <br /><br />In 1869 most of the paths in the survey existed purely for utilitarian reasons. Only a few have been lost, most remain, and this isn't the only one that looks interesting. <br /><br />So I think its fair to say that this theme can be continued....<br /><div style="font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333339691162px; line-height: 18.518518447876px;"><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;"><br /></div></div></div>


guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395883144047931311.post-7972838705211565529
url: http://tlatet.blogspot.com/2014/08/scots-as-percentage-of-population.html
title: Scots as a percentage of the population
updated: 2014-08-06 10:41:37.359000
published: 2014-08-05 23:59:00.001000
fetched: 2019-06-29 11:30:14.954360
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.408552
updated_at: 2019-06-29 11:30:15.393423
content:
  <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WZWSmC7exmg/U-IGNdZKVWI/AAAAAAAAAc0/F8qtpbJBDlQ/s1600/ScotLSOA.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WZWSmC7exmg/U-IGNdZKVWI/AAAAAAAAAc0/F8qtpbJBDlQ/s1600/ScotLSOA.png" height="400" width="310" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Using 2011 Census data on National Identity.</div>


guid: tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3395883144047931311.post-7041369805205008867
url: http://tlatet.blogspot.com/2014/06/more-on-rivers.html
title: More on rivers
updated: 2014-06-25 15:41:41.270000
published: 2014-06-24 07:34:00
fetched: 2019-06-24 10:00:17.172960
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.411195
updated_at: 2019-06-24 10:00:17.652825
content:
  I've been looking into couple of questions about the OSM data on rivers.<br /><br />The straightforward point is about naming of rivers. The guidance is to use the complete name on the waterway=river line. So "River Tyne" rather than "Tyne". However this guidance isn't followed consistently. About 12% of UK rivers (waterway=river) haven't been tagged with a name at all, roughly half are tagged with a name in the form "River xxxx", and rest are tagged with a different form of name. A lot of the time that doesn't matter, and in any case some rivers have widely recognised names that don't include the "River..."&nbsp;prefix. To label "Afon Teifi" as "River Afon Teifi" would just be silly.<br /><br />The bigger challenge is that there isn't consistency within naming of different segments of the same river. Rivers are long, and normally mapped in pieces. There isn't a widely adopted reference system for rivers, as far as I can see. So (alongside the geometry) names are the best way of associating different pieces of the same river.<br /><br />Most of the larger UK rivers have segments tagged with a mix of different forms of the same name - including the River Avon (8% of length = "Avon"), River Thames (1% = "Thames"), River Derwent (11% = "Derwent"), River Trent (4% = "Trent") and River Don (6% = "Don"). Tagging with different forms of name gets in the way of other processing, so I try to get round this by standardising on a stripped form of name (i.e. removing "^River " with a regular expression). This doesn't work all the time, but for most purposes it works well enough.<br /><br />The next issue is a side-effect of mapping rivers as a mix of areas and lines. The map below shows the point just west of Hexham where the North Tyne and the South Tyne come together. Parts have been mapped as areas (waterway=riverbank) and parts have been mapped as lines (waterway=river). There's a gap between two of the areas that were drawn as riverbanks.<br /><br />These look particularly odd here, because I've emphasised the problem by removing all but the river. In the default map the issues don't show up to the same extent. Bridges mask two of the three problems, and while the the third is visible on the standard map, it tends to get lost amid other details.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jgHrHbb3nu8/U6gpQ5Q2g-I/AAAAAAAAAbo/5twfyITI4kk/s1600/tynesplit.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jgHrHbb3nu8/U6gpQ5Q2g-I/AAAAAAAAAbo/5twfyITI4kk/s1600/tynesplit.png" height="330" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />But the default map isn't the only way this data is used. I'm interested in exploring the limits of using the same data for detailed maps, so I've been pondering on how best to handle this mix of lines and areas.<br /><br />Of course the long-term answer is to add more detailed mapping. I'm doing that where I can, which tends to shift the problem further upstream. Meanwhile, in the shot-term, varying the width at which I render waterway=river lines provides a partial solution. The issue is that different widths work for different parts of the river system. For example, further north, tributaries of the River Tweed have been mapped in quite a lot of detail, and at the point where the areas meet the lines the rivers tend to be narrower. Here's an example where exactly the same style for waterway=river works well enough when it is mixed with areas tagged waterway=riverbank.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sHk31YChgbs/U6grRPmkpBI/AAAAAAAAAb0/yQD0-qNeyLk/s1600/oxnamwater.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sHk31YChgbs/U6grRPmkpBI/AAAAAAAAAb0/yQD0-qNeyLk/s1600/oxnamwater.png" height="330" width="400" /></a></div><br />Choosing a suitable width for the waterway=river line can look OK. A width that is too narrow will leave step changes like my first example. Unless I start chopping up overlapping lines and areas, then a width for the waterway=river line that is too large will obscure more detailed mapping of riverbanks. <br /><br />Although there is a tagging scheme for explicitly recording the width of a river (width=n) it is rarely used in the UK, and very rare around here: so it is not a great deal of help to me in practice. Usage is patchy though, so there are places where others may find it more useful (see darker lines below for some idea of where width has been applied to waterway=river). For what it's worth, where it is specified the average width given for a river is just under 5 metres.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TYQybwx3YtI/U6mmdgxBG1I/AAAAAAAAAcU/boE79wKeX3I/s1600/riverswithwidth.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TYQybwx3YtI/U6mmdgxBG1I/AAAAAAAAAcU/boE79wKeX3I/s1600/riverswithwidth.png" height="330" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />In theory it might be possible to estimate a different width for each river segment by analysing adjoining lines and any overlapping areas of riverbank. However, I suspect this would turn out to be too complicated to be of any practical use.<br /><br />While I wait for more complete mapping, what I think I need is a reasonably sensible default river width. River widths vary, so there are always going to be cases where a single default is either too wide, or too narrow. But because I want to retain mapping of&nbsp;detailed data wherever possible, I would prefer to err on the side of choosing a default width that is more often too narrow, rather than one which is more often too wide.<br /><br />As a rule of thumb, I reckon that a width equivalent to 9 metres on the ground works quite well around here, particularly with rivers that have been mapped in a fair amount of detail. Where it doesn't work so well there is an incentive to improve the mapping. As far as I can tell this is also about the right default width for rivers in the rest of the UK.<br /><br />In more than 90% of cases where the width of a river is specified it is less than 10 metres. I'm not doing any special processing for such cases, because they don't occur around here, but there may be a case for handling river width where it is specified.<br /><br />I don't have any evidence for the right thresholds for width elsewhere in the world, but consider this. Whether by accident or design, in Northern European latitudes, nine metres seems to be roughly the width that a default waterway=river line represents in the standard map. So&nbsp;on the standard map&nbsp;a mix of river lines and areas happens to turn out reasonably well at the point where a river is nine metres wide. I imagine that contributors who are influenced by the standard map will tend to stop drawing rivers as areas once the river width reduces to the equivalent of the default line width on the standard map. They may not realise they are doing this, but if they notice that riverbank areas don't add value to narrower rivers then this would be a sensible point for them to stop adding areas. If this is a global effect, then perhaps there could be some appropriate guidelines for data contributors.<br /><br />As supporting evidence, I've sampled about 130,000 points along UK riverbanks from the OSM database. The most common width between banks is 9-10 metres. This is well below the average width, or even the median, because there are many sections of river which are wider. But more than 10% of my sample showed a river width of 7-11 metres.&nbsp;The number of samples falls off quite slowly for wider sections of river, but quite quickly where a river area is narrower. Only 2% of my sample showed a river width less than 5 metres.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IqhbMtiVBbc/U6gzG8XtQOI/AAAAAAAAAcE/zBT55HEpm7I/s1600/riverwidthgraph.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IqhbMtiVBbc/U6gzG8XtQOI/AAAAAAAAAcE/zBT55HEpm7I/s1600/riverwidthgraph.png" height="261" width="400" /></a></div><br />I haven't done a similar measurement of mapped width for streams. There are some streams mapped as areas, so it should be possible, but I have doubts about how accurate, so how useful the result could be.<br /><br />The standard definition of the difference between a river and a stream is that a stream "can be jumped across by an active, able-bodied person". Intriguingly, the world record for a running long jump is just short of 9 metres. So if we wanted to be silly, we could argue that a default river width of 9 metres is consistent with one interpretation of the transition point between a river and a stream.<br /><br />More realistically, several fitness&nbsp;measures suggest that the kind of distance a fit adult can achieve with a standing jump is in the region of 2-2.5 metres. I wouldn't try to jump a stream that wide. But the figure of 2.5 metres suits my purposes as a default width for a stream.<br /><br />There are about 3,000 sections of stream with a specified width the the OSM data for the British Isles. The average width is just over 1 metre. About 85% of stream segments with a specified width are less than 2 metres, and almost half are less than 1 metre. So my chosen default is higher than the average, and higher than most specified stream widths. I may have set it too high. However, it seems only slightly wider than the standard map rendering of a stream. On larger scale maps I reckon that a stream shown as 2.5 metres wide is about the minimum that renders reasonably clearly, and there is scope to increase the width without streams becoming too dominant across a map of open countryside. It still leaves me with a bit of a big step between an effective minimum river width of 9 metres, and a stream width of 2.5 metres, but the quality of stream tracing looks like being more of an issue.<br /><br />I'm going to leave further tuning of river widths as a problem for another day. However, with an eye on the long-term possibilities, it might help detailed mapping if contributors were encouraged to map rivers that are more than 10 metres wide as areas, and add a width tag to rivers that are less than 10 metres wide. &nbsp;


guid: http://blog.geofabrik.de/?p=497
url: https://blog.geofabrik.de/?p=497
title: 16. OpenStreetMap-Hackweekend in Karlsruhe
published: 2018-10-23 09:49:22
fetched: 2019-06-14 09:00:13.791000
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.654259
updated_at: 2019-06-14 09:00:13.818582
summary:
  Seit 2012 veranstalten wir zweimal bis dreimal im Jahr ein OpenStreetMap-Hackweekend in unseren Büroräumen. Es wird am Freitag mit einem gemütlichen Abend in der Kneipe eingeleitet. Im Laufe des Abends trudeln die meisten Gäste ein. Viele haben eine weite Anreise hinter sich. Sie kommen aus allen Teilen Deutschlands, und oft ist auch der ein oder [&#8230;]

content:
  <p>Seit 2012 veranstalten wir zweimal bis dreimal im Jahr ein OpenStreetMap-Hackweekend in unseren Büroräumen.</p>
  <p>Es wird am Freitag mit einem gemütlichen Abend in der Kneipe eingeleitet. Im Laufe des Abends trudeln die meisten Gäste ein. Viele haben eine weite Anreise hinter sich. Sie kommen aus allen Teilen Deutschlands, und oft ist auch der ein oder andere Gast aus dem Ausland dabei.</p>
  <p>Von Samstag früh bis Sonntag abend geht es dann zur Sache. Es wird diskutiert, manchmal auch Flipcharts und Whiteboards vollgeschrieben. Dann wieder ist alles still, weil alle auf ihre Arbeit am Notebook konzentriert sind. Dazwischen unterbrechen wir unsere Gäste mit Pizza, Keksen, Gummibärchen oder Kaffee. Auch den Samstag Abend verbringen wir gemeinsam im Restaurant.</p>
  <p>Aufgrund der Routine, die sich im Lauf der Jahre eingestellt hat, mussten wir dieser Veranstaltung zuletzt nur noch sehr wenig Aufmerksamkeit in der Vor- und Nachbereitung schenken. Die Wiki-Seite ist in zwei Minuten aufgesetzt (Copy und Paste vom letzten Jahr, die Termine werden angeglichen, die alten Teilnehmernamen werden quasi nur pro forma herausgelöscht). Wir recyclen sogar den alten Einkaufszettel.</p>
  <p>Doch unser 16. Hackweekend stellte alles auf den Kopf. Ein zu Martin Raifer leicht dahingesagtes &#8220;wir können uns ja auf dem nächsten Hackweekend darüber unterhalten&#8221; verursachte ein 9-köpfiges Vorbereitungstreffen für die SotM in Heidelberg im nächsten Jahr. Und meine Bemühungen, den Austausch mit den Franzosen zu intensivieren, hatte Früchte getragen. Vincent Privat (aus Toulouse) machte Werbung auf der JOSM-dev-Liste. Sieben JOSM-Entwickler aus ganz Europa (von Österreich, über Polen und Belgien bis Frankreich) meldeten sich an.</p>
  <p><a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/File:Karlsruhe_hackweekendweekend-2018-10_01.jpg"><img alt="Teilnehmer des OSM-Hackweekend Karlsruhe 2018 (Teil 1)" src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Karlsruhe_hackweekendweekend-2018-10_01.jpg" width="320" style="float: left; margin-right: 20px;"/></a></p>
  <p>Plötzlich war klar, dass die angemeldeten 32 Gäste überhaupt nicht in unser Büro passen würden. Glücklicherweise hat uns Prof. Dr. Günther-Dieringer ganz kurzfristig und unkompliziert einen Raum in der Hochschule Karlsruhe (University of Applied Sciences) vermittelt. Hierfür danken wir ihm alle ganz herzlich.</p>
  <p><a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/File:Karlsruhe_hackweekendweekend-2018-10_02.jpg"><br />
  <img alt="Teilnehmer des OSM-Hackweekend Karlsruhe 2018 (Teil 2)" src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Karlsruhe_hackweekendweekend-2018-10_02-1.jpg" width="320" style="float: right; margin-left: 20px;"/><br />
  </a></p>
  <p>Am Ende war das Hackweekend wieder ein großer Erfolg. Auch diejenigen unter den Besuchern, die befürchtet hatten, dass alles nicht mehr so schön gemütlich sein würde, waren am Ende zufrieden. Der Karlsruher und Heidelberger Teil der SotM-Working-Group haben viele Fragen geklärt, den Zeitplan für das nächste Jahr aufgestellt und das Konferenzformat festgelegt. Ein Protokoll wird demnächst auf den Wiki-Seiten der OSMF zu finden sein. Auch die JOSM-Entwickler, die sich teilweise noch nie getroffen hatten, waren sichtlich produktiv und haben endlos Blätter auf dem Flipchart vollgeschrieben.</p>
  <p>Wir freuen uns schon auf das nächste Hackweekend im Februar 2019!</p>


guid: http://blog.geofabrik.de/?p=484
url: https://blog.geofabrik.de/?p=484
title: Download Server News
published: 2018-05-04 10:16:35
fetched: 2019-06-14 09:00:13.791000
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.657039
updated_at: 2019-06-14 09:00:13.821016
summary:
  As mentioned two months ago, we have made some changes to our download server at download.geofabrik.de. The publicly available files now don&#8217;t contain user or changeset information any longer (see below for details). You can still get everything that was there before, but files that do contain user information were moved to a server that [&#8230;]

content:
  <p>As mentioned two months ago, we have made some changes to our download server at download.geofabrik.de. The publicly available files now don&#8217;t contain user or changeset information any longer (see below for details). You can still get everything that was there before, but files that do contain user information were moved to a server that requires you to have an OSM login.</p>
  <p>The public server continues to be download.geofabrik.de, and the URLs and paths have been unchanged. The new server that requires a login is called osm-internal.download.geofabrik.de, and while it looks largely the same as the public server, the files it offers will have a name component of <code>-internal</code> in order not to confuse them with the public files.</p>
  <p>Here&#8217;s a table that explains which files to get where:</p>
  <table>
  <tbody>
  <tr>
  <td></td>
  <th>public server</th>
  <th>internal server</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
  <td><b>.osm.pbf</b> files for all regions (original OSM data)</td>
  <td>yes, without user data</td>
  <td>yes, with user data</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
  <td><b>.osc.gz</b> files (diff updates)</td>
  <td>yes, without user data</td>
  <td>yes, with user data</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
  <td><b>.osh.pbf</b> files for all regions (original OSM data with full history)</td>
  <td>no</td>
  <td>yes, with user data</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
  <td><b>.osm.bz2</b> files (old XML OSM data format)</td>
  <td>yes, without user data</td>
  <td>no</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
  <td><b>.shp.zip</b> files for all regions (ESRI shape files)</td>
  <td>yes</td>
  <td>no</td>
  </tr>
  </tbody>
  </table>
  <h2>Update: backward compatibility with Osmosis and older versions of Libosmium</h2>
  <p>The change was originally made on 03 May. Unfortunately osmosis and older versions of osmium, and all programs depending on them (e.g. osm2pgsql &lt; 0.96.0) don&#8217;t work with PBF files lacking metadata fields. They fail to read PBF files which don&#8217;t have any <code>username</code>, <code>user</code> and <code>changeset</code> field set. To work around that, starting 05 May, we&#8217;re now writing empty strings to all <code>user</code> fields and zeros to all <code>user</code> and <code>uid</code> fields. </p>
  <h2>Update: scripted access to extracts and diffs with full metadata</h2>
  <p>OSM extracs and diffs with full metadata are still available but you have to log in with your OSM account.<br />
  For security reasons, it is not enough to pick the cookie out of the developer console of your web browser. The cookie will become invalid after 48 hours and the server will redirect you to authorization form of openstreetmap.org if you send that cookie after it has expired. That&#8217;s why you have to retrieve a new cookie every 48 hours or any other time the server forces you to do so.</p>
  <p>We have published a <a href="https://github.com/geofabrik/sendfile_osm_oauth_protector/blob/master/oauth_cookie_client.py">client program written in Python</a> (read the <a href="https://github.com/geofabrik/sendfile_osm_oauth_protector/blob/master/doc/client.md">documentation</a>) automating the cookie retrieval. The repository containing the client also contains the server software if you are curious or want to use it on your own server providing sensitive data.</p>
  <p>This blog post may be updated as things develop.</p>


guid: http://blog.geofabrik.de/?p=457
url: https://blog.geofabrik.de/?p=457
title: Dropping User Information From Our Public Download Server
published: 2018-03-16 11:03:46
fetched: 2019-06-14 09:00:13.791000
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.659403
updated_at: 2019-06-14 09:00:13.823290
summary:
  On May 1st this year, we&#8217;ll make the following changes to the standard download.geofabrik.de server: all .osm.bz2, .osm.pbf, and .osc.gz files (regional extracts and diffs) will be without user information (no username, uid and changeset fields), and might* have their timestamp fields diluted .osh.pbf files (full history extracts) will cease to be available The general [&#8230;]

content:
  <p>On May 1st this year, we&#8217;ll make the following changes to the standard <a href="https://download.geofabrik.de">download.geofabrik.de</a> server:</p>
  <ul>
  <li>all .osm.bz2, .osm.pbf, and .osc.gz files (regional extracts and diffs) will be without user information (no <code>username</code>, <code>uid</code> and <code>changeset</code> fields), and might* have their <code>timestamp</code> fields diluted</li>
  <li>.osh.pbf files (full history extracts) will cease to be available</li>
  </ul>
  <p>The general functioning of the server and all URLs will remain unchanged. We believe that the majority of users of our download server, who use the extracts to populate rendering, routing, or geocoding engines, will not be affected by the changes.</p>
  <p>In case you want to double-check if your software supports the files with missing fields, here are sample files for the UK county of Rutland with user data removed: <a title="osm.pbf file without user, uid and changeset fields" href="//blog.geofabrik.de/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/rutland-180313.osm.pbf">osm.pbf</a>, <a title="bzip2 compressed OSM XML file without user, uid and changeset attributes" href="//blog.geofabrik.de/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/rutland-180310.osm.bz2">osm.bz2</a>, <a title="OSM diff (gzip compressed OSM XML) without user, uid and changeset fields" href="//blog.geofabrik.de/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/015.osc.gz">osc.gz</a></p>
  <p>If you need more test data, you can generate these files on your own using the latest (unreleased) Osmium Tool and the latest (unreleased) Libosmium library. The following Osmium Tool command removes all metadata except <code>version</code> and <code>timestamp</code> fields from a file:</p>
  <p><code>osmium cat -o without-user-data.osm.pbf --output-format pbf,add_metadata=version+timestamp input.osm.pbf</code><br />
  <em>(and similar for .osm.bz2 or .osc.gz)</em></p>
  <p>At the same time, we will introduce a new service, osm-internal.download.geofabrik.de, which will be like the &#8220;old&#8221; download service, offering full history files, regional extracts, and diffs with full user information and un-diluted time stamps. This service will be 100% free of charge like the main download server, but will require an OAuth login with the openstreetmap.org web site and might* also require a click-through user agreement in order to safeguard personal data.</p>
  <p>*) Some details are still being worked out.</p>


guid: http://blog.geofabrik.de/?p=436
url: https://blog.geofabrik.de/?p=436
title: Relaunch of the Public Transport Views
published: 2017-10-24 15:38:14
fetched: 2019-06-12 15:30:22.363452
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.661796
updated_at: 2019-06-12 15:30:22.409405
summary:
  We recently rewrote the Public Transport views of our OSM Inspector. The old views had been used rarely and were of limited use, so we went for a full rewrite. While the old views aimed to give an overview on both the infrastructure and the network, the new views are focussed on the routes and [&#8230;]

content:
  <p>We recently rewrote the Public Transport views of our <a href="http://tools.geofabrik.de/osmi/">OSM Inspector</a>. The old views had been used rarely and were of limited use, so we went for a full rewrite. While the old views aimed to give an overview on both the infrastructure and the network, the new views are focussed on the routes and stops.</p>
  <p>The public transport schema used today was <a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/Public_Transport">proposed back in 2010/2011</a> but it was adopted rather slowly. Also, many mappers made lots of mistakes when trying to use the schema because the documentation on the wiki was confusing. To clearly distinguish public transport mapping that follows this schema from old-style public transport mapping, new schema is now called &#8220;public transport v2&#8221; &#8211; even though there really wasn&#8217;t ever a version 1.</p>
  <p>The new views of OSM Inspector try to support good mapping according to the &#8220;public transport v2&#8221; scheme, and act as a validator.</p>
  <p>Here&#8217;s how you can use the two new views to do some public transport mapping:</p>
  <h2>The Stops View</h2>
  <p>The <a href="http://tools.geofabrik.de/osmi/?view=pubtrans_stops&amp;lon=10.98065&amp;lat=50.92918&amp;zoom=10&amp;overlays=stops_,stops_positions,stops_classic,stops_positions_not_on_ways,platforms_,platforms_nodes,platforms_ways">Stops view</a> shows stop positions and platforms (multipolygons are not supported yet). Go to an area you are familiar with and check if there are missing bus stops. Use this view on zoom levels 10 and 11 to spot (rural) areas where no bus stops are mapped at all. Just take your car or bicycle and visit them!</p>
  <p><img title="" alt="screenshot of view &quot;Public Transport - Stops&quot; in Thüringen, Germany" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/thueringen-stops-view.png" /></p>
  <p>Platforms are rendered in blue, stop positions in green. Bus stops with <code>highway=bus_stop</code> but without a <code>public_transport=*</code> tag are rendered in orange. They are not errors if they are the only object that represent a bus stop (per direction).</p>
  <h2>The Routes View</h2>
  <p>The <a href="http://tools.geofabrik.de/osmi/?view=pubtrans_routes&amp;lon=7.50708&amp;lat=51.36724&amp;zoom=13&amp;overlays=ptv2_routes_,ptv2_routes_valid,ptv2_routes_invalid,ptv2_error_,ptv2_error_ways,ptv2_error_nodes">Routes view</a> shows route relations which claim to be v2 route relations (they have the tag <code>public_transport:version=2</code>). The view shows whether a route is valid (green) or not (black) and highlights objects which are either the reason of invalidity or which are located next to the invalidity (orange and purple).</p>
  <p><img title="" alt="screenshot of view &quot;Public Transport - Routes&quot; in Wuppertal-Elberfeld, Germany" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/wuppertal-pubtrans-routes.png" /></p>
  <h3>When is a route valid?</h3>
  <p>The tagging schema defines minimum requirements a route must comply with:</p>
  <ul>
  <li>The order of the members of the route is important. The list of members is not an unordered collection.</li>
  <li>One route relation represents only one variant of a line. Therefore, you need at least two route relations for most lines, one for the forward direction and one for the backward direction.</li>
  <li>The first member is the first stop of the route (where it starts). It either uses the role <code>stop</code> or <code>stop_entry_only</code>.</li>
  <li>The second member is the second stop of the route and so on.</li>
  <li>If a stop is mapped by both a stop position and a platform, add both to the relation but the stop first and immediately followed by the platform. Platforms use the roles <code>platform</code>, <code>platform_entry_only</code> or <code>platform_exit_only</code>.</li>
  <li>The list of the ways the vehicle uses is at the end of the relation member list (i.e. after the last stop). These ways use an <em>empty</em> role.</li>
  </ul>
  <p>(Even though many mappers seem to think so, you do not have to map both the stop position and the platform. One is enough. Especially for vehicles where the platform and the vehicle are short, adding stop positions is overkill. But if a stop has both, both have to be added to the route relation.)</p>
  <p>A correct route relation of a bus line would look like this (roles are given in parentheses):</p>
  <p><code><br />
  - stop position of station 1 (stop)<br />
  - platform object of station 1 (platform)<br />
  - stop position of station 2 (stop)<br />
  - platform object of station 2 (platform)<br />
  - ...<br />
  - stop position of station n (stop)<br />
  - platform of station n (platform)<br />
  - first way with highway=* ()<br />
  - second way with highway=* ()<br />
  - ...<br />
  - last way with highway=* ()<br />
  </code></p>
  <p>That&#8217;s how it would look like in JOSM&#8217;s relation editor:</p>
  <p><img title="" alt="screenshot relation editor" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/route-editor-josm.png" /></p>
  <p>As said above, mapping both stops and platforms is not mandatory. One of the two is enough. (If you know the location of the platform and/or the bus stop sign, add it. Otherwise the stop position is a good replacement.) Therefore, the route could also look like this:</p>
  <p><img title="" alt="screenshot relation editor showing a route relation with less members" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/josm-rel-editor-less-members.png" /></p>
  <h3>What does OSMI currently check?</h3>
  <p>To get quickly a working validator, we decided not to implement all checks. Here is the list of implemented validation tests:</p>
  <ul>
  <li>A route must have stops or platforms.</li>
  <li>A route must have members which are neither stops nor platforms.</li>
  <li>Member nodes must have one of the following roles: <code>stop</code>, <code>stop_entry_only</code>, <code>stop_exit_only</code>, <code>platform</code>, <code>platform_entry_only</code>, <code>platform_exit_only</code>.</li>
  <li>Member ways must have one of the following roles: <code>stop</code>, <code>stop_entry_only</code>, <code>stop_exit_only</code>, <code>platform</code>, <code>platform_entry_only</code>, <code>platform_exit_only</code> or an empty role.</li>
  <li>Member relations must have one of the following roles: <code>platform</code>, <code>platform_entry_only</code>, <code>platform_exit_only</code>.</li>
  <li>The member list must begin with the list of stops and platforms.</li>
  <li>There must not be any member with a non-empty role after the first member with an empty role.</li>
  <li>Train, tram and subway routes must use railway tracks. Buses and trolleybuses must use roads. Trolleybuses need <code>trolley_wire=yes</code> (or <code>trolley_wire:forward/backward=yes</code>). Roads/tracks under construction trigger errors.</li>
  <li>The <code>route=*</code> tag of a route relation must have one of the following values: <code>train</code>, <code>tram</code>, <code>subway</code>, <code>bus</code>, <code>trolleybus</code>, <code>ferry</code>, <code>aerialway</code>.</li>
  </ul>
  <p>There are some ideas for more tests but they haven&#8217;t been implemented yet:</p>
  <ul>
  <li>Correct order of stops and platforms is not checked.</li>
  <li>It is not checked if all stop positions of a route are located on a member way with an empty role.</li>
  <li>There is no test which checks if platforms are located next to the route/stop position.</li>
  <li>Access tags of member ways are not checked.</li>
  <li>If a platform is followed by another platform, users who follow the schema exactly will read two stations. If both platforms share some nodes, it is very likely an error.</li>
  </ul>
  <p><a href="https://github.com/geofabrik/osmi_pubtrans3">osmi_pubtrans3</a> is free software, and patches are welcome.</p>


guid: http://epsg4253.wordpress.com/?p=1856
url: https://epsg4253.wordpress.com/2014/08/01/field-mission-in-malawi/
title: field mission in Malawi
updated: 2014-08-01 10:00:33
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.813222
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.847971
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.847971
summary:
  In the coming weeks, I will be doing a field mission with the Humanitarian OSM Team. My mission is to assist government and communities to use and adopt open technologies [&#8230;]


guid: http://epsg4253.wordpress.com/?p=1843
url: https://epsg4253.wordpress.com/2014/02/13/my-daily-bike-commute-challenge/
title: My daily bike commute challenge
updated: 2014-02-13 11:00:17
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.813222
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.850686
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.850686
summary:
  Most of my friends struggle through the daily battle of commuting. Either one is stuck in traffic or is trying to wrestle their way to get to a train, bus [&#8230;]


guid: http://epsg4253.wordpress.com/?p=1836
url: https://epsg4253.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/field-notes-2/
title: field notes [2]
updated: 2014-02-03 16:40:56
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.813222
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.853074
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.853074
summary:
  Tala ng ilang karanasan mula sa “field”. Wowowee logo, mula sa Wikipedia Dati kong trabaho sa isang pamantasan ang mangasiwa ng mga proyektong pampamayanan sa maraming lugar sa Metro Manila. [&#8230;]


guid: http://epsg4253.wordpress.com/?p=1814
url: https://epsg4253.wordpress.com/2013/05/10/landsat-timelapse/
title: Landsat Timelapse
updated: 2013-05-10 12:00:23
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.813222
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.855348
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.855348
summary:
  I found out about this TIMELAPSE Project today by TIME and Google. And as a map geek and a Landsat fanboi, I find this gem a very good time waster. [&#8230;]


guid: http://epsg4253.wordpress.com/?p=1784
url: https://epsg4253.wordpress.com/2013/04/12/using-fieldpapers-in-josm/
title: Using FieldPapers in JOSM
updated: 2013-04-12 04:54:56
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.813222
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.857662
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.857662
summary:
  I love WalkingPapers for OpenStreetMap editing. I used it a lot in my personal mapping expeditions and during mapping parties. In fact, I think it is one of the most [&#8230;]


guid: http://epsg4253.wordpress.com/?p=1761
url: https://epsg4253.wordpress.com/2013/02/08/building-contour-elevation-lines-with-gdal-and-postgis/
title: Building contour elevation lines with GDAL and PostGIS
updated: 2013-02-08 11:33:44
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.813222
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.859936
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.859936
summary:
  I&#8217;m trying to build a complete contour elevation map for the Philippines. I did a couple of them before using various tools. This time, I&#8217;m trying to explore how efficient [&#8230;]


guid: http://epsg4253.wordpress.com/?p=1734
url: https://epsg4253.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/are-we-really-listening-to-the-warnings/
title: Are we really listening to the warnings?
updated: 2013-01-07 09:38:46
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.813222
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.862234
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.862234
summary:
  The series of map images shows Barangay Andap in New Bataan, Compostela Valley. Barangay Andap was one of the hardest hit community brought about by the massive debris flow deposit [&#8230;]


guid: http://epsg4253.wordpress.com/?p=1716
title: HOT Mapping for flash flood affected areas in Northern Mindanao, Philippines [repost]
updated: 2012-12-17 06:11:01
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.813222
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.865657
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.865657
url:
  https://epsg4253.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/hot-mapping-for-flash-flood-affected-areas-in-northern-mindanao-philippines-repost/

summary:
  I published this article last Jan, 25 2012 in the Humanitarian OSM Team blog. I am re-posting it here a year after Sendong ravaged Cagayan de Oro and Iligan. It [&#8230;]


guid: http://epsg4253.wordpress.com/?p=1695
url: https://epsg4253.wordpress.com/2012/12/04/typhoon-pablo-bopha-map-sources/
title: Typhoon Pablo (Bopha) Map Sources
updated: 2012-12-04 11:11:27
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.813222
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.867892
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.867892
summary:
  Enhanced infrared satellite images showing the storm at peak intensity and making landfall in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao (Source: Wikipedia, 2012). Typhoon Pablo (Bopha) is currently passing through [&#8230;]


guid: http://epsg4253.wordpress.com/?p=1653
url: https://epsg4253.wordpress.com/2012/11/26/foss4g-comes-to-the-philippines/
title: FOSS4G comes to the Philippines
updated: 2012-11-26 10:14:07
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.813222
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.870162
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:00.870162
summary:
  I announced last month the upcoming FOSS4G workshops as a pre-conference activity of PhilGEOS 2012. This happened last week and we are very happy with the outcome of the event. [&#8230;]


guid: http://www.mappa-mercia.org/?p=1555
title: Mapping a New Town being developed on a vanished national landmark
published: 2018-12-09 20:08:31
fetched: 2019-06-23 18:30:14.549408
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:02.802999
updated_at: 2019-06-23 18:30:14.592801
url:
  http://www.mappa-mercia.org/2018/12/mapping-a-new-town-being-developed-on-a-vanished-national-landmark.html

summary:
  It&#8217;s not often you get the opportunity to map a completely new town from the ground up, so mappa-mercia volunteers (all four of us)  descended on Houlton, next door to Rugby Warwickshire to do just that on a wet Saturday &#8230; <a href="http://www.mappa-mercia.org/2018/12/mapping-a-new-town-being-developed-on-a-vanished-national-landmark.html">Continued</a>

content:
  <p>It&#8217;s not often you get the opportunity to map a completely new town from the ground up, so mappa-mercia volunteers (all four of us)  descended on <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/52.3568/-1.1874">Houlton</a>, next door to <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=11/52.3804/-1.2737">Rugby</a> Warwickshire to do just that on a wet Saturday 1st December. Houlton is the name for a new town of 6,200  homes that is growing on the site of the decommissioned <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_Radio_Station">Rugby Radio Station</a>, whose large antenna masts were long a major landmark on the journey north and south along the M1 motorway. Houlton had been marked as a construction site for some time in OpenStreetMap, but a trawl of local news sites suggested it was fast being developed with residents  already moving in &#8211; so time for some mapping action!</p>
  <p>Its name mirrors the name of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houlton,_Maine">Houlton Maine USA</a> , originally the other end of the transatlantic radio telephony and telegraphy circuit which received the very first transatlantic voice broadcast from Rugby Radio Station in 1927.</p>
  <p>First opened by the General Post Office  in 1926, at its height in the 1950s it was the largest radio transmitting station in the world, with a total of 57 radio transmitters, a network of  820ft masts, 27 miles of copper cable in the suspended antennae covering an area of 1600 acres.</p>
  <p>It used so many water cooled valves  that two reservoirs each with a capacity of about quarter of a million gallons of water were necessary  to feed a  heat exchange system.</p>
  <p>Rugby set vast numbers of radio-controlled clocks in Britain  with the National Physical Laboratory&#8217;s time signal -but its strategic significance was the use of VLF transmissions to communicate with Britain&#8217;s submarine fleet</p>
  <p>Technology marches on however and its functions were transferred elsewhere in the early years of the 21st Century and the station&#8217;s physical infrastructure dismantled. All that remains is &#8216;C&#8217; building which is a protected heritage building and will form the nucleus of a new commercial town centre.</p>
  <p>So big is the development that it will take almost 20 years to complete and is <a href="http://houltonrugby.co.uk/">involving multiple development and finance partners</a>. We spotted at least three development groups constructing houses on the site. There&#8217;s already a new primary school on site, together with  a community centre, visitor centre and an excellent restaurant &#8211; the Tuning Fork &#8211; named after an essential frequency tool.</p>
  <p>In fact to walk round the completed section of the town  recording street names is to walk through a historical gallery of names famous in the development of radio: Marconi Close (naturally), Maxwell Road (naturally),  Walmsley  Road(senior Post Office engineer), Hughes Drive (inventor of the microphone and the printing telegraph),  Angwin Avenue (senior Post Office Engineer and first Chairman of Cable &amp;Wireless),  Faulkner Road (senior Post Office engineer), Shaughnessey Way (senior Post Office engineer)</p>
  <p>We decided to survey in a team rather than individually &#8211; it was less efficient but more sociable. We discussed and agreed as we went round that it was better to tag Houlton as a separate town rather than a suburb of Rugby (no objective criteria- it just felt right) and it enabled Rob to explain the  structure of the electricity distribution network. It also enabled us to establish the restaurant as excellent as we had to retreat there mid-morning to escape the cold drizzle and sample their coffee and cake!</p>
  <p>The site is well-provisioned with cycle paths and what will become a network of footpaths along linear parks. What we didn&#8217;t see were any bus stops so it&#8217;s either going to be a car-centric development or there are just not enough occupied homes yet to make it worthwhile to run any bus services.  It was tempting to walk past the open barriers on what was a slack working day to explore more of the road network that is under construction, but we thought it would be prudent to observe the safety warnings- maybe at a later date  we can gain permission to survey beyond completed sections.</p>
  <p>There&#8217;s another large infrastructure project underway, adjacent to Houlton, across the A5 trunk road with a massive expansion of the <a href="https://www.rugbyadvertiser.co.uk/news/9-000-jobs-on-the-way-with-new-dirft-expansion-near-rugby-1-7171325">Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal</a>.</p>
  <p>Judging by the number of nearly finished homes, the site will be changing rapidly so we&#8217;ll be revisiting at regular intervals to map the progress of the new town. in the meantime anyone who&#8217;s passing and can map will save us work and further demonstrate the power of crowd-sourced mapping  to keep a map up-to-date.</p>


guid: http://www.mappa-mercia.org/?p=1553
url: http://www.mappa-mercia.org/2018/08/uk-defibrillator-map.html
title: UK Defibrillator Map
published: 2018-08-10 09:32:24
fetched: 2019-06-23 18:30:14.549408
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:02.805881
updated_at: 2019-06-23 18:30:14.595486
summary:
  Over the last few days there has been significant national press attention to a project to create a map of the locations  of public defibrillators. The project is a collaboration between the British Heart Foundation , Microsoft and the NHS.  &#8230; <a href="http://www.mappa-mercia.org/2018/08/uk-defibrillator-map.html">Continued</a>

content:
  <p>Over the last few days there has been<a href="http://www.itv.com/news/2018-08-08/map-of-britains-defibrillators-could-save-thousands-of-lives/"> significant national press attention</a> to a project to create a map of the locations  of public defibrillators. The project is a collaboration between the <a href="https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/news-from-the-bhf/news-archive/2018/august/the-bhf-joins-forces-with-microsoft-and-the-nhs-to-save-thousands-more-lives-from-cardiac-arrests">British Heart Foundation</a> , Microsoft and the NHS.  One of the pilot areas will be the West Midlands Ambulance Service.</p>
  <p>OpenStreetMap already has a large database of the locations of these devices, and in fact devoted one of our UK Quarterly Projects to the theme. Of course there is a <a href="http://www.flosm.de/en/poimap.html?lat=52.5982629&amp;lon=-2.19260674&amp;r=439424.20&amp;st=0&amp;sw=defibrillator">map to visualise the data</a>. There is also a useful<a href="https://osm.mathmos.net/defib/"> set of tools and information to help mappers</a></p>
  <p>Taginfo returns a total of 1765 defibrillators mapped in the UK in OpenStreetMap</p>
  <p>We sincerely hope the the project speeds its delivery by building on our data and using OpenStreetMap&#8217;s crowdsourcing network of volunteer mappers.</p>


guid: http://www.mappa-mercia.org/?p=1549
url: http://www.mappa-mercia.org/2018/06/joy-diversion-mapping-in-manchester.html
title: Joy Diversion: Mapping in Manchester
published: 2018-06-02 21:07:12
fetched: 2019-06-23 18:30:14.549408
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:02.808186
updated_at: 2019-06-23 18:30:14.597995
summary:
  Saturday 19th May saw the UK OpenStreetMap community and Open Data Manchester join forces for an afternoon of exploring central Manchester. Several mappers from the Midlands made the trip and boy, did we have fun! Our hosts had prepared some &#8230; <a href="http://www.mappa-mercia.org/2018/06/joy-diversion-mapping-in-manchester.html">Continued</a>

content:
  <p>Saturday 19th May saw the UK OpenStreetMap community and Open Data Manchester join forces for an afternoon of exploring central Manchester. Several mappers from the Midlands made the trip and boy, did we have fun!</p>
  <p>Our hosts had prepared some great &#8220;Explorer Backpacks&#8221; and we soon broke off in to teams for our expeditions into the unknown. From the waterways to historic relics, the missions were wide ranging &#8211; we even had a Geiger counter on hand to find the spot with the highest background radiation!</p>
  <p><img class="aligncenter wp-image-1550 size-full" src="http://www.mappa-mercia.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/JoyDiversionManchester.jpg" alt="" width="515" height="679" srcset="http://www.mappa-mercia.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/JoyDiversionManchester.jpg 515w, http://www.mappa-mercia.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/JoyDiversionManchester-228x300.jpg 228w" sizes="(max-width: 515px) 100vw, 515px" /></p>
  <p>After soaking up the sun we headed back to Federation House to share our findings before heading for a well earned drink.</p>
  <blockquote><p>Dan S: It was ace, in particular the slightly whimsical mapping trip we did, following psychogeographic suggestions prepared by the Joy Diversion organisers. That was a good way to get new mappers and experienced mappers working together on an equal footing.</p></blockquote>
  <blockquote><p>Samantha: I really enjoyed the event on Saturday. I&#8217;d love to get out and about around Manchester and learn more about the city in general. If anyone else is local and wants to go exploring, to add to the map or otherwise please let me know.</p></blockquote>
  <blockquote><p>Tony Shield: Really enjoyed the ability to meet like minded people and get a deeper understanding of the OSM project. Going out and surveying then placing the information on the map was great. Seeing some of the uses the data could be used for was really interesting.</p></blockquote>
  <blockquote><p>Martyn: Joy Diversion was a great afternoon, I&#8217;ve just updated OSM with the Team Crocodile survey (cycle and car parking, playgrounds, water taxi, footpaths and more). Keep on improving the map.</p></blockquote>
  <p>A big success then! Partnering with Open Data Manchester worked really well. Nice folk and a good opportunity to spread the word about OSM without having to arrange a venue and drum up attendees from scratch.</p>
  <p><small><em>Post content: OpenStreetMap United Kingdom CIC (with minor amends). Local mappers Brian and Rob are Directors of the community interest company, which focuses on supporting OSM in the UK.</em></small></p>


guid: http://www.mappa-mercia.org/?p=1539
url: http://www.mappa-mercia.org/2018/01/osm-conflator.html
title: Conflation & Validation: OSM Conflator
published: 2018-01-30 22:41:06
fetched: 2019-06-23 18:30:14.549408
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:02.810691
updated_at: 2019-06-23 18:30:14.600627
summary:
  When Ilya approached the UK OpenStreetMap community about incorporating third party data (Shell petrol stations) into OSM he had already ran the data through his “OSM Conflator” tool. As part of the project he also created a “Community Validation” tool. &#8230; <a href="http://www.mappa-mercia.org/2018/01/osm-conflator.html">Continued</a>

content:
  <p><strong>When Ilya approached the UK OpenStreetMap community about incorporating third party data (Shell petrol stations) into OSM he had already ran the data through his “OSM Conflator” tool. As part of the project he also created a “Community Validation” tool. I decided to take a look at both of these using Asda petrol station data as a test case.</strong></p>
  <p><strong>In a series of posts I will share my experience with conflation and validation. This first post covers just OSM Conflator, with a follow on posts in the coming days covering the Community Validation tool and some reflections on the process.<br />
  </strong></p>
  <h3>Intro to OSM Conflator</h3>
  <p>OSM Conflator is a command-line tool written in Python 3 that compares a third party dataset against OpenStreetMap. It does not directly edit OpenStreetMap but instead gives you two outputs based on what it finds. The first, preview.json, can be loaded into an online tool such as <a href="http://geojson.io/#map=2/20.0/0.0">geojson.io</a> to visualise the differences. The second, a OSM change file, can be opened in JOSM for uploading in to OpenStreetMap. In both cases it assumes the third party data is correct and more up to date than any OSM data it is replacing. As such it is worth using the <a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM_Conflator#Community_Validation">Community Validation</a> tool to check the results <em>before</em> uploading.</p>
  <p>For now the third party data must be point (node) data but it can match to both nodes and ways in OpenStreetMap; downloading the most recent data each time you run the script. The matching is initially done by distance and you can set the maximum tolerance (e.g. 100 meters). If the third party data has a unique reference key (e.g. a store ID number) then this can be added to OpenStreetMap the first time you merge the data. The next time you run the comparison, for example if a retail chain has changed their opening hours, then OSM Conflator relies on this reference key rather than having to undertake a proximity search.</p>
  <h3>Inputs</h3>
  <p>OSM Conflator requires two inputs: a profile and the third party data. The profile sets the search criteria and which third party tags should always replace values on matched OSM objects. In the case of the Asda petrol stations the search criteria was for ‘amenity=fuel’ objects within 100 meters. The tags to upload were &#8216;brand&#8217;, &#8216;opening_hours&#8217;, &#8216;website&#8217;, &#8216;phone&#8217;, &#8216;addr:street&#8217;, and &#8216;addr:postcode&#8217;. The data included a unique reference ID so I set the profile to write this to OSM.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <div id="attachment_1542" style="width: 692px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="wp-image-1542 size-full" src="http://www.mappa-mercia.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/OSM-Conflate-profile.png" alt="" width="682" height="157" srcset="http://www.mappa-mercia.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/OSM-Conflate-profile.png 682w, http://www.mappa-mercia.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/OSM-Conflate-profile-300x69.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 682px) 100vw, 682px" /><p class="wp-caption-text">My OSM Conflator profile file.</p></div>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>The profile is actually created as a Python file but is simple enough that you don’t need any Python experience. If you are however a pro at Python you can add to the profile. Example additions include tag transformations (e.g. reformatting telephone numbers in to ‘+44 &lt;Area Code&gt; &lt;Number&gt;’ format) or even code to download the source data direct from the third party’s website. If like me you are not a Python pro then you will need to provide OSM Conflator with a separate file including the third party data. This must be in a JSON file format.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <div id="attachment_1545" style="width: 605px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="wp-image-1545 size-full" src="http://www.mappa-mercia.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/OSM-Conflate-data.png" alt="" width="595" height="103" srcset="http://www.mappa-mercia.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/OSM-Conflate-data.png 595w, http://www.mappa-mercia.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/OSM-Conflate-data-300x52.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 595px) 100vw, 595px" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Extract of the Asda source data (rows and additional tag columns omitted).</p></div>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>Getting the third party data into a JSON file is easy when you know how. Prepare a table like the one above with columns for latitude (lat), longitude (lon) and, if you have it, the unique reference key (id). For the tags you wish to add to OpenStreetMap name the columns according to the standard tag usage within OSM adding ‘tags/’ in front of the column name. To convert your table into a JSON file simply copy and paste the data in to <a href="http://www.convertcsv.com/csv-to-json.htm">www.convertcsv.com/csv-to-json.htm</a> making sure to select “First row is column names” and “Recreate nested objects and arrays” in the options. Copy the output into a blank notepad and save as ‘data.json’.</p>
  <h3>Running the tool</h3>
  <p>With the profile and third party data now prepared the final step is to run OSM Conflate. As noted this is a Python 3 command-line tool. I assume you have already installed this and have also installed ‘pip’ which is a package management system used to install and manage software packages written in Python. With both of these installed go ahead and open a command/terminal window and run “pip install osm_conflate” to install OSM Conflate. Finally to run OSM Conflate using your profile and data file run “conflate -i data.json -v -o result.osm -c preview.json profile.py”. When it has finished running try opening preview.json in <a href="http://geojson.io/#map=2/20.0/0.0">geojson.io</a> to get a visualisation of the results.</p>
  <p>In the next post we will look at how to load the outputs in to the Community Validation tool.</p>


guid: http://www.mappa-mercia.org/?p=1533
url: http://www.mappa-mercia.org/2018/01/the-streets-they-are-changing.html
title: The streets they are changing
published: 2018-01-20 20:52:24
fetched: 2019-06-23 18:30:14.549408
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:02.813109
updated_at: 2019-06-23 18:30:14.603217
summary:
  The streets they are a changing &#160; The view along our streets is about to change thanks to the mobile phone and OSM mappers are presented with a vast new challenge. BT are scrapping half of the 40,000 phoneboxes on &#8230; <a href="http://www.mappa-mercia.org/2018/01/the-streets-they-are-changing.html">Continued</a>

content:
  <p><strong>The streets they are a changing</strong></p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>The view along our streets is about to change thanks to the mobile phone and OSM mappers are presented with a vast new challenge.<a href="http://www.mappa-mercia.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/K6.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1536 aligncenter" src="http://www.mappa-mercia.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/K6-196x300.jpg" alt="" width="196" height="300" srcset="http://www.mappa-mercia.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/K6-196x300.jpg 196w, http://www.mappa-mercia.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/K6.jpg 520w" sizes="(max-width: 196px) 100vw, 196px" /></a></p>
  <p>BT are scrapping half of the 40,000 phoneboxes on our streets over the next five years, citing  a drastic drop in useage.  One third of phoneboxes never have anyone make a call from them, and BT measure call volume from all kiosks at a mere 33,000 a day. Phonebox numbers reached their peak in 1992, when there were 92,000 of them.</p>
  <p>Reducing the estate  will save BT £6m a year in maintenance, mostly repairing vandalism and removing graffiti. More than half of phoneboxes lose money and the number of calls is declining by more than 20% per year. However, phoneboxes are still used by people who can&#8217;t afford mobile phones, and in emergencies when mobile phone batteries are dead or there is poor mobile phone coverage ( in many rural and mountainous areas)</p>
  <p>7,000 of the  phoneboxes are the  world-famous <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_telephone_box">red phone boxes</a> designed in the 1930s by architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, who also designed  Liverpool Anglican Cathedral, Battersea Power Station, and Bankside Power Station (now the Tate Modern).</p>
  <p>Many of the red phoneboxes which have already been decommissioned have been re-purposed  as mini-libraries and art galleries or to house defibrillation machines, information centres, shops or exhibitions.  About 2,400 are preserved by Historic England as Grade II listed buildings.</p>
  <p><a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0035/47879/removing_callboxes.pdf">The rules of the government regulator Ofcom</a> govern  how BT may remove phoneboxes, and addionally there may be planning regulations from local authorities to satisfy. If there are two kiosks within 400m walking distance of a site, BT is allowed to remove one, as long as there is one left. But if BT seeks to remove the only phone booth on a site, it must inform the public and consult with the local authority which has 90 days to object, which is known as a local veto.</p>
  <p>According to taginfo data there are 18,000 phoneboxes (amenity=telephone) in the UK, so we&#8217;ve managed to map about 50% of them, taking 14 years to do so. So our data is set to degrade over 5 years as the estate shrinks and we need to keep up to date with which ones are being removed (and also of course to map those that are missing!)</p>
  <p>To add to the scale of the challenge  1,000 phoneboxes will be replaced in major UK cities by  new structures called <a href="http://www.inlinkuk.com/">Inlinks from InLinkUK</a>. Each InLink provides ultrafast, free public Wi-Fi, phone calls, device charging and a tablet for access to city services, maps and directions.</p>
  <p>The services are free because they&#8217;re financed by large digital screen advertising on the structures.</p>
  <p>As well as the challenge of locating and mapping these structures is the tagging challenge. Which or all of these?</p>
  <p>amenity=telephone</p>
  <p>wifi=free</p>
  <p>internet_access=<a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:internet_access%3Dwlan">wlan</a></p>
  <p>advertising=screen</p>
  <p>amenity= device_charging_station</p>
  <p>tourism=information</p>
  <p>Inlinks have been rolled out already in London and Leeds, and are scheduled for Birmingham in 2018. If you want to find the locations they&#8217;ve been provided <a href="http://www.inlinkuk.com/find-an-inlink.html">here</a> by InLink. Because they&#8217;re provided using Google Maps the data is useless for OSM except for using as a guide to go out and map them. So I asked BT, via  Business Development, if they could provide me data that would be suitable for adding to OSM. Here&#8217;s the  astonishing answer:</p>
  <p><strong><em>&#8221; Have heard back from the InLink (and payphone) team and they have a policy position – which is they don’t share locations of either Payphones or InLinks with mapping organisations as it would then make it easy for vandals and criminals  to determine the location of our estate and conduct attacks against it.&#8221;</em></strong></p>
  <p>Quite frankly this is a ludicrous position worthy of the fifteenth century when maps were regarded as military secrets.</p>
  <p>Firstly, it&#8217;s discriminatory. Do they know they&#8217;ve already published an online map of Inlinks? Do they know that for several decades Ordnance Survey have published paper maps showing the location of phoneboxes in mountainous areas for emergency purposes?  Do they know that many local authorities publish online map service using Ordnance Survey data that locates every phonebox with the acronym TCB (for Telephone Coin Box)? Quite where this stands under competition laws is an interesting point, but way beyond our pockets to explore.</p>
  <p>Secondly, it&#8217;s hardly a great method for letting potential customers know where to access the services.</p>
  <p>Thirdly, what&#8217;s the profile of your average vandal? Someone who  is a node on the globalised corporate network and uses online resources and data  tools to ensure they optimise available resources for their campaign of  vandalism?  Why waste time wandering about looking for targets and forfeiting valuable vandalising time? Why waste valuable time going out to vandalise something that&#8217;s already been done by a rival crew? Or is it some antisocial human node with who-knows-what chemicals coursing through their brain, opportunistically trashing their local community because they&#8217;ve got neither the desire or means to travel.</p>
  <p>I suggest BT planners look beyond the sphere of their corporate bubble with its group-think managementspeak and bring some appreciation of the real world (aka commonsense) to bear.</p>
  <p><strong>BT are now promoted to mappa-mercia&#8217;s Hall of Shame, along with West Midlands Fire Service and Severn Trent Water for refusing to provide data on the spurious grounds of protecting publicly visible infrastructure  against attack.</strong></p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>


guid: http://www.mappa-mercia.org/?p=1525
url: http://www.mappa-mercia.org/2018/01/petrol-stations-with-a-fixme-tag.html
title: Petrol stations with a fixme tag
published: 2018-01-17 21:49:36
fetched: 2019-06-23 18:30:14.549408
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:02.815467
updated_at: 2019-06-23 18:30:14.605772
summary:
  As we described when we kicked off this quarters UK project to map petrol stations, recent community validation of third party (import) data has highlighted much outdated and erroneous data within OpenStreetMap :-(. For the Shell import we captured some &#8230; <a href="http://www.mappa-mercia.org/2018/01/petrol-stations-with-a-fixme-tag.html">Continued</a>

content:
  <p>As we <a href="http://www.mappa-mercia.org/2018/01/q1-2018-mapping-project-petrol-stations.html">described</a> when we kicked off this quarters UK project to map petrol stations, recent community validation of third party (import) data has highlighted much outdated and erroneous data within OpenStreetMap :-(. For the Shell import we captured some of this and added it to a &#8220;fixme&#8221; tag. If you have not yet come across this tag then it is one in which OpenStreetMap users can flag something that looks wrong or requires additional information to improve the map.</p>
  <p>It is possible to view petrol stations with a fixme tag by using Overpass Turbo scripts. We have done this already so all you have to do is click <a href="https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/uZD">this link</a> and press run. Results are visual as shown in the example below. There are approximately 130 petrol stations with a fixme tag so with some effort we should be able to review them all. Happy mapping!</p>
  <div id="attachment_1526" style="width: 827px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="wp-image-1526 size-full" src="http://www.mappa-mercia.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/petrol_fixme.png" alt="" width="817" height="421" srcset="http://www.mappa-mercia.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/petrol_fixme.png 817w, http://www.mappa-mercia.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/petrol_fixme-300x155.png 300w, http://www.mappa-mercia.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/petrol_fixme-768x396.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 817px) 100vw, 817px" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Example result from Overpass Turbo.</p></div>


guid: http://www.mappa-mercia.org/?p=1522
url: http://www.mappa-mercia.org/2018/01/tracking-our-progress-mapping-petrol-stations.html
title: Tracking our progress mapping petrol stations
published: 2018-01-10 13:53:41
fetched: 2019-06-23 18:30:14.549408
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:02.817830
updated_at: 2019-06-23 18:30:14.608226
summary:
  When we did the highly successful quarterly project to map schools we tracked the progress using a script that collated data on a daily basis from TagInfo UK. This enables us to see how we are getting on, both in &#8230; <a href="http://www.mappa-mercia.org/2018/01/tracking-our-progress-mapping-petrol-stations.html">Continued</a>

content:
  <p>When we did the highly successful <a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/UK_Quarterly_Projects">quarterly project</a> to map schools we tracked the progress using a script that collated data on a daily basis from TagInfo UK. This enables us to see how we are getting on, both in terms of total features mapped, but also the split between nodes, ways and relations. We can then produce charts like the one for schools shown below.</p>
  <div id="attachment_1523" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="wp-image-1523 size-medium" src="http://www.mappa-mercia.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/OpenStreetMap_schools_UK-300x191.png" alt="" width="300" height="191" srcset="http://www.mappa-mercia.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/OpenStreetMap_schools_UK-300x191.png 300w, http://www.mappa-mercia.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/OpenStreetMap_schools_UK-80x50.png 80w, http://www.mappa-mercia.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/OpenStreetMap_schools_UK.png 517w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /><p class="wp-caption-text">UK Schools mapped in OpenStreetMap</p></div>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>This script was also used on the following quarterly projects up to the end of Q1 2017. Unfortunately I failed to set it up for the following quarterly projects, and worse still, failed to notice that the script stopped running in May 2017. It looks like the reason behind this was a change in the server that we are hosted on causing a 32bit vs 64bit error &#8211; but I&#8217;m no expert!</p>
  <p>The important thing is that I have it up and running again and <strong>have added tracking for petrol stations</strong>. You can view the data by following <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1G9KXfp4Ho3fVROO9MxotcYTydl9CEXB_fi5ko2pM5Kc/edit?usp=sharing">this link</a>.</p>


guid: http://www.mappa-mercia.org/?p=1517
url: http://www.mappa-mercia.org/2018/01/q1-2018-mapping-project-petrol-stations.html
title: Q1 2018 mapping project: Petrol stations
published: 2018-01-09 22:01:19
fetched: 2019-06-23 18:30:14.549408
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:02.820161
updated_at: 2019-06-23 18:30:14.610774
summary:
  Following a lengthy discussion on the talk-gb mailing list and several false starts, Ilya recently imported UK Shell petrol station data into OpenStreetMap.To confirm the quality of the third party data a brand new community validation tool was developed. Use &#8230; <a href="http://www.mappa-mercia.org/2018/01/q1-2018-mapping-project-petrol-stations.html">Continued</a>

content:
  <p><img class="size-full wp-image-1518 aligncenter" src="http://www.mappa-mercia.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/petrol_station.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="337" srcset="http://www.mappa-mercia.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/petrol_station.jpg 640w, http://www.mappa-mercia.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/petrol_station-300x158.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" /></p>
  <p>Following a lengthy discussion on the talk-gb mailing list and several false starts, Ilya <a href="https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-gb/2017-December/021011.html">recently imported</a> UK Shell petrol station data into OpenStreetMap.To confirm the quality of the third party data a brand new <a href="https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-gb/2017-December/020972.html">community validation tool</a> was developed. Use of this tool highlighted a lot of inconsistency in the way we map &#8211; as such let&#8217;s make petrol stations the quarterly mapping project for Q1 2018.</p>
  <p>According to <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/312331/number-of-petrol-stations-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/">Statistica</a> there are some 8450 petrol stations in the UK. Compare this to OpenStreetMap, where <a href="http://taginfo.openstreetmap.org.uk/tags/amenity=fuel">TagInfo shows</a> that we have mapped 7200. Not bad &#8211; just 1250 more to go! Let&#8217;s see if we can get to the magic 8450 by the end of the quarterly project (or show that the real number is indeed different). This also gives us a great opportunity to review the existing data, updating old tags to reflect on-the-ground change and converting petrol stations mapped as points (nodes) to ones mapped as areas (closed ways).</p>
  <p><em>Image: CC-By-Sa 2.0 <a title="View profile" href="http://www.geograph.org.uk/profile/11162" rel="cc:attributionURL dct:creator">Betty Longbottom</a></em></p>


guid: http://www.mappa-mercia.org/?p=1514
url: http://www.mappa-mercia.org/2017/10/birmingham-is-the-bus-stop-capital-of-europe.html
title: Birmingham is the Bus Stop Capital of Europe
published: 2017-10-23 17:23:07
fetched: 2019-06-23 18:30:14.549408
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:02.822608
updated_at: 2019-06-23 18:30:14.613191
summary:
  The city has more bus stops per kilometre than any other city in Western Europe according to an article published in the Birmingham Post. The revelation comes from a press release issued by Transport for West Midlands which is responding &#8230; <a href="http://www.mappa-mercia.org/2017/10/birmingham-is-the-bus-stop-capital-of-europe.html">Continued</a>

content:
  <p>The city has more bus stops per kilometre than any other city in Western Europe according to an article published in the Birmingham Post.</p>
  <p>The revelation comes from a press release issued by Transport for West Midlands which is responding to passenger criticism of  its recent decision to suspend 60 bus stops on major bus routes in a bid to speed up bus journey times.</p>
  <p>There are more than THIRTEEN bus stops per kilometre in Birmingham, which  compares to  to three-and-a-half in Barcelona, two-and-a-half in Paris and less than one per kilometre in Berlin.</p>
  <p>The three leaders according to the data presented are Birmingham (13.5), London (12.6), Manchester (9.9). Budapest is the closest European city, with just over eight.</p>
  <p>It does have to be said that Birmingham and the West Midlands suffer  in comparison to other European cities from not having complementary rapid transit systems such as metro lines and tram lines (there is only one surface metro line in the West Midlands). Our main means of &#8220;rapid&#8221; transit remains buses which is probably why there&#8217;s such a large density of bus stops. Culling the number is an attempt to return the description &#8220;rapid&#8221; to our transit system which has to compete with the congestion from cars.</p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>


guid: http://www.mappa-mercia.org/?p=1511
url: http://www.mappa-mercia.org/2017/07/mapping-an-industrial-dispute.html
title: Mapping an Industrial Dispute
updated: 2017-07-16 12:02:39
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:12:02.766619
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:02.825027
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:02.825027
summary:
  Birmingham is in the grip of an industrial dispute by binmen which is causing rubbish to pile up on the streets due to missed refuse collections. Needless to say this is causing much consternation amongst the citizens and businesses of &#8230; <a href="http://www.mappa-mercia.org/2017/07/mapping-an-industrial-dispute.html">Continued</a>

content:
  <p>Birmingham is in the grip of an industrial dispute by binmen which is causing rubbish to pile up on the streets due to missed refuse collections. Needless to say this is causing much consternation amongst the citizens and businesses of the city and the local media and politicians. The causes of the dispute are long-running  and its resolution looks to be long-running also.</p>
  <p>We do however have a <a href="https://mattcannon.carto.com/viz/06f57188-67c8-11e7-bb7e-0e98b61680bf/public_map">map of the effect of the dispute</a>, based on a release of data by the City Council of where residents have complained about missed refuse collections. The map was developed in Carto, and hence based on OSM data, by Matt Cannon who is digital development editor at the Birmingham Mail, one of our regional newspapers.</p>
  <p>Are there any other examples of industrial dispute mapping?</p>
  <div class="topic-intro"></div>
  <p><a href="http://www.mappa-mercia.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Bin-dispute.png"><img class="wp-image-1512 aligncenter" src="http://www.mappa-mercia.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Bin-dispute-300x152.png" alt="" width="341" height="173" srcset="http://www.mappa-mercia.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Bin-dispute-300x152.png 300w, http://www.mappa-mercia.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Bin-dispute-768x389.png 768w, http://www.mappa-mercia.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Bin-dispute-1024x519.png 1024w, http://www.mappa-mercia.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Bin-dispute.png 1916w" sizes="(max-width: 341px) 100vw, 341px" /></a></p>


guid: https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/?p=3413
url: https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/2019/05/10/tfl-cid/
title: TfL Cycling Infrastructure Database
published: 2019-05-10 16:01:11
fetched: 2019-10-15 02:30:17.746427
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:03.324190
updated_at: 2019-10-15 02:30:17.837106
summary:
  Transport for London (TfL) have created a new database of cycling infrastructure, containing 240,000 assets, covering all of Greater London. This is proposed to be released as open data. This groundbreaking database contains every cycle infrastructure asset within Greater London, including assets on and off-carriageway. The assets surveyed are: cycle parking; signals; signage; traffic calming measures; [&#8230;]

content:
  <p><a href="https://tflcid.cyclestreets.net/"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-3417" src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/tflcid_cycle_parking-300x202.png" alt="TfL CID" width="300" height="202" align="right" srcset="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/tflcid_cycle_parking-300x202.png 300w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/tflcid_cycle_parking-150x101.png 150w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/tflcid_cycle_parking-768x517.png 768w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/tflcid_cycle_parking-594x400.png 594w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/tflcid_cycle_parking.png 862w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a></p>
  <p><a class="external text" href="https://tfl.gov.uk/" rel="nofollow">Transport for London (TfL)</a> have created a new database of cycling infrastructure, containing 240,000 assets, covering all of Greater London. This is proposed to be released as open data.</p>
  <p>This groundbreaking database contains every cycle infrastructure asset within Greater London, including assets on and off-carriageway. The assets surveyed are: cycle parking; signals; signage; traffic calming measures; restricted points (e.g. steps); advanced stop lines; crossings; cycle lanes/tracks; and restricted routes (e.g. pedestrian only routes).</p>
  <p><i>“The world’s first Cycling Infrastructure Database will be the most comprehensive database of cycling infrastructure ever collected in London. Over the past 18 months, TfL has amassed data on every street in London, cataloguing almost 146,000 cycle parking spaces, 2,000 km of cycle lanes and more than 58,000 cycle signs and street markings. This information will be released as open data alongside a new digital map of cycle routes, will make journey planning and cycle parking much easier, as well as offering valuable information to TfL and the boroughs for planning future investment in cycling.”</i></p>
  <p>TfL is keen to make this available to the <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetMap</a> community under a compatible open license, to ensure maximum use of the CID. TfL is also potentially willing to consider tool development to help facilitate sensitive merging in of this data. OpenStreetMap is the street data on which CycleStreets is built, so the better data available to OSM, the better our routing can become.</p>
  <h3>Demonstrator map</h3>
  <p>We&#8217;ve created a <strong><a href="https://tflcid.cyclestreets.net/">demonstrator map</a></strong>, <b>for the purposes only of evaluation</b> by the OSM community at this stage.</p>
  <p>This demonstrator map contains only <b>one of the 25 areas</b> that have been surveyed.</p>
  <p>We are specifically seeking comments on data quality and usefulness of this data from the OSM community. Initial analysis by CycleStreets is that the data is of excellent quality, and very suitable for conflation into OSM, to increase both comprehensiveness and metadata quality.</p>
  <p><a href="https://tflcid.cyclestreets.net/"><img class="size-full wp-image-3415 alignnone" src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/tflcid_cycle_track.png" alt="TfL CID" width="100%" srcset="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/tflcid_cycle_track.png 860w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/tflcid_cycle_track-150x102.png 150w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/tflcid_cycle_track-300x203.png 300w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/tflcid_cycle_track-768x520.png 768w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/tflcid_cycle_track-591x400.png 591w" sizes="(max-width: 860px) 100vw, 860px" /></a></p>
  <p><b>Usage notes:</b> The controls on the right of the map allow the different feature types to be selected. The OSM layer (available at zoom level 19+) also provides a live feed from the OSM API, to enable quick comparisons. The two photos of each asset are in the process of being supplied; those already available and cleared in GDPR terms are included in the popup.</p>
  <p>It is stressed that at this point, no permission is given for re-use of the data in any way, but TfL strongly intends to make this available in future. All 25 areas would be covered in the final data release, not merely the one shown currently in the demonstrator map.</p>
  <h3>Feedback</h3>
  <p>Feedback is very strongly encouraged, as soon as possible.</p>
  <p>Please do discuss the data and related aspects noted above on the <a class="external text" href="https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb" rel="nofollow">talk-gb mailing list</a>.</p>
  <p>Feedback and questions can also be <a href="/contacts/">e-mailed</a> us.</p>
  <p>We are happy to provide any clarifications, which will be added to this page, as a central repository of information about the project.</p>
  <h2>More detail</h2>
  <p>We&#8217;ve set up a new <a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/TfL_Cycling_Infrastructure_Database"><strong>TfL CID project</strong> wiki page</a> on the OpenStreetMap Wiki.</p>


guid: https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/?p=3391
url: https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/2018/08/31/android-app-beta-programme/
title: Android app beta programme
published: 2018-08-31 16:04:21
fetched: 2019-10-15 02:30:17.746427
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:03.327258
updated_at: 2019-10-15 02:30:17.839657
summary:
  You can now sign up as a beta-tester for our Android app, simply by opting into the beta programme in the Google Play Store. This enables you to get the latest improvements and give feedback before they are released officially. We&#8217;re currently making lots of changes to the app (thanks to the great work of [&#8230;]

content:
  <p>You can now sign up as a beta-tester for our Android app, simply by opting into the beta programme in the Google Play Store. This enables you to get the latest improvements and give feedback before they are released officially.</p>
  <p>We&#8217;re currently making lots of changes to the app (thanks to the great work of our devs Oliver Lockwood and Jez Higgins), with lots of bug-fixes, improvements, and a new design coming.</p>
  <p>The app is <a href="https://github.com/cyclestreets/android/">open source</a> and we very much welcome new contributions of code, bug reports, etc.</p>
  <h3>Install our Android beta app</h3>
  <p>1. On your phone, go to the <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.cyclestreets">CycleStreets page in the Google Play Store</a>.</p>
  <table class="lines">
  <tbody>
  <tr>
  <td width="250">2. Scroll down to the bottom of the page, and find the &#8220;Become a beta tester&#8221; box, and click on &#8220;I&#8217;m in&#8221;:</td>
  <td><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-3393" src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/betasignup1-169x300.png" alt="" width="169" height="300" srcset="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/betasignup1-169x300.png 169w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/betasignup1-84x150.png 84w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/betasignup1-576x1024.png 576w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/betasignup1-225x400.png 225w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/betasignup1.png 720w" sizes="(max-width: 169px) 100vw, 169px" /></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
  <td>3. This will then show &#8220;Beta sign-up in progress&#8230;&#8221;:</td>
  <td><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-3394" src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/betasignup2-169x300.png" alt="" width="169" height="300" srcset="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/betasignup2-169x300.png 169w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/betasignup2-84x150.png 84w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/betasignup2-576x1024.png 576w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/betasignup2-225x400.png 225w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/betasignup2.png 720w" sizes="(max-width: 169px) 100vw, 169px" /></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
  <td>4. After, when you click &#8220;Install&#8221; at the top of the page, that will install the beta app:</td>
  <td><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-3395" src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/betasignup3-169x300.png" alt="" width="169" height="300" srcset="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/betasignup3-169x300.png 169w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/betasignup3-84x150.png 84w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/betasignup3-576x1024.png 576w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/betasignup3-225x400.png 225w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/betasignup3.png 720w" sizes="(max-width: 169px) 100vw, 169px" /></td>
  </tr>
  </tbody>
  </table>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
  <p>Note that this will replace the released version of the app with the latest beta version.</p>
  <p><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-3398" src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/betasignup4-169x300.png" alt="" width="169" height="300" srcset="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/betasignup4-169x300.png 169w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/betasignup4-84x150.png 84w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/betasignup4-225x400.png 225w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/betasignup4.png 447w" sizes="(max-width: 169px) 100vw, 169px" /></p>


guid: https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/?p=3363
url: https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/2018/05/08/phd-studentship-with-leeds/
published: 2018-05-08 12:00:16
fetched: 2019-10-15 02:30:17.746427
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:03.330336
updated_at: 2019-10-15 02:30:17.842765
title:
  PhD studentship with University of Leeds: Towards data-driven policy development: the case of London’s built cycling infrastructure

summary:
  An exciting PhD studentship opportunity which we are involved in, cross-posted from the Data Analytics and Society Centre for Doctoral Training website. Deadline: 3rd June 2018. Towards data-driven policy development: the case of London’s built cycling infrastructure In 2013, £913m of funds was allocated over 10 years for investment in London’s cycling infrastructure. Much of this — [&#8230;]

content:
  <p><em>An <a href="https://datacdt.org/projects/le25/">exciting PhD studentship opportunity</a> which we are involved in, cross-posted from the Data Analytics and Society Centre for Doctoral Training website. Deadline: 3rd June 2018.</em></p>
  <p><img class="wp-image-3369 size-medium alignnone" src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/leedscdt-300x47.png" alt="" width="300" height="47" srcset="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/leedscdt-300x47.png 300w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/leedscdt-150x24.png 150w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/leedscdt.png 608w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></p>
  <p><strong>Towards data-driven policy development: the case of London’s built cycling infrastructure</strong></p>
  <p>In 2013, £913m of funds was allocated over 10 years for investment in London’s cycling infrastructure. Much of this — including guided quietways, protected cycle superhighways and London’s crossrail for the bike — opened in summer 2016. The chief objective: to make cycling ‘a normal part of everyday life  […] something people hardly think about […and] something everyone feels comfortable doing’ (Greater London Authority 2013).</p>
  <p>Traditionally, attempts to evaluate such interventions might rely on survey data describing changes in *claimed* behaviour or high-level data from Automatic Traffic Counters describing infrastructure occupancy. The former are often expensive to collect and suffer from numerous (well-documented) biases and the latter are too high-level to capture more subtle changes in behaviour.</p>
  <p>This project will instead use new, large-scale observational datasets – from London’s bikeshare, underground and bus network, from route planning services (CycleStreets.net), user-contributed and social media data —  to describe changes in city-wide cycling behaviours pre- and post- the intervention. Crucially, it will identify rich detail around the impact of current investment on behaviour and contribute quantified estimates, under uncertainty, around the impact of future investment.</p>
  <p>Applications are welcomed from those wishing to develop expertise in statistical model building, geospatial data and information visualisation.</p>
  <p><em>Start Date: </em>October 2018<em><br />
  Lead Supervisor</em>: Roger Beecham (University of Leeds)<br />
  <em>Other Supervisors</em>: Robert Aykroyd, Robin Lovelace, Stuart Barber<br />
  <em>Partners</em>: University of Leeds<br />
  <em>External partners</em>: CycleStreets.net</p>
  <p><a href="https://datacdt.org/projects/le25/">Read more and apply online here.</a></p>
  <p><img class="alignnone wp-image-3365 size-thumbnail" src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/ersc-150x126.png" alt="" height="150" srcset="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/ersc-150x126.png 150w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/ersc-300x251.png 300w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/ersc.png 442w" sizes="(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /></p>


guid: https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/?p=3384
url: https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/2018/05/07/dft-cycling-data-for-osm/
title: DfT cycling data for research/OpenStreetMap use – as GeoJSON
published: 2018-05-07 21:11:41
fetched: 2019-10-15 02:30:17.746427
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:03.333179
updated_at: 2019-10-15 02:30:17.845761
summary:
  A techie post, about some cycling data which may be of use to people researching cycling. Back in 2011, we were involved in a project to convert some newly-collected cycling data from the UK&#8217;s Department for Transport for use in OpenStreetMap. The data was originally collected for the DfT&#8217;s Transport Direct project (which has since [&#8230;]

content:
  <p><em>A techie post, about some cycling data which may be of use to people researching cycling.</em></p>
  <p>Back in 2011, we were involved in a <a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/England_Cycling_Data_project">project to convert some newly-collected cycling data</a> from the UK&#8217;s Department for Transport for use in OpenStreetMap.</p>
  <p>The data was originally collected for the DfT&#8217;s Transport Direct project (which has since ceased operation), which was an early attempt to create a government cycle journey planner, launching on almost the same day as CycleStreets itself. In order to ensure that taxpayer value for this expensive (£2.4m) dataset was not lost as Transport Direct fell into disuse, CycleStreets successfully encouraged the DfT to release the data openly and to do so in a way which would encourage use in OpenStreetMap. We helped with that process, and data for cities started to be merged in from 2011.</p>
  <p>The data consists of the cycle network as of 2011 in each city of over 30,000 people. This does however <em>not</em> represent all cycle infrastructure &#8211; only where signage is present. Additionally, collection included the Sustrans NCN network.</p>
  <p>Since that time, things have moved on. OpenStreetMap has become the go-to datasource for cycling data internationally. GeoJSON has become the de-facto format for open geographical data. Similarly, Github has become the de-facto location to distribute open data like this.</p>
  <p>As part of a project we have been working on with Leeds University, the <a href="https://www.cyipt.bike/">Cycling Infrastructure Prioritisation Toolkit (CyIPT)</a> (which we will report on soon), we needed historical data from 2011, and this DfT data was a perfect candidate.</p>
  <p>Accordingly, we have taken the opportunity to recover the data from 2011, and convert it to GeoJSON and republish it, in the hope it might be useful for some people. It is an OpenStreetMap-orientated version of the data published on data.gov.uk. As such it is subject to OSM licensing conditions.</p>
  <p><a href="https://github.com/cyclestreets/dft-england-cycling-data-2011"><strong>DfT England Cycling Data 2011</strong></a></p>
  <p>We would stress that, for almost all uses, CycleStreets instead <strong>strongly</strong> recommends downloading data from <strong>OpenStreetMap</strong>, which is topographically routable and is maintained and has far greater geographical coverage. Moreover, the cycle network has changed from 2011-18. However, the data in this repository contains attributes on each geometry which remain often more detailed than OSM. Accordingly, the data is most useful for research purposes and for <strong>manual merging into OSM</strong>, which is encouraged.</p>
  <p><a href="https://github.com/cyclestreets/dft-england-cycling-data-2011">Full details</a> about the data are given in the README which can be found on the main repository page.</p>
  <p><em>Coverage:</em></p>
  <p><a href="https://github.com/cyclestreets/dft-england-cycling-data-2011"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3385" src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/coverage.png" alt="" width="535" height="659" srcset="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/coverage.png 535w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/coverage-122x150.png 122w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/coverage-244x300.png 244w" sizes="(max-width: 535px) 100vw, 535px" /></a></p>
  <p><em>Example area &#8211; Cambridge:</em></p>
  <p><a href="https://github.com/cyclestreets/dft-england-cycling-data-2011"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3386" src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/cambridge-1.png" alt="" width="690" height="680" srcset="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/cambridge-1.png 690w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/cambridge-1-150x148.png 150w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/cambridge-1-300x296.png 300w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/cambridge-1-406x400.png 406w" sizes="(max-width: 690px) 100vw, 690px" /></a></p>


guid: https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/?p=3299
url: https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/2018/04/11/intern-2018/
title: Intern vacancies Summer 2018
published: 2018-04-11 12:06:15
fetched: 2019-10-15 02:30:17.746427
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:03.335532
updated_at: 2019-10-15 02:30:17.848274
summary:
  CycleStreets is seeking one or more paid interns to work on a variety of projects this summer. About CycleStreets CycleStreets is a social enterprise based in Cambridge, working to help get more people cycling by the provision of information on cycle-friendly routes, and various tools for use by cycle advocacy groups. We are best known for our journey [&#8230;]

content:
  <p>CycleStreets is seeking one or more paid interns to work on a variety of projects this summer.</p>
  <h3 class="p1">About CycleStreets</h3>
  <p><img class="diagram alignright right wp-image-3375" src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/internship2018.png" alt="" width="350" height="400" align="right" srcset="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/internship2018.png 620w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/internship2018-131x150.png 131w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/internship2018-263x300.png 263w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/internship2018-350x400.png 350w" sizes="(max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px" /></p>
  <p class="p1">CycleStreets is a social enterprise based in Cambridge, working to help get more people cycling by the provision of information on cycle-friendly routes, and various tools for use by cycle advocacy groups.</p>
  <p>We are best known for our <a href="/">journey planner</a>, aimed at finding practical cycle routes in urban environments. To do that effectively requires collating data from a variety of sources and configuring a routing engine to make the same decisions a knowledgeable cyclist would make to find a route to their destination. We are aiming to provide the highest quality cycle routing in the world that tries to &#8216;think like a cyclist&#8217;.</p>
  <p>Our bike routing is used by our own <a href="/">website</a> and apps, as well as in a range of <a href="/mobile/">third-party apps</a> (such as <a href="https://citymapper.com/">Citymapper</a>, <a href="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/2016/12/18/bike-hub-app-relaunched/">Bike Hub</a>, London cycle hire apps, etc.), as well as a variety of transport companies (SDG, Virgin East Coast, mxdata, Traveline Wales/Scotland, etc.). It is also being used for <a href="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/2015/12/19/bristol-msc-research/">academic research</a> and transport planning, e.g. the <a href="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/2016/12/21/propensity-to-cycle-tool/">Propensity to Cycle Tool</a> and <a href="https://www.cyipt.bike/">CyIPT</a> projects.</p>
  <p>The website also includes our <a href="/photomap/">Photomap</a> &#8211; around 80,000 user-contributed photos of cycling related infrastructure from around the UK and beyond. These are used by activists to promote good practice and highlight problems to avoid in future. The Photomap also powers Local Authority websites such as the <a href="http://www.urbancycleparking.org.uk/">Urban Cycle Parking</a> website for TfL. Further tools that present <a href="http://bikedata.cyclestreets.net/">transport data</a> that affects cycling are also in development.</p>
  <p>CycleStreets also manages <a href="https://www.cyclescape.org/">Cyclescape</a>, a geographically-based discussion forum increasingly used by cycling campaign groups across the UK.</p>
  <p>With our limited resources given over to focussing on keeping the core services up-to-date and responsive several areas have been left lagging and with work to do. We have a powerful API suite, but the front-end website and apps do not currently reflect its abilities in design and UI terms.</p>
  <h3>A wide range of potential development areas</h3>
  <p>Although improvements to our main codebase &#8211; the website &#8211; is our ideal focus, we&#8217;re happy to see work on any of our projects &#8211; routing engine, mobile apps, Cyclescape, etc.</p>
  <p>The codebase for the main website is a rich collection of page-generation code, database procedures and webpage classes, system configuration scripts, and a low-level routing engine implementation &#8211; all written in commonly used mainstream languages. The codebase has been reorganised thanks to help from a previous year&#8217;s intern. This codebase primarily consists of over 200 PHP classes, using traditional inheritance/loading techniques, arranged as a fairly purist MVC structure. Much of the core functionality has been converted to a <a href="https://www.cyclestreets.net/api/v2/">public API</a> (with over 40 calls in total) that powers the website and third-party apps/sites.</p>
  <p>Much of <a href="https://github.com/cyclestreets/">our code is on Github</a> and we are trying to get the main website there too.</p>
  <p>Some specific areas which we would welcome help with (though this is not exhaustive) include:</p>
  <p><em>1. System coding and refactoring</em></p>
  <p>Ours is a large codebase, with large amounts of functionality. There is always plenty of development that can be done throughout the system. Our previous intern&#8217;s work on refactoring was particularly beneficial and further work can be done; new functionality is also very welcome.</p>
  <p><em>2. Overall website design, including integration with mobile</em></p>
  <p>There&#8217;s an opportunity to update how CycleStreets presents itself to give the service a &#8216;personality&#8217; &#8211; particularly on mobile. Here we&#8217;re mainly thinking about the look and feel but also what can be done with it. The codebase can serve webpages based on templates, and these are ready to be used by responsive stylesheets that will work on a variety of screen widths. Developments in this area could provide a major benefit to users on mobile In general, we are aiming to unify our various interfaces into a single implementation.</p>
  <p><em>3. Usability</em></p>
  <p>Interaction with the journey planner works smoothest on desktop but there is a lot of scope for improving mobile interactivity. Interaction of the journey planner with the map is one area that needs work, but there a lot of small things that would help such as, for instance prompting users&#8217; frequently used locations when they search.</p>
  <p><em>4. Cycle route quality</em></p>
  <p>Changes to the cycle routing engine are perhaps beyond the scope of a summer intern, unless you are starting from a more advanced base of knowledge. A major challenge is how to know if the suggested cycle route is good &#8211; and whether changes to input data or configuration parameters produce a better route or not. Ideas and developments of the testing regime could make a significant difference to route quality.</p>
  <p><em>5. Elevation data</em></p>
  <p>The routing engine takes into account the cost of hill climbing and that depends on accurate elevation data. There&#8217;s scope for adding to our library of data provided by countries such as Australia and Finland.</p>
  <p><em>6. Geocoding</em></p>
  <p>Maintaining an up-to-date way of translating text into a location has proven quite a distraction over the years. We&#8217;d really like to get on top of this issue and resolve it once and for all. It&#8217;s quite a well-defined isolated project, primarily involving sysadmin and code integration work.</p>
  <p><em>7. Work on our mobile apps</em></p>
  <p>If you have skills in Java for Android or Objective-C/Swift, we would also be willing to consider work on these also. The apps have been created by colleagues rather than the two of us who will be running the internship; accordingly we can&#8217;t provide training on the actual programming languages, but things like code structure and UI would be possible to be covered. A new design has been created and is almost ready to be implemented.</p>
  <p><em>8. Bikedata site</em></p>
  <p>We&#8217;ve been working to get lots of public data on our new Bikedata site. There are many ideas for development here &#8211; new layers, new features, graphing, visualisations, API improvements, etc.</p>
  <h3>About the internship</h3>
  <p>This is an opportunity to get involved with a live and dynamic project that faces continual resource challenges. The successful candidate will have a choice of which projects to work on based on their own preferences and ideas. We&#8217;ll provide supervision and work together to define goals and help solve problems.</p>
  <p>As an intern, you will be a proper part of the CycleStreets team, as a fully-paid employee over the summer period, with daily training and co-working.</p>
  <p><a href="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/2015/10/01/patrick-reports-back/">Read about how our previous intern, Patrick, found the process.</a></p>
  <p>The intern will be hired as an proper salaried employee. Our intern(s) will earn £400 per week, are regarded as part of the team from day one, and the internships last for 10 weeks. We will also come to a flexible arrangement regarding working locations and/or expenses for public area working to ensure that the successful employee is never out-of-pocket.</p>
  <p>The paid internship will be based in Cambridge (UK). This is because we feel it is important that there is daily contact as this is aimed to be a two-way process providing lots of training.</p>
  <p>As our two current employees work mainly from home, we&#8217;ll expect the intern to find their own workspace as we cannot provide an office environment. We&#8217;ll meet with you to discuss and plan your work schedule and ideas at internet cafés or meeting rooms in Cambridge, as well as online.</p>
  <p>We are not expecting someone with many years of development experience, as such a person would be in a stable job, and the salary level is not intended to reflect this. What is more important to us is someone with the right mindset, a fast learner, who can work at a good rate. Being an internship, this will be a two-way arrangement, with us helping give the student knowledge of working in a large codebase and the challenges this brings – though we do want someone who is a self-starter.</p>
  <h3>How to apply</h3>
  <p>To apply, all we need is your CV and a covering letter, <a href="/contacts/">sent via e-mail</a> by the end of <strong>Monday 30th April 2018. </strong>Your covering letter should explain your interests, and include some thoughts on our site (such as a critical analysis, max 1 page), and point us to any code you have written (public code on Github is always a good sign). Feel free to contact us if you have any questions.</p>
  <p>We will contact all applicants by the end of Tuesday 1st May.</p>
  <p>Interviews will take place on either 2nd/3rd May, according to your availability.</p>


guid: https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/?p=3280
url: https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/2017/10/01/every-road-collision-mapped/
title: Every GB road collision – mapped
published: 2017-10-01 00:06:14
fetched: 2019-10-15 02:30:17.746427
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:03.338368
updated_at: 2019-10-15 02:30:17.851372
summary:
  As campaigners for getting more people cycling, a crucial issue for us is safety of our streets. Safer streets means more people cycling &#8211; as places like the Netherlands and other European cities show. Every year, the Department for Transport issues a massive data release, detailing every reported road collision in Great Britain, what vehicles [&#8230;]

content:
  <p><img class="alignright wp-image-3289 size-medium" src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/filter-142x300.png" alt="" width="142" height="300" align="right" /></p>
  <p>As campaigners for getting more people cycling, a crucial issue for us is safety of our streets. Safer streets means more people cycling &#8211; as places like the Netherlands and other European cities show.</p>
  <p>Every year, the Department for Transport issues a massive data release, detailing every reported road collision in Great Britain, what vehicles were involved, and the outcome in injury terms. Known as STATS19, the data contains around 60 pieces of information for every collision &#8211; whether slight, serious or fatal. This is excellent work by the DfT who collate this.</p>
  <p><a href="https://bikedata.cyclestreets.net/collisions/">We&#8217;ve plotted every collision</a>, and made available the full details, on a map on our new Bikedata website.</p>
  <p>The data for 2016 has just been released &#8211; we got it online within a few hours of its release.</p>
  <p>The site is a beta &#8211; the two things we want to improve are removing the jumpiness of the icons, and dealing with the question of how to show large numbers of collisions when zoomed out &#8211; currently a limit is applied. Zooming in shows all.</p>
  <p><a href="https://bikedata.cyclestreets.net/collisions/"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3286" src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/collisions-e1506813096296.png" alt="" width="600" height="423" /></a></p>
  <p>Since the data was first made live, we&#8217;ve fixed a few issues. The latitude/longitude values in the original data were incorrect, so we&#8217;ve reprojected these from the northings/eastings values which are the original data. Some data in London was also misnumbered, which the DfT have corrected after we pointed this out. Our interface also was not filtering correctly for car occupants &#8211; now fixed.</p>
  <p>For every collision, you can click to get full details &#8211; available openly without charge.</p>
  <p><img class="alignnone wp-image-3287 size-full" src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/draw-e1506814250605.png" alt="" width="354" height="250" /> .  <img class="alignnone wp-image-3288 size-full" src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/report-e1506814312538.png" alt="" width="170" height="250" /></p>
  <p>Behind every one of these is a human story:</p>
  <div class="twitter-tweet">
  <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
  <p lang="en" dir="ltr">Behind that wee purple star, massive costs for NHS, 8 operations, 6 months sick pay, permanent mobility/anxiety probs &amp; lots of grief/pain <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/11/72x72/1f621.png" alt="😡" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" /></p>
  <p>&mdash; Kirsty Lewin (@KirstyLewin) <a href="https://twitter.com/KirstyLewin/status/914219899538591746?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 30, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
  </div>
  <p>Users of the site are finding that the visual display enables patterns to be spotted &#8211; such as the way that the typical British roundabout design fails cyclists:</p>
  <div class="twitter-tweet">
  <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
  <p lang="en" dir="ltr">This is incredible. Every driver-bike incident in the UK 2005-2016 mapped. Roundabouts are terrible for cyclists, turns out. Data at <a href="https://t.co/yRhStvpvIW">https://t.co/yRhStvpvIW</a> <a href="https://t.co/l8ktNe3dX6">pic.twitter.com/l8ktNe3dX6</a></p>
  <p>&mdash; Kat Young (@KEYoung29) <a href="https://twitter.com/KEYoung29/status/913898194496622592?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 29, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
  </div>
  <p>as do junctions more generally:</p>
  <div class="twitter-tweet">
  <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
  <p lang="en" dir="ltr">Just checked my local area and cycling route. Every accident is at a junction or roundabout. Every single one without exception.</p>
  <p>&mdash; Kevin Lynch (@aikiwolfie) <a href="https://twitter.com/aikiwolfie/status/914210543552143360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 30, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
  </div>
  <p>We&#8217;re now working to add new comparison facilities &#8211; we want to bring out the policy implications hidden in this data.</p>
  <p>For instance, how do different Local Authorities compare? What happens when streets are upgraded to add safe, segregated infrastructure? How can we most easily demonstrate that allowing two-way cycling in one-way streets is a perfectly safe improvement.</p>
  <p>We&#8217;ve also wanted for a long time to link these to newspaper reports and are considering methods to enable people to do that.</p>
  <p><a href="/feedback/">Let us know</a> what you&#8217;d find useful.</p>


guid: https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/?p=3262
url: https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/2017/08/29/cycle-parking-api/
title: Developers – need cycle parking in your app? Use our Cycle parking API
published: 2017-08-29 14:05:24
fetched: 2019-10-15 02:30:17.746427
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:03.341233
updated_at: 2019-10-15 02:30:17.854386
summary:
  This is a post for app developers. So it contains some techy stuff which probably won&#8217;t be of interest to our cycle routing users. Knowing where you can find cycle parking as a cyclist, especially in cities, is helpful in avoiding theft, as well as helping keeping busy streets tidy. By providing information on where [&#8230;]

content:
  <p><em>This is a post for app developers. So it contains some techy stuff which probably won&#8217;t be of interest to our cycle routing users.</em></p>
  <p>Knowing where you can find cycle parking as a cyclist, especially in cities, is helpful in avoiding theft, as well as helping keeping busy streets tidy.</p>
  <p>By providing information on where cycle parking exists, developers of apps can easily help people find cycle parking before they even reach their destination.</p>
  <p>CycleStreets provides a <a href="https://www.cyclestreets.net/api/v2/pois.locations/">Cycle parking API</a> as one of the points of interest (POI) types that can be retrieved in our extensive <a href="https://www.cyclestreets.net/api/">cycling API suite</a>. Developers can embed this in our app &#8211; either by making realtime calls or obtaining the data en-batch using the CSV export mode.</p>
  <p>You can see an <a href="http://bikedata.cyclestreets.net/cycleparking/">example implementation</a> on our new Bikedata website:</p>
  <p><a href="http://bikedata.cyclestreets.net/cycleparking/"><img class="alignnone wp-image-3265 size-full" src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/cycleparking-1-e1504014605866.png" alt="" width="601" height="296" /></a></p>
  <p>The API provides the following data:</p>
  <ul>
  <li>Locations of all cycle parking in the UK and other areas that we support (much of northern Europe and various cities around the world &#8211; contact us if you need other areas)</li>
  <li>Whether the parking is public or private</li>
  <li>Number of bikes that can be parked (where data is available)</li>
  <li>Details of whether the cycle parking is covered, what type of stands, etc. (where data is available)</li>
  <li>The location of the entrance point rather than the centre point (for larger installations, where data available)</li>
  <li>(Coming soon) Large areas of parking to be available as areas rather than (entrance) point</li>
  </ul>
  <p>By default, all locations (whether public or private) come through, but you can specify a filtering option (as <a href="http://bikedata.cyclestreets.net/cycleparking/">seen in the Bikedata example</a>) if you wish.</p>
  <p>We perform a range of pre-processing to enhance the raw data:</p>
  <ul>
  <li>If the location is on private land, but the parking itself is not marked as such, we pre-process the data to mark it as private</li>
  <li>For larger installations such as <a href="https://www.cyclestreets.net/location/74187/">cycle parks</a>, we use the entrance point as its location, rather than the centre-point</li>
  <li>We convert data defined as either points or areas into a unified set of points</li>
  </ul>
  <p><a href="https://www.cyclestreets.net/location/74187/"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3266" src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/cyclepark-e1504015502778.jpg" alt="" width="601" height="202" /></a></p>
  <p>This data is all possible thanks to the power of OpenStreetMap. We regularly import OSM data, perform a range of processing on it (e.g. convert locations on private land into private POIs, determining entrance points, etc.), and turn this into an indexed API.</p>
  <p>Our API is a flexible, robust and well-maintained interface (it has been running since 2010). If you need a Service Level Agreement, or are likely to require high volumes of requests, we can also provide the API on a contractual basis.</p>
  <p>To get started, just <a href="https://www.cyclestreets.net/api/apply/">obtain an API key</a>, and set your application to make API calls to the <a href="https://www.cyclestreets.net/api/v2/pois.locations/">POIs API</a> and render the GeoJSON response on your map.</p>
  <p>If you would like to request any enhancements to the API, to cover your use-case, do <a href="/contacts/">get in touch</a>.</p>
  <p>Also, if you have any existing cycle parking data, we are happy to provide advice on how to make it available.</p>


guid: https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/?p=3228
url: https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/2017/07/01/new-turns-algorithm/
title: Turn cost factors – for safer and less wiggly routes
published: 2017-07-01 12:00:53
fetched: 2019-10-15 02:30:17.746427
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:03.344073
updated_at: 2019-10-15 02:30:17.857434
summary:
  Urban cycle routes can often be very circuitous because they have to work around one-way systems, tunnel under major roads, use paths across parks and short links connecting residential areas. For many years now, CycleStreets has included the cost of making each turn in the overall process of choosing a practical cycle route. The model [&#8230;]

content:
  <p>Urban cycle routes can often be very circuitous because they have to work around one-way systems, tunnel under major roads, use paths across parks and short links connecting residential areas.</p>
  <p>For many years now, CycleStreets has included the cost of making each turn in the overall process of choosing a practical cycle route. The model used so far has been basic &#8211; counting 7 seconds for a left turn and 11 seconds for a right turn. That&#8217;s helped reduce their wigglyness, but we&#8217;ve long known of the limitations of applying that model equally to all junctions.</p>
  <p>In particular, experienced cyclists know that right turns (in the UK case) from busy roads are to be avoided. So one of our objectives for routing quality is to avoid unnecessary right turns.</p>
  <div style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img class="size-full" src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/location/90255/cyclestreets90255-size500.jpg" alt="Turning cyclists" width="500" height="375" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Different strategies for making a turn</p></div>
  <p>We&#8217;ve developed a more comprehensive set of criteria for assessing the cost of making a turn.</p>
  <p>The new model takes into account the types of road on the approach to the junction, the likely traffic volumes, the right of way, turn angles, speeds and gradients.</p>
  <p>We&#8217;ve built tools to help us assess the impact of these new costs on route choice and when ready we shall be rolling out this new model into the live routes suggested by CycleStreets.</p>
  <p>This blog post gives a brief overview of the model.</p>
  <h3>Junctions</h3>
  <p>CycleStreets measures cycle routes by totalising these two components:</p>
  <ol>
  <li>the cost of riding along each street</li>
  <li>the cost of turning at each junction.</li>
  </ol>
  <p>The best cycle route between any two points is the one with the minimum total cost.</p>
  <table>
  <tbody>
  <tr>
  <th>Cost factor</th>
  <th>Route type</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
  <td>Time</td>
  <td>Fastest</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
  <td>Volume of traffic</td>
  <td>Quietest</td>
  </tr>
  </tbody>
  </table>
  <p>Because the total cost measure includes the cost of turning at each junction, the routes produced are already likely to contain fewer turns than they would otherwise.</p>
  <p>As mentioned in the introduction, the cost model in use is a simple one that is applied equally to all junctions.</p>
  <h3>Existing cost model</h3>
  <p>The current model of turn costs uses basic physics to estimate the time added to a journey by slowing down to pass through a junction, and accelerating back up to speed afterwards. It is assumed that a rider starts braking evenly from 10 metres before a junction, and accelerates away afterwards reaching full speed after 20 metres.</p>
  <p>When a full stop from a speed of 12.5mph is required, the total time added is six seconds. If the rider can maintain some momentum by slowing only to a walking pace the total time added is reduced: only 3 seconds.</p>
  <p>Where the turn is bear left or right then the slow down model applies, but when there&#8217;s a sharper turn, the stop model applies with bigger delays.</p>
  <p>The model includes a small extra factor to account for expected waiting time &#8211; slightly more for turning right than turning left.</p>
  <p>But that&#8217;s it, and that is currently applied to all junctions regardless of the type of roads involved.</p>
  <h3>New cost model</h3>
  <p>The new model takes into account the road types at a junction.</p>
  <p>For example, at a junction between residential roads where there is not much motor traffic it is safe to assume that in general the cyclist will not have to come to a full stop to make any kind of turn and that they can maintain their momentum. This means that those types of junction will have little impact on the journey cost.</p>
  <p>Where a minor road meets a major road, the issue of right of way has to be considered. When turning left or right from a side road the rider does not have priority and so must give way to other traffic until there is a gap. For such turns there is a waiting time to be considered. The waiting time is likely to be higher for bigger roads.</p>
  <p>Making good estimates of the waiting time for turns between different types of road will improve the quality of the recommended fastest routes.</p>
  <p>By using a related measure, right turns onto busy roads (in the UK case) can be avoided when considering the quietest route.</p>
  <p><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-3249" src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/turns1-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/turns1-300x225.jpg 300w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/turns1-150x113.jpg 150w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/turns1.jpg 640w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />   <img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-3250" src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/turns2-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/turns2-300x225.jpg 300w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/turns2-150x113.jpg 150w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/turns2.jpg 640w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></p>
  <h3>Legibility</h3>
  <div style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="/location/13479/"><img src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/location/13479/cyclestreets13479-size500.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="375" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Right for Newmarket 6 miles on roads, or left on National Cycle Network route NCN51, 15 miles.</p></div>
  <p>Junctions can make routes complicated, but what does help is good sign-posting. Routes that are clearly marked are usually helpful to most cyclists passing through an area.</p>
  <p>Where a junction is on a marked cycle route, the cost factor can be made very low for sticking on the route and punitive for leaving it. The result of such a scoring scheme would be &#8216;sticky&#8217; routes.</p>
  <div id="attachment_3242" style="width: 459px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="wp-image-3242 size-full" src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/Clerkenwell-to-St.-Pauls-e1499980166813.png" alt="" width="449" height="405" /><p class="wp-caption-text">The fastest route between Clerkenwell and St. Paul&#8217;s is shown as the red line. The green route demonstrates the effect of adding an expensive (i.e. unrealistically high) turn cost at every junction, except for those that lie on the stations circular cycle route.</p></div>
  <h3>Current status</h3>
  <p>A significant part of this work has been modification of the A* algorithm to enable direction-specific node delays. This has been running stably now for some time. The key issue remains tuning this to give realistic values for each junction scenario.</p>
  <p>The new model for applying turn costs at junctions takes into account a wide range of factors. Current versions of CycleStreets routing are building these factors into the model, but they are not yet being used in live routing.</p>
  <p>We&#8217;re at the stage now of creating a series of tests to ensure a smooth transition to this new model as we finalise the calibration of the new cost factors.</p>
  <p>We are grateful for funding which has enabled us to undertake the research and development in this area.</p>


guid: https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/?p=3211
url: https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/2017/06/11/bikedata-beta/
title: Bikedata beta – data for cycle campaigners in one place
published: 2017-06-11 22:58:59
fetched: 2019-10-15 02:30:17.746427
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:03.347252
updated_at: 2019-10-15 02:30:17.860539
summary:
  We&#8217;ve been working on a new website, Bikedata (working title), providing cycle campaigners around the UK with a &#8216;one-stop shop&#8217; for data that helps them in their work. Today we announce the open beta of the site &#8211; ready for you to try out, but we know there are bugs. Collision data Helping campaigners campaign [&#8230;]

content:
  <p>We&#8217;ve been working on a new website, <a href="http://bikedata.cyclestreets.net/">Bikedata</a> (working title), providing cycle campaigners around the UK with a &#8216;one-stop shop&#8217; for data that helps them in their work.</p>
  <p>Today we announce the open <strong>beta</strong> of the site &#8211; ready for you to try out, but we know there are bugs.</p>
  <p><a href="http://bikedata.cyclestreets.net/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="alignnone wp-image-3215 size-full" src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/bikedata-e1497220560634.png" alt="" width="600" height="453" /></a><br />
  <em>Collision data</em></p>
  <h3>Helping campaigners campaign</h3>
  <p>Getting more people cycling means improving the infrastructure on our streets so that everyone, whatever ability or level of confidence, is able to cycle easily and safely.</p>
  <p>To achieve this, <a href="https://www.cyclescape.org/groups">cycling campaign groups around the country</a> work daily to make the case for cycling. They look at traffic consultations, propose changes to the highway, scrutinise planning applications, and work with local people and their local council to achieve these improvements.</p>
  <p>Getting changes on the ground involves both a solid factual case for improvements as well as making an emotional case. For instance, reducing speed limits to tame traffic relies on having good access to collision data to demonstrate that there is a problem.</p>
  <p>Thanks to our <a href="https://www.outlandish.com/projects/outlandish-fellowship-2016/">Outlandish Fellowship</a> and some kind follow-on funding, we&#8217;ve been working on Bikedata, which is now ready as a beta site. (Beta means there are some problems we know about still but it&#8217;s good enough to start making public.)</p>
  <p><a href="http://bikedata.cyclestreets.net/trafficcounts/#14/51.5173/-0.0976/mapnik" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="alignnone wp-image-3218 size-full" src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/trafficcounts-e1497221474893.png" alt="" width="600" height="326" /></a><br />
  <em>Traffic counts</em></p>
  <h3>Data to make campaigning easier</h3>
  <p>The site gives you direct access to UK data for:</p>
  <ul>
  <li>Collisions</li>
  <li>Planning applications</li>
  <li>Traffic counts</li>
  <li>Cycle theft</li>
  <li>Trip length (from CycleStreets journey planner)</li>
  <li>Problems reported by cyclists</li>
  <li>Photos (72,000+ images) for campaigning</li>
  <li>Cycleability ratings of every street and path</li>
  <li>Campaign groups around the UK</li>
  </ul>
  <p><a href="http://bikedata.cyclestreets.net/cycleability/#17/51.51076/-0.10414/mapnik"><br />
  </a><a href="http://bikedata.cyclestreets.net/cycleability/#17/51.51076/-0.10414/mapnik" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="alignnone wp-image-3217 size-full" src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/cycleability.png" alt="" width="601" height="483" srcset="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/cycleability.png 601w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/cycleability-150x121.png 150w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/cycleability-300x241.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 601px) 100vw, 601px" /><br />
  </a><em>Cycleability ratings</em></p>
  <p>In most cases, you can use filtering controls to show what you want to find. For instance, you can filter collision data to showing serious/fatal collisions at junctions. Or, perhaps you&#8217;d like to see all the reported places where cycle parking is needed:</p>
  <p><a href="http://bikedata.cyclestreets.net/photomap/#11/51.5043/-0.0851/mapnik"><br />
  </a><a href="http://bikedata.cyclestreets.net/photomap/#11/51.5043/-0.0851/mapnik" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="alignnone wp-image-3216 size-full" src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/cycleparking.png" alt="" width="663" height="402" srcset="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/cycleparking.png 663w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/cycleparking-150x91.png 150w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/cycleparking-300x182.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 663px) 100vw, 663px" /></a><br />
  <em>Cycle parking problem locations &#8211; filtering in action</em></p>
  <p>You can enable multiple layers at once. Our aim with this in the future will be to enable various correlations, e.g. showing how high pollution and traffic levels in an area might result in low levels of cycling.</p>
  <p>You can also (again in most but not all cases), draw over an area to filter for that. Some layers also have an export facility enabled, so that you can easily obtain a spreadsheet of the same data as the map is showing.</p>
  <p><a href="http://bikedata.cyclestreets.net/collisions/#15/51.5089/-0.1143/mapnik"><br />
  </a><a href="http://bikedata.cyclestreets.net/collisions/#15/51.5089/-0.1143/mapnik" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="alignnone wp-image-3220 size-full" src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/areadrawing.png" alt="" width="632" height="506" srcset="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/areadrawing.png 632w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/areadrawing-150x120.png 150w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/areadrawing-300x240.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 632px) 100vw, 632px" /></a><br />
  <em>Area drawing, to obtain an area for export</em></p>
  <p>What layers do we want to add next?</p>
  <ul>
  <li>Pollution</li>
  <li>Taxi data (Cambridge only at this stage)</li>
  <li>Census trip data</li>
  <li>School travel data</li>
  <li>&#8230; and more!</li>
  </ul>
  <h3>Next steps</h3>
  <p>We&#8217;re on the lookout for funding to enable us to develop this further. We&#8217;ve achieved everything you see with under £7k of funding, so think how much further the site could go.</p>
  <p>Things we want to do include:</p>
  <ul>
  <li>Change the UI so that it automatically &#8216;tells a story&#8217;</li>
  <li>Add more data layers, e.g. pollution and accessibility analysis</li>
  <li>Add charts to show change over time, &#8216;telling a story&#8217;</li>
  <li>Add heat map views of several layers</li>
  <li>Enable comparisons between Local Authority areas</li>
  <li>Add a proper design and interface &#8211; the current UI is essentially a prototype</li>
  <li>Enable more filtering controls</li>
  <li>Ensuring all data is up-to-date, e.g. collision data needs an update</li>
  <li>Add permalink URLs to enable all views to be persistent; currently this is only partially working</li>
  <li>Fix oodles of bugs and inconsistencies</li>
  </ul>
  <p>If you&#8217;d be interested in supporting any of the above developments, please do <a href="/contacts/">get in touch</a>.</p>
  <p>Also, code contributions are very welcome &#8211; the <a href="https://github.com/cyclestreets/bikedata">code is open source and on Github</a>, and should be very easy to start working on, so let us know if you need advice, or just submit pull requests!</p>
  <p><a href="http://bikedata.cyclestreets.net/collisions,cycleability/#18/51.53063/-0.12198/mapnik"><br />
  </a><a href="http://bikedata.cyclestreets.net/collisions,cycleability/#18/51.53063/-0.12198/mapnik" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="alignnone wp-image-3221 size-full" src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/hostile.png" alt="" width="531" height="389" srcset="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/hostile.png 531w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/hostile-150x110.png 150w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/hostile-300x220.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 531px) 100vw, 531px" /></a><br />
  <em>Lots of collisions, and the cycleability of the road is marked as low: 40%</em></p>
  <h3>Thanks</h3>
  <p>Thanks again to <a href="https://www.outlandish.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Outlandish Co-op</a>, without whose funding and support would not have enabled us to get this project off the ground.</p>
  <p><a href="https://www.outlandish.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="alignnone" src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/outlandish-300x88.png" alt="" width="300" height="88" /></a></p>
  <h3>Lastly&#8230;</h3>
  <p>What should we call the site? Let us know your ideas!</p>


guid: https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/?p=3180
url: https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/2016/12/21/propensity-to-cycle-tool/
title: CycleStreets.net in the Propensity to Cycle Tool
published: 2016-12-21 19:47:20
fetched: 2019-09-05 02:30:16.827237
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:03.349731
updated_at: 2019-09-05 02:30:16.963878
summary:
  A guest post from Robin Lovelace: After 2 years in the making, the paper describing the Propensity to Cycle Tool (PCT), and the thinking behind it, has finally been published (Lovelace et al. 2016). The PCT is an online tool for helping to decide where to prioritise cycling policies such as new cycle paths. The [&#8230;]

content:
  <p><em>A guest post from Robin Lovelace:</em></p>
  <p>After 2 years in the making, the <a href="https://www.jtlu.org/index.php/jtlu/article/view/862/824">paper</a> describing the Propensity to Cycle Tool (PCT), and the thinking behind it, has finally been published (Lovelace et al. 2016). The PCT is an online tool for helping to decide where to prioritise cycling policies such as new cycle paths.</p>
  <p>The PCT would not have been possible without CycleStreets.net, so as well as describing the PCT and its use of their routing services, this article serves as a big Thank You from PCT to CycleStreets.net.</p>
  <h3 id="what-is-the-propensity-to-cycle-tool">What is the Propensity to Cycle Tool?</h3>
  <p><a href="http://pct.bike/"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3196" src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/pct-logo.png" alt="" width="400" height="105" srcset="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/pct-logo.png 400w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/pct-logo-150x39.png 150w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/pct-logo-300x79.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px" /></a></p>
  <p>For those new to the PCT, it’s an online tool for helping to decide where to prioritise cycling policies such as new cycle paths. It lives at <a href="http://www.pct.bike">www.pct.bike</a> &#8211; check it out!</p>
  <p>The context of its development is explained in the accompanying video on that page. This article reports how the tool itself works and how it uses data from CycleStreets.net.</p>
  <p>The PCT is best understood by using it to explore current cycling levels, at regional, area, desire line, route and route network levels. We will take a look at how the PCT works at each of these levels, after a brief look at the scenario results at the regional level (the senarios are described in more detail in the <a href="https://www.jtlu.org/index.php/jtlu/article/view/862/824">paper</a>).</p>
  <p>Under the 2011 Census scenario, the PCT represents levels of cycling to work based on the Census. This is a reasonable proxy for levels of utility cycling overall. We used origin-destination (OD) data from the Census as the basis of the PCT as this is best publicly available dataset on English travel patterns. The input data is described in the <a href="https://www.jtlu.org/index.php/jtlu/article/view/862">paper</a> and can be freely downloaded from the official <a href="http://wicid.ukdataservice.ac.uk/">UK Data Service</a> website.</p>
  <h3 id="the-regional-picture-and-scenarios">The regional picture and scenarios</h3>
  <p>The first thing the user sees on the front page is a map of England, broken into 44 regions:</p>
  <p><a href="http://www.pct.bike/"><img class="alignnone" src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/regions1.png" width="617" height="482" /></a></p>
  <p>We used deliberately large regions because successful cycling plans should be strategic and joined up, covering both large areas and large spans of time. This discourages the stop-start investment plans that have typified funding for active travel.</p>
  <p>By hovering over different regions, the user can see what the current level of cycling to work is. We can discover that West Yorkshire has a low current level of cycling to work, 1.3% in the 2011 census, and that Cambridgeshire has a relatively high (but low by Dutch standards) level of cycling of 9.7%.</p>
  <p>An exciting feature of the PCT is its ability to allow the user to imagine ‘cycling futures’. This can be seen on the front page map by clicking on the different scenarios (set to Census 2011 by default). We can see, for example, that under the Government Target to double cycling levels by 2025, West Yorkshire’s level would rise to 3.3% (more than a doubling) whereas Cambridgeshire would see cycling levels grow to 13.7% (a larger rise in absolute terms):</p>
  <p><img title="plot of chunk unnamed-chunk-2" src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/regions2.png" alt="plot of chunk unnamed-chunk-2" width="50%" /><img title="plot of chunk unnamed-chunk-2" src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/regions3.png" alt="plot of chunk unnamed-chunk-2" width="50%" /></p>
  <p>Under the Go Dutch scenarios, these regions would see 23.1 and 13.5% of people cycling to work, respectively. This represents a huge leveling-out of cycling levels across the country, but still highlights the fact that some regions have higher cycling potentials than others, due to average trip distances and levels of hilliness.</p>
  <h3 id="cycling-levels-at-the-area-level">Cycling levels at the area level</h3>
  <p>To launch the PCT for a region, click on it. Try clicking on West Yorkshire. You should be presented with the following image, which shows the area-based level of cycling to work from the 2011 Census. (When using the PCT, it is worth remembering that the visualisations work for every scenario.)</p>
  <p><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/west-yorkshire-front.png" alt="" /></p>
  <p>This shows that West Yorkshire has very low levels of cycling to work, hovering around 1% to 2% in most places. This suggests strongly that the region has low levels of utility cycling overall (despite the successes of the region’s sport cyclists). There is a cluster of zones with a higher level of cycling to the north of Leeds city centre (around Headingly) but even there the percentage of people cycling as their main mode of travel to work does not exceed 5%.</p>
  <h3 id="cycling-potential-at-the-desire-line-level">Cycling potential at the desire line level</h3>
  <p>This is all useful information, especially when we look at how the cycling potential could shift in the future. However, it provides little information about where current and future cyclists actually go. This is where the desire line level can be useful. This can be selected by clicking on the Straight Lines option from the Cycling Flows dropdown menu. The results (zoomed in for Leeds) are shown in the figures below (see Figure 3 in the paper).</p>
  <p><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/od-data-leeds.png" alt="" /></p>
  <p><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/leeds-desire-godutch.png" alt="" /></p>
  <p>What the above figures show is that as the level of cycling increases in a city, the spatial distribution of cycling can be expected to change. Under current conditions (be they related to socio-demographics or infrastructure or other factors), cycling in Leeds is dominated by the travel corridor to the north of the city centre. Yet there are clearly many short trips taking place from the south into the centre, as illustrated by the high cycling potential south of the city under the Go Dutch scenario.</p>
  <h3 id="allocating-cycling-potential-to-the-route-network">Allocating cycling potential to the route network</h3>
  <p>This is where CycleStreets.net comes into play.</p>
  <p>We know how many people go from A to B by cycling from Census data. But we have very little idea of how they are likely to travel. This is where the routing algorithm of CycleStreets.net comes in handy. We used the <a href="https://www.cyclestreets.net/api/apply/">CycleStreets cycle routing API</a> to estimate the ‘fastest’ route for all short (well, up to 20 km in Euclidean distance) desire lines in England.</p>
  <p>Not only does CycleStreets.net allow us to find all the fastest routes, a good indication of where new infrastructure should be built as people (especially women and elderly) have a strong preference for cycling along the most direct routes.</p>
  <p>The results of all this routing work is illustrated in the future below, which shows the fastest and quietest routes associated with the top cycled routes in Leeds.</p>
  <p><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/od-data-fast-quiet.png" alt="" /></p>
  <p>Interestingly, the big fat line up to the north-west is Otley Road, well-known to have very high level of cycling. This also shows up in Strava data as having high current levels of cycling:</p>
  <p><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/pct-vs-strava-for-leeds.png" alt="" /></p>
  <p>This is not formal validation but it is a good sign that the PCT and other data sources line-up for the current level of cycling. The big question is whether the PCT’s estimates of cycling levels under various cycling futures, including Go Dutch.</p>
  <p>Here is not the place to answer such a question. Only the passage of time, and commitment from people (perhaps informed by models such as the PCT) to sustainable travel will help answer that one.</p>
  <p>There is much more to say about the use of CycleStreets.net in the PCT but it gets rather technical very quickly.<br />
  Suffice to say at this stage that it involved writing lots of code in R, a language for statistical programming, and that this has now resulted in the publication of <strong>stplanr</strong>, <a href="https://github.com/ropensci/stplanr">an R package for sustainable transport</a>.</p>
  <p>(For more on how to <a href="https://cran.r-project.org/">install R</a> and (for bells and whistles) RStudio, which this blog post was written in, please see the relevant sections of the book <a href="https://csgillespie.github.io/efficientR/set-up.html#installing-r">Efficent R Programming</a> (Gillespie and Lovelace, 2016).)</p>
  <p>With R installed, <strong>stplanr</strong> can be installed with:</p>
  <figure class="highlight">
  <pre><code class="language-r" data-lang="r"><span class="n">install.packages</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"stplanr"</span><span class="p">)</span></code></pre>
  </figure>
  <p>With this package installed, you can start using the CycleStreets.net routing algorithm with the following function:</p>
  <figure class="highlight">
  <pre><code class="language-r" data-lang="r"><span class="n">library</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">stplanr</span><span class="p">)</span>
  <span class="n">route</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">route_cyclestreet</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">from</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s2">"Leeds"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">to</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s2">"Cambridge"</span><span class="p">)</span></code></pre>
  </figure>
  <p>which results in spatial data, which can be visualised as follows:</p>
  <figure class="highlight">
  <pre><code class="language-r" data-lang="r"><span class="n">library</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">leaflet</span><span class="p">)</span>
  <span class="n">leaflet</span><span class="p">()</span> <span class="o">%&gt;%</span> <span class="n">addTiles</span><span class="p">()</span> <span class="o">%&gt;%</span> <span class="n">addPolylines</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">data</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">route</span><span class="p">)</span></code></pre>
  </figure>
  <p><a href="http://robinlovelace.net/leeds-cam-map.html"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3184" src="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/leedstocambridge.png" alt="" width="249" height="181" srcset="https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/leedstocambridge.png 249w, https://www.cyclestreets.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/leedstocambridge-150x109.png 150w" sizes="(max-width: 249px) 100vw, 249px" /></a></p>
  <p>There is much more I could say about the technical side of things but at the request of the editors I will leave it there for now. For more info please see the <a href="https://github.com/ropensci/stplanr/blob/master/vignettes/stplanr-paper.Rmd"><strong>stplanr</strong> vignette</a>.</p>
  <p>I plan to follow this overview article up with a more technical blog post in the New Year. Watch this space!</p>
  <h3 id="reference">Reference</h3>
  <p>Lovelace, R., Goodman, A., Aldred, R., Berkoff, N., Abbas, A., &amp; Woodcock, J. (2016). The Propensity to Cycle Tool: An open source online system for sustainable transport planning. Journal Of Transport And Land Use, 0. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5198/jtlu.2016.862">doi:10.5198/jtlu.2016.862</a></p>


guid: http://blog.gegg.us/?p=2431
url: http://blog.gegg.us/2019/01/announcing-open-camping-map/
title: Announcing Open Camping Map
published: 2019-01-29 19:29:20
fetched: 2019-10-26 10:30:18.478235
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:03.815808
updated_at: 2019-10-26 10:30:18.538356
summary:
  When I started mapping the then newly established backcountry campsites in the Black Forest back in 2017, I discovered, that the current mapping quality of campgrounds in Openstreetmap is actually quite poor. Unfortunately this situation did not improve that much since then. Being active in OSM for more than 10 years now, I also know...<br/> <p> <a rel="bookmark" class="read-more btn btn-primary" href="http://blog.gegg.us/2019/01/announcing-open-camping-map/">Read More <span class="screen-reader-text">on Announcing Open Camping Map </span>&#187;</a></p>

content:
  <p>When I started mapping the then <a href="https://www.naturparkschwarzwald.de/aktiv_unterwegs/trekking/uebersicht_der_plaetze/">newly established backcountry campsites</a> in the Black Forest back in 2017, I discovered, that the current mapping quality of campgrounds in Openstreetmap is actually quite poor. Unfortunately this situation did not improve that much since then.</p>
  <p>Being active in OSM for more than 10 years now, I also know that improvements will only happen, when there is an appropriate special interest map which will help motivate people to improve tagging.</p>
  <p>So here comes <a href="https://camping.openstreetmap.de/">Open Camping Map</a>!<br />
  <img src="http://blog.gegg.us/wp-content/uploads/blog.gegg.us/csmap.png" alt="" width="849" height="555" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-2432" srcset="http://blog.gegg.us/wp-content/uploads/blog.gegg.us/csmap.png 849w, http://blog.gegg.us/wp-content/uploads/blog.gegg.us/csmap-300x196.png 300w, http://blog.gegg.us/wp-content/uploads/blog.gegg.us/csmap-768x502.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 849px) 100vw, 849px" /></p>
  <p>It is provided in the hope, that it will help getting mappers to improve the tagging. There is a bugs section and an edit button besides the actual info about a particular site. The Map will likely be of interest also to camping enthusiasts just looking for a site in a particular area.</p>
  <p>Some statistics about the current (bad) state of campsites in Openstreetmap. There are about 120000 camping and caravan sites in our database. About 35000 of them do not even have a name tag. Another 39000 of them do only have a name tag and nothing else. Thus about half of the campsite data in Openstreetmap is of no further value than drawing a (sometimes named) tent on a rendered map.</p>
  <p>Wouldn&#8217;t it be nice to use Openstreetmap to locate a suitable campsite for your next bicycle or hiking trip or just for your ordinary summer camping holiday?</p>
  <p>I do think so, thus lets start and improve the map.</p>
  <p>This task is even suitable for armchair mappers as most of the campsites do have a website nowadays. Probably I should also think about adding this to <a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/StreetComplete">StreetComplete</a> or MapRoulette challenge.</p>
  <p>Finally here are some issues I came about while coding this map:</p>
  <ul>
  <li>Duplicating campsites as node and way ist not a good idea. Please map the area only.</li>
  <li>Please add at least some contact data to make the data useful for potential customers of a site.</li>
  <li>caravan only pitches inside a campsite should not to be tagged as caravan_site.<code>camp_site=camp_pitch</code> would be a better option.</li>
  <li>I invented a tag called <code>permanent_camping=yes,no,only</code> as it is common on many sites in Germany, that people rent a pitch on a seasonal basis and do not move their caravan for years. There are even sites where this is the only option.</li>
  </ul>
  <p>So where will I go from here. I intend to make the map multilingual and probably add more improvement on the next <a href="https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Hackathon">Karlsruhe Hack Weekend</a>. I will be happy about further suggestions for improvements or (even better) patches.</p>
  <p>The backend is based on <a href="https://postgis.net/">PostGIS</a> and <a href="https://imposm.org/">Imposm</a> and the associated configuration is also available at <a href="https://github.com/giggls/osmpoidb">GitHub</a>. It is likely suitable for other POI maps. Thus feel free to contact me if you like to build one! The most easy frontend for such a map will likely be <a href="https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/">uMap</a>.</p>
  <p><strong>Happy campsite mapping!</strong></p>


guid: http://blog.gegg.us/?p=2355
url: http://blog.gegg.us/2018/09/some-thoughts-about-localization-of-openstreetmap-based-maps/
title: Some thoughts about localization of Openstreetmap based maps
published: 2018-09-07 09:29:00
fetched: 2019-10-26 10:30:18.478235
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:03.818743
updated_at: 2019-10-26 10:30:18.540793
summary:
  Following this tweet about a request of localized maps on osm.org I would like to share some thoughts on this topic. OpenStreetMap is very useful in general, but, for me, is almost unusable in countries with non-Latin alphabets. The best option I&#39;ve seen so far is this German-named map https://t.co/a6mQGWfY1P. It solves 95% of the...<br/> <p> <a rel="bookmark" class="read-more btn btn-primary" href="http://blog.gegg.us/2018/09/some-thoughts-about-localization-of-openstreetmap-based-maps/">Read More <span class="screen-reader-text">on Some thoughts about localization of Openstreetmap based maps </span>&#187;</a></p>

content:
  <p>Following this tweet about a request of localized maps on osm.org I would like to share some thoughts on this topic.</p>
  <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="474">
  <p lang="en" dir="ltr">OpenStreetMap is very useful in general, but, for me, is almost unusable in countries with non-Latin alphabets. The best option I&#39;ve seen so far is this German-named map <a href="https://t.co/a6mQGWfY1P">https://t.co/a6mQGWfY1P</a>. It solves 95% of the problem, but does anyone know an English-named equivalent?</p>
  <p>&mdash; Laurence Tratt (@laurencetratt) <a href="https://twitter.com/laurencetratt/status/1035438550395838465?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 31, 2018</a></p></blockquote>
  <p><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
  <p>My first versions of the localization code used in German style dates back to 2012. Back then I had the exact same problem as Laurence using OSM based maps in regions of the world where Latin script is not the norm and thus I started developing the localization code for German style.</p>
  <p>Fortunately I was able to improve this code in December 2015 as part of a research project during my day job.</p>
  <p>I also gave some talks about it in 2016 at FOSSGIS and FOSS4G conferences.<br />
  Recordings and slides of these talks are available at the <a href="https://github.com/giggls/mapnik-german-l10n/wiki">l10n wiki</a>.</p>
  <p>Map localization seems to be mostly unprecedented in traditional GIS applications as before Openstreetmap there was no such thing as a global dataset of geographical data.</p>
  <p>Contrary to my initial thought doing localization &#8220;good enough&#8221; is not an easy task and I learned a lot of stuff about writing systems that in fact I not even wanted to know.</p>
  <p>What I intend to share here is basically the dos and don&#8217;ts of map localization.</p>
  <p>Currently my code is implemented mostly as PostgreSQL shared procedures, which was a good idea back in 2012 when rendering almost always involved PostgreSQL/PostGIS at some stage anyway. This will likely change in a vector tile only tool chain used in future. To take this into account in the meantime I also have <a href="https://github.com/giggls/osml10n">a proof of concept implementation</a> written in python.</p>
  <p><strong>So what is the current state of affairs?</strong></p>
  <p>Basically there are two functions which will output either a localized <strong>street name</strong> or <strong>place name</strong> using an associative array of tags and a geometry object as input. In the output <strong>street names</strong> are separated by &#8220;-&#8221; while <strong>place names</strong> are usually two-line strings. Additionally <strong>street names</strong> are abbreviated whenever possible (if I know how to do this in a particular language). Feel free to send patches if you language does not contain abbreviations yet!</p>
  <p>Initialy I used to put the localized name in parenthesis, but this is not a very good idea for various reasons. First of all which one would be the correct name to put in parenthesis? And even more important, what would one do in the case of scripts like arabic or hebrew? So I finaly got rid of the parenthesis altogether.</p>
  <p><strong>What else does the code in which way and whats the rationale behind it?</strong></p>
  <p>There are various regions of the world with more than one official language. In those regions the generic name tag will usually contain both names which will just make sense if only this tag is rendered like osm carto does.</p>
  <p>So what to do in those cases?</p>
  <p>Well if the desired target language name is part of the generic name tag just use this one and avoid duplicates at any cost! As an example lets take Bolzano/Bozen in the autonomous province South Tyrol. Official languages there are Italian and German thus the generic name tag will be &#8220;Bolzano &#8211; Bozen&#8221;. Doing some search magic in various name tags we will end up using &#8220;Bolzano\nBozen&#8221; in German localization and using &#8220;Bolzano &#8211; Bozen&#8221; unaltered in English localization because there is no name:en tag.</p>
  <p>But what to do if name contains non latin scripts?</p>
  <p>The main rationale behind my whole code is that the mapper is always right and that automatic transcription should be only used as a last resort.</p>
  <p>This said please do not tag transcriptions as localized names in any case because they will be redundant at best and plain wrong at worst. This is a job that computers should be able to do better. Also <strong>do never map automated transcriptions</strong>.</p>
  <p>Transcriptions might be mapped in cases when they are printed on an official place-name sign. Please use the appropriate tag like <strong>name:jp_rm</strong> or <strong>name:ko-Latn</strong> in this case and not something like <strong>name:en</strong> or <strong>name:de</strong>.</p>
  <p><img src="http://blog.gegg.us/wp-content/uploads/blog.gegg.us/thannon_yaoverat.png" alt="" width="467" height="312" size-full wp-image-2369" srcset="http://blog.gegg.us/wp-content/uploads/blog.gegg.us/thannon_yaoverat.png 467w, http://blog.gegg.us/wp-content/uploads/blog.gegg.us/thannon_yaoverat-300x200.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 467px) 100vw, 467px" /><br />
  (Image ©Heinrich Damm Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 3.0)</p>
  <p>Correct tagging (IMO) should be:<br />
  <strong>name</strong>=ถนนเยาวราช<br />
  <strong>name:th</strong>=ถนนเยาวราช<br />
  <strong>name:th-Latn</strong>=thanon yaoverat<br />
  <strong>name:en</strong>=CHINA TOWN</p>
  <p>So a few final words to transcription and the code currently in use. Please keep in mind that transcription is always done as a last resort only in case when there are no suitable name-tags on the object.</p>
  <p>Some of the readers may already know the difference between transcription and transliteration. Nevertheless some may not so I will explain it. While transliteration is fully reversible transcription might not always be. So in case of rendered maps transcription is likely what we want to have because we do not care about a reversible algorithm in this case.</p>
  <p>First I started with a rather naive approach. I just used the <strong>Any-Latin</strong> transliteration code from <a href="http://site.icu-project.org/">libicu</a>. Unfortunately this was not a very good idea in a couple of cases thus I went for a little bit more sophisticated approach.</p>
  <p>So here is how the current code performs transcription:</p>
  <ol>
  <li>Call a function to get the country where the object is located at <br /> (This function is actually based on a database table from <a href="https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/">nominatim</a>)</li>
  <li>If the country in question is one with a country specific transcription algorithm go for this one and use libicu otherwise.</li>
  </ol>
  <p>Currently in Japan <a href="http://kakasi.namazu.org/index.html.en">kakasi</a> is used instead of libicu in order to avoid chinese transcriptions and in Thailand some python code is used because libicu uses a rarely used ISO standard transliteration instead of the more common Royal Thai General System of Transcription (RTGS).</p>
  <p>There are still a couple of other issues. The most notable one is likely the fact, that transcription of arabic is far from perfect as vowels are usually not part of names in this case. Furthermore transcription based on pronunciation is difficult as arabic script is used for very different languages.</p>
  <p><strong>So where to go from here?</strong></p>
  <p>Having localized rendering on osm.org for every requested language is unrealistic using the current technology as any additional language will double the effort of map rendering. Although my current code might even produce some strange results when non-latin output languages are selected.</p>
  <p>This said it would be very easy to setup a tile-server with localized rendering in any target language using Latin script. For this purpose you might not even need to use the German Mapnik style as I even maintain <a href="https://github.com/giggls/openstreetmap-carto-de/tree/upstream+l10n">a localized version of vanilla OSM Carto style</a>.</p>
  <p>Actually I have a <a href="https://tile.iosb.fraunhofer.de/#map=6/32.4542/36.8921/3">Tileserver</a> running this code with English localization at my workplace.</p>
  <p>So as for a map with English localization <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.us/">http://www.openstreetmap.us/</a> or<br />
  <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.co.uk">http://www.openstreetmap.co.uk</a> would be the right place to host such a map.</p>
  <p>So why not implementing this on <a href="https://osm.org">osm.org</a>? I suppose that this should be done as part of the transition to vector tiles whenever this will happen. As the back-end technology of the vector-tiles server is not yet known I can not tell how suitable my code would be for this case. Likely it might need to be rewritten in C++ for this purpose. As I already wrote, I have <a href="https://github.com/giggls/osml10n">a proof of concept implementation</a> written in python which can be used to localize osm/pbf files.</p>


guid: http://blog.gegg.us/?p=2210
url: http://blog.gegg.us/2017/11/news-from-german-osm-carto-style/
title: News from German OSM Carto style
published: 2017-11-04 16:24:41
fetched: 2019-10-26 10:30:18.478235
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:03.821106
updated_at: 2019-10-26 10:30:18.543303
summary:
  Back in June 2017 the OpenStreetMap Carto style (which German style is based on) finaly made the change to a hstore based PostgreSQL backend (a key value store, well suited for OSM tags). I have been using hstore in German style for many years now and went even further by eliminating all columns in the...<br/> <p> <a rel="bookmark" class="read-more btn btn-primary" href="http://blog.gegg.us/2017/11/news-from-german-osm-carto-style/">Read More <span class="screen-reader-text">on News from German OSM Carto style </span>&#187;</a></p>

content:
  <p>Back in June 2017 the OpenStreetMap Carto style (which German style is based on) finaly made the change to a <a href="https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/hstore.html">hstore</a> based PostgreSQL backend (a key value store, well suited for OSM tags).</p>
  <p>I have been using hstore in German style for many years now and went even further by eliminating all columns in the database tables which represent an individual key.</p>
  <p><strong>Unfortunately upstream still uses columns for the most common keys used in OSM tagging.</strong></p>
  <p>Especially the decision to keep <code>name</code> in a different column than localized names (<code>name:*</code> tags are kept in hstore) is not well suited for localization, one of the main features of German style.</p>
  <p>For this reason German style still uses a slightly different database schema which can however be made fully compatible to upstream using the database views available in our <a href="https://github.com/giggls/openstreetmap-carto-de">Github repository</a>.</p>
  <p>At <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Karlsruhe_Hack_Weekend_October_2017">Karlsruhe Hack Weekend</a> in October I also updated the l10n code to make it possible to use them with an unaltered upstream database schema as an alternative. See <a href="https://github.com/giggls/mapnik-german-l10n/releases/tag/v2.3.0">l10 repository on Github</a> for details.</p>
  <p>I still recommend using using the German style schema though.</p>
  <p>The <a href="https://github.com/giggls/openstreetmap-carto-de">Github repository</a> does also contain a <strong>l10n only</strong> branch of Openstreetmap Carto which is an exact copy of upstream with the notable exception of localized labels in any desired latin character based language.</p>
  <p>Because of the new <strong>Lua</strong> based transformation functions that upstream uses since Carto 4.x (the hstore based branch) I had to do a database reimport on our German tileserver as well, despite the fact, that I have been using hstore ever since.</p>
  <p><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-2233" src="http://blog.gegg.us/wp-content/uploads/blog.gegg.us/golf.png" alt="" width="729" height="475" />I took the chance to go for <code>--hstore</code> option instead of <code>--hstore-match-only</code> which will allow for rendering of any tag used in osm, as exotic it will be. One example of such a thing is the now active rendering of the <strong>golf</strong> tag taken from french carto style (see screenshot above).</p>
  <p>A few other changes include the adaption of road colors to be more close to the ones used in upstream and a few minor improvements like rendering of the infamous <a href="http://www.stupidedia.org/stupi/D%C3%B6nertier">Dönertier</a> instead of Hamburgers on Döner fast-food restaurants very common in Germany (see screenshot below).<br />
  <img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-2213" src="http://blog.gegg.us/wp-content/uploads/blog.gegg.us/doenertier.gif" alt="" width="729" height="475" /></p>
  <p>I still hope to get one or two people to support maintenance of this fork as keeping it current with upstream will always require a little bit of work! Please contact me if you like to help.</p>
  <p>At the time of writing <a href="http://tile.openstreetmap.de/">http://tile.openstreetmap.de/</a> is in sync to the current version of upstream Carto style which is v4.4.0.</p>


guid: http://blog.gegg.us/?p=1682
url: http://blog.gegg.us/2013/09/a-simple-way-to-localize-latinize-an-openstreetmap-style/
title: A simple way to localize (latinize) an Openstreetmap style
published: 2013-09-12 19:03:38
fetched: 2019-10-26 10:30:18.478235
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:03.823447
updated_at: 2019-10-26 10:30:18.545762
summary:
  Based on a request on the german mailinglist back in july, I thought about how the perfect localization of the german mapnik style would look like and finaly implemented something which comes close. Unfortunately up till now I did not document it. However Reading about a map in manx today, I came to the conclusion,...<br/> <p> <a rel="bookmark" class="read-more btn btn-primary" href="http://blog.gegg.us/2013/09/a-simple-way-to-localize-latinize-an-openstreetmap-style/">Read More <span class="screen-reader-text">on A simple way to localize (latinize) an Openstreetmap style </span>&#187;</a></p>

content:
  <p>Based on a request on the german mailinglist back in july, I thought about how the perfect localization of the german mapnik style would look like and finaly implemented something which comes close. Unfortunately up till now I did not document it.</p>
  <p>However Reading about <a href="http://kaart.im" title="A map in Manx">a map in manx</a> today, I came to the conclusion, that I really need to do this.</p>
  <p>First of all I came up with the following assumptions (valid for all languages using latin script IMO):</p>
  <ul>
  <li>always prefer mapped names over automated transliteration</li>
  <li>prefer <strong>name:&lt;yourlang&gt;</strong> over any other name tags (name:de in my case)</li>
  <li>prefer <strong>int_name</strong> over non-latin script
  <li>prefer <strong>name:en</strong> over non-latin script if <strong>int_name</strong> has not been specified</li>
  <li>transliterate non-latin script as a last resort</li>
  </ul>
  <p>So how has this been implemented?</p>
  <p>I decided to do it inside the SQL-query. This way it is independent of the rendering Software. It will certainly work at least with mapnik, mapserver and geoserver. Even the proprietary ESRI rendering stuff should actually work <img src="http://blog.gegg.us/wp-content/plugins/local-emoji/72x72/1f642.png" alt="🙂" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" /></p>
  <p>Basically any rendering system using a PostgreSQL backend can be easily adapted. Of course your database must provide all the required name columns.</p>
  <p>So how would one enable rendering a latin name insead of just the generic <strong>name</strong> tag?</p>
  <p>Assume your style uses something like this for rendering a street-name:<br />
  <code><br />
  <strong>SELECT</strong> name<br />
  <strong>FROM</strong> planet_osm_line;<br />
  </code></p>
  <p>Now just replace this by the following:<br />
  <code><br />
  <strong>SELECT</strong> get_localized_name(name,"name:de",int_name,"name:en") as name<br />
  <strong>FROM</strong> planet_osm_line;<br />
  </code></p>
  <p>Quite easy isn&#8217;t it?</p>
  <p>Well, here comes the (slightly) more complicated stuff&#8230;</p>
  <p>Of course PostgreSQL does not provide a get_localized_name function out of the box, we have to install it first. So here is how to do this in two steps:</p>
  <p>The get_localized_name function has been implemented in PL/pgSQL and is available at <a href="http://svn.openstreetmap.org/applications/rendering/mapnik-german/views/get_localized_name.sql">http://svn.openstreetmap.org/applications/rendering/mapnik-german/views/get_localized_name.sql</a>.</p>
  <p>So first add this function to your database using the following command:<br />
  <code><strong>psql -f get_localized_name.sql &lt;your_database&gt;</strong></code></p>
  <p>Second add the transliterate function available at <a href="http://svn.openstreetmap.org/applications/rendering/mapnik-german/utf8translit/">http://svn.openstreetmap.org/applications/rendering/mapnik-german/utf8translit/</a>.</p>
  <p>To compile and install it on GNU/Linux (sorry, I don&#8217;t care about Windows) do the following:</p>
  <ul>
  <li>svn co http://svn.openstreetmap.org/applications/rendering/mapnik-german/utf8translit</li>
  <li>Install the Server dev package (On Debian/Ubuntu this would be called postgresql-server-dev-x.y, postgresql-server-dev-9.2 in my case)</li>
  <li>Install the libicu-dev package</li>
  <li>compile and install calling make; make install</li>
  <li>On Debian/Ubuntu you would be better off using dpkg-buildpackage and install the resulting package instead of using the make install procedure.</li>
  </ul>
  <p>Now enable the function from the shared object using the following SQL command (from a postgresql admin account):</p>
  <p><code><strong>CREATE FUNCTION</strong> transliterate(text)<strong>RETURNS</strong> text<br />
  <strong>AS</strong> '$libdir/utf8translit', 'transliterate' <strong>LANGUAGE C STRICT</strong>;</code><br />
  <code><br />
  Here is how to check if this works:<br />
  mydb=>  select transliterate('Москва́');<br />
   transliterate<br />
  ---------------<br />
   Moskvá<br />
  (1 row)<br />
  </code></p>
  <p>Well that&#8217;s it, I hope that this will be useful for some people.</p>
  <p>Unfortunately this stuff has currently (at least) two problems:</p>
  <ul>
  <li>Transliteration of Thai Language uses ISO 11940 instead of the RTGS system</li>
  <li>Transliteration of japanese Kanji characters end up with a chinese transliteration (e.g. dōng jīng instead of Tōkyō for 東京)</li>
  </ul>
  <p>If anybody has some suggestions on how to solve these please post them here!</p>


guid: http://blog.gegg.us/?p=1539
title: Warum die “offenen Geodaten” von Baden-Württemberg eine Mogelpackung sind
published: 2013-01-25 10:51:31
fetched: 2019-10-26 10:30:18.478235
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:03.826307
updated_at: 2019-10-26 10:30:18.548590
url:
  http://blog.gegg.us/2013/01/warum-die-offenen-geodaten-von-baden-wurttemberg-eine-mogelpackung-sind/

summary:
  &#8220;Baden-Württemberg gibt Geodaten frei&#8221;, so titelte beispielsweise Pro-Linux vor zwei Tagen. Schaut man sich das etwas genauer an, dann bleibt von dieser Aussage leider nur wenig übrig 🙁 Gut, die Maps4BW Rasterkarten stehen jetzt unter CC BY 3.0 zur Verfügung (leider derzeit nur in einem proprietären Format von ESRI[1]) und man darf daraus jetzt mit...<br/> <p> <a rel="bookmark" class="read-more btn btn-primary" href="http://blog.gegg.us/2013/01/warum-die-offenen-geodaten-von-baden-wurttemberg-eine-mogelpackung-sind/">Read More <span class="screen-reader-text">on Warum die &#8220;offenen Geodaten&#8221; von Baden-Württemberg eine Mogelpackung sind </span>&#187;</a></p>

content:
  <p>&#8220;Baden-Württemberg gibt Geodaten frei&#8221;, so titelte beispielsweise <a href="http://www.pro-linux.de/news/1/19367/baden-wuerttemberg-gibt-geodaten-frei.html">Pro-Linux</a> vor zwei Tagen. Schaut man sich das etwas genauer an, dann bleibt von dieser Aussage leider nur wenig übrig <img src="http://blog.gegg.us/wp-content/plugins/local-emoji/72x72/1f641.png" alt="🙁" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" /></p>
  <p>Gut, die <a href="http://www.lgl-bw.de/lgl-internet/opencms/de/07_Produkte_und_Dienstleistungen/Galerien/Externe-Links/Maps4BW_ApplStartseite">Maps4BW</a> Rasterkarten stehen jetzt unter CC BY 3.0 zur Verfügung (leider derzeit nur in einem proprietären Format von ESRI[1]) und man darf daraus jetzt mit offizieller Erlaubnis durch abmalen von Rastergrafiken freie Vektordaten in (verglichen mit den Rohdaten) geringerer Qualität für OSM erzeugen!</p>
  <p><strong>Die eigentlichen Geodaten, aus denen diese Rastergrafiken erzeugt worden sind bleiben hingegen proprietär!</strong></p>
  <p>Wörtlich steht folgendes in den Nutzungsbedingungen des WMS:</p>
  <blockquote><p>Maps4BW liegen nicht offene Geobasisdaten zugrunde, deren Nutzung einer gesonderten Vereinbarung bedarf.</p></blockquote>
  <p>Die Rohdaten also, deren Erstellung zu einem Großteil vom Steuerzahler finanziert worden ist, stehen diesem also weiterhin nur unter einer teuren kommerziellen Lizenz zur Verfügung.</p>
  <p>Sorry liebe Leute, aber das ist doch genau das worum es bei Opendata geht: Um die Freigabe von Rohdaten und eben nicht um irgendwelche hübsch aufbereiteten Rasterkarten! Bei Maps4BW handelt es sich zwar um eine recht brauchbare Webkarte, aber  Anwendungen für die man Rohdaten benötigt (z.B. Routing oder Geocoding) kann man damit natürlich nicht machen.</p>
  <p>Es wäre technisch erheblich einfacher gewesen Rohdaten zum download anzubieten statt daraus erzeugte Rasterkarten.</p>
  <p>Es bleibt also festzustellen, dass die Freigabe von Geo-Rohdaten wohl auch unter einer Grün-Roten Regierung weiterhin nicht erwünscht ist.</p>
  <p>Fazit: Opendata geht anders <img src="http://blog.gegg.us/wp-content/plugins/local-emoji/72x72/1f641.png" alt="🙁" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" /></p>
  <p>[1] Der Firma ESRI, ist hier kein Vorwurf zu machen, deren Software kann die Daten problemlos auch in offenen Formaten liefern. Im Gegenteil ESRI verhält sich als Firma sogar ausgesprochen Opendata freundlich.</p>


guid: http://blog.gegg.us/?p=1385
url: http://blog.gegg.us/2012/07/my-subjective-perception-of-the-impact-of-the-osm-licence-change/
title: My subjective perception of the impact of the OSM licence change
published: 2012-07-25 21:02:31
fetched: 2019-10-26 10:30:18.478235
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:03.828704
updated_at: 2019-10-26 10:30:18.550862
summary:
  As most of my readers will probably know Openstreetmap is in progress to change it&#8217;s licence to a less restrictive one (at least from a data users perspective). Fortunately this will likely remain the only Openstreetmap licence change in my livetime well at least the only invasive one. Today the so called redaction bot finished...<br/> <p> <a rel="bookmark" class="read-more btn btn-primary" href="http://blog.gegg.us/2012/07/my-subjective-perception-of-the-impact-of-the-osm-licence-change/">Read More <span class="screen-reader-text">on My subjective perception of the impact of the OSM licence change </span>&#187;</a></p>

content:
  <p>As most of my readers will probably know Openstreetmap is in progress to change it&#8217;s licence to a less restrictive one (at least from a data users perspective). Fortunately this will likely remain the only Openstreetmap licence change in my livetime well at least the only invasive one.</p>
  <p>Today the so called <strong>redaction bot</strong> finished its work leaving the database in a state where most of the data origins from people which approved the new licence.</p>
  <p>The Place where I live (Karlsruhe/Germany) has been one of the places to be fully mapped at a fairly early state of the project.<br />
  And ss with the rest of Germany most of the stuff originates from crowdsourcing work. </p>
  <p>This turned out to be a huge advantage compared to places like<a href="http://osm.org/go/uN95YrxK--" title="(currently somewhat broken) OSM map of Sydney">Sydney</a>where quite a lot of data has been imported from sources which did partly not agree with the licence change and which looks quite messy now.</p>
  <p>While Karlsruhe also looks quite bad on the<a href="http://tools.geofabrik.de/osmi/?view=redactionbot&#038;lon=8.36797&#038;lat=49.00157&#038;zoom=11&#038;overlays=overview,bot_point_superseded,bot_line_superseded_cp,bot_line_superseded,bot_point_modified,bot_line_modified_cp,bot_line_modified,bot_point_deleted,bot_line_deleted_cp,bot_line_deleted" title="OSM Inpector view Karlsruhe">redaction bot view</a> of OSM Inspector it does not look that bad if you check the details.</p>
  <p>The red stuff mainly originates from one mapper doing quite a lot of public transport stuff, which lost some details now here and there, but most parts of the map are still quite intact.</p>
  <p>But after all this is mostly what I would have expected, so here comes what I did not expect at all:</p>
  <p>Back in 2009 I mapped <a href="http://blog.gegg.us/2009/09/kraichgau-hohenlohe-und-bibertal-radweg/">two long-distance cycle tracks</a> and last sommer we mapped <a href="http://www.christeck.de/wp/2011/08/26/der-stromberg-murrtal-radweg/">another one</a> while I was cycling with Christoph.</p>
  <p>So this evening I decided to repair these relations and based on the fact that every single one of them is roughly 150km long I expected that this would be a lot of work.</p>
  <p>This proved to be completely wrong. I did have to fix next to nothing on any of the three relations. Only one licence change related fix in all of them!</p>
  <p>So instead of fixing bugs caused by OSM licence change I spend my evening writing silly blog postings like this one <img src="http://blog.gegg.us/wp-content/plugins/local-emoji/72x72/1f642.png" alt="🙂" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" /></p>


guid: http://blog.gegg.us/?p=1276
url: http://blog.gegg.us/2012/06/handy-bash-function-for-unix-gis-people/
title: Handy bash function for Unix GIS people :)
published: 2012-06-21 20:50:56
fetched: 2019-10-26 10:30:18.478235
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:03.831380
updated_at: 2019-10-26 10:30:18.553058
summary:
  The usually so called shapefiles are typically not files but a couple of them with different extensions. Thus it is not very convenient to rename them. Fortunately a Unix Shell is a very powerful tool so here comes shpmv which is a simple bash shell function. Just put it in your .bashrc. It works fine...<br/> <p> <a rel="bookmark" class="read-more btn btn-primary" href="http://blog.gegg.us/2012/06/handy-bash-function-for-unix-gis-people/">Read More <span class="screen-reader-text">on Handy bash function for Unix GIS people :) </span>&#187;</a></p>

content:
  <p>The usually so called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapefile" title="Shapefile">shapefiles</a> are typically not files but a couple of them with different extensions. Thus it is not very convenient to rename them.</p>
  <p>Fortunately a Unix Shell is a very powerful tool so here comes <strong>shpmv</strong> which is a simple bash shell function. Just put it in your .bashrc. It works fine regardless if an extension (e.g. .shp) is given or not.</p>
  <pre>
  function shpmv() {
    if [ $# -ne 2 ]; then
      echo "shpmv: rename shapefiles"
      echo "usage: shpmv <src> <tgt>"
      return
    fi
    src="${1%.*}"
    tgt="${2%.*}"
    if ! [ -f $src.shp ]; then
      echo "$src.shp: file not found"   
      return  
    fi
    for f in $src.*; do
      ext="${f##*.}"      
      mv $f $tgt.$ext
    done  
  }
  </pre>


guid: http://blog.gegg.us/?p=1228
url: http://blog.gegg.us/2012/04/uber-die-sinnlosigkeit-von-radwegeoverlays/
title: Über die Sinnlosigkeit von Radwegeoverlays
published: 2012-04-21 18:42:50
fetched: 2019-10-26 10:30:18.478235
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:03.834327
updated_at: 2019-10-26 10:30:18.555872
summary:
  Gerade kam auf Twitterdie Nachricht vom OSM-Ticker, dass das neue Portal Radwanderland.de von Rheinland-Pfalz eine OSM-Karte verwendet. An allen diesen Portalen stört mich eines ganz gewaltig und das muss echt mal gesagt werden, es sind diese sinnfreien und noch dazu oft falschen Overlays auf denen dann routing betrieben wird in einer Weise als ob das...<br/> <p> <a rel="bookmark" class="read-more btn btn-primary" href="http://blog.gegg.us/2012/04/uber-die-sinnlosigkeit-von-radwegeoverlays/">Read More <span class="screen-reader-text">on Über die Sinnlosigkeit von Radwegeoverlays </span>&#187;</a></p>

content:
  <p><a href="http://blog.gegg.us/wp-content/uploads/blog.gegg.us/umweltplakette-fahrrad.png"><img src="http://blog.gegg.us/wp-content/uploads/blog.gegg.us/umweltplakette-fahrrad.png" alt="umweltplakette-fahrrad" width="120" height="120" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1877" /></a><br />
  Gerade kam <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/OSM_Ticker/status/193631009122697216">auf Twitter</a>die Nachricht vom OSM-Ticker, dass das neue Portal <a href="http://www.radwanderland.de/">Radwanderland.de</a> von Rheinland-Pfalz eine OSM-Karte verwendet.</p>
  <p>An allen diesen Portalen stört mich eines ganz gewaltig und das muss echt mal gesagt werden, es sind diese sinnfreien und noch dazu oft falschen Overlays auf denen dann routing betrieben wird in einer Weise als ob das Radfahren auf allen anderen Wegen völlig unmöglich wäre!</p>
  <p>Was man als Radfahrer wirlich bräuchte wäre verkehrsmittelgerechtes automatisches Routing unter Verwendung der Wegeklassen, wie sie bei Openstreetmap bereits zur Verfügung stehen. Das Ganze natürlich manuell korrigierbar und wenn man es perfekt machen möchte unter Berücksichtigung von Höhenmetern. Ich bin mir sicher das Dennis vom <a href="http://project-osrm.org/">OSRM-Projekt</a> hier gegen entsprechende Bezahlung etwas coden könnte.</p>
  <p>Klar, nicht jeder Radler hat das selbe Ziel. Sogar ich selbst fahre bei Ausflugsfahrten andere Wege als ich das normalerweise tue, wenn ich das Fahrrad (wie meistens) dazu verwende um einfach von A nach B zu kommen.</p>
  <p>Trotzdem wage ich nun mal die Prognose, dass ein solcher Overlay für keine Klasse der Radfahrer irgendwie auch nur ansatzweise sinnvoll ist. Dass Sie oft auch noch falsch sind ist dabei noch nicht mal das Schlimmste. Auch wenn die Fehler bisweilen hanebüchen sind.</p>
  <p>Bei diesem neuen Portal musste ich nur ein wenig am Rhein entlang zoomen um <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=49.156526&amp;mlon=8.373208&amp;zoom=16">einen Weg</a> zu finden der direkt durchs Wasser geht (Sorry für den OSM Link, das Portal selbst hat leider keine Permalinkfunktion). Beim Radwegeportal von Baden-Württemberg findet sich natürlich ebenfalls ein solch sinnfreier Overlay und auch hier findet sich ein völlig hanebüchener Fehler direkt vor meiner Haustür <img src="http://blog.gegg.us/wp-content/plugins/local-emoji/72x72/1f642.png" alt="🙂" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" /> <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/23484564">Diese Treppe</a> mit 529 Stufen wird einem allen ernstes als Radweg angeboten. Selbst für Mountainbiker eine Herausforderung, denn es gilt rund 100 Höhenmeter auf relativ kurzer Strecke zu überwinden.</p>
  <p>Ich bin ja echt mal gespannt ob ich es noch erleben darf, dass die Macher solcher Portale und Erbauer von Radwegen endlich damit beginnen diejenigen, die das vermeintliche Zielpublikum darstellen, vorher zu fragen was sie denn gerne hätten.</p>
  <p>Ich als nicht KFZ Besitzer, der täglich mit dem Rad unterwegs ist, wüsste jedenfalls schon sehr genau was für ein Portal ich mir für meine Routenplanung wünschen würde. Leider habe ich nicht genug Freizeit und vor allem know-how über Routing um das mal schnell selbst realisieren zu können.</p>
  <p>Die Openstreetmap Datenbasis wäre jedenfalls dafür geeignet, so viel steht fest.</p>


guid: http://blog.gegg.us/?p=1088
url: http://blog.gegg.us/2012/02/a-mapserver-backend-for-tirex/
title: A Mapserver backend for Tirex
published: 2012-02-03 22:01:43
fetched: 2019-10-26 10:30:18.478235
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:03.836727
updated_at: 2019-10-26 10:30:18.558203
summary:
  When rendering maps people coming from a traditional GIS background tend to use Mapserver rather than Mapnik. I don&#8217;t know the reason for this, but it is probably just because Mapserver is quite mature and has been around for a long time while Mapnik is still relatively new. I also did quite a few things...<br/> <p> <a rel="bookmark" class="read-more btn btn-primary" href="http://blog.gegg.us/2012/02/a-mapserver-backend-for-tirex/">Read More <span class="screen-reader-text">on A Mapserver backend for Tirex </span>&#187;</a></p>

content:
  <p>When rendering maps people coming from a traditional GIS background tend to use <a href="http://mapserver.org/">Mapserver</a> rather than <a href="http://mapnik.org/">Mapnik</a>. I don&#8217;t know the reason for this, but it is probably just because Mapserver is quite mature and has been around for a long time while Mapnik is still relatively new.</p>
  <p>I also did quite a few things using Mapserver in the past but mostly in the WMS and raster data area.</p>
  <p>One thing Mapserver can do is rendering based on data values rather than just by predefined rules, which could be quite useful for river widths and the like. This was not possible in Mapnik at least not in Mapnik versions &lt; 2.0.</p>
  <p>Mapserver is scriptable in a couple of languages (not just Python) and this is why it has been relatively easy coding a new backend for <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tirex">Tirex</a> although Perl is not quite my favourite scripting language. Of course this new backend is heavily based on the existing WMS backend.</p>
  <p><img title="La Gomera" src="http://blog.gegg.us/wp-content/uploads/blog.gegg.us/lagomera.png" alt="" width="497" height="366" /></p>
  <p>So why did I do this? Well, last week I just stumbled upon the <a href="http://geo.dianacht.de/topo/">nice Topomap</a> project which Max Berger is doing and unfortunately he map is limited to a very small area.</p>
  <p>Hopefully I will be able to provide a map of this style for a couple of other areas real soon now. I&#8217;m especially interested in islands with good hiking options, the so called <em>Wanderinseln</em> in German.</p>
  <p>I just commited the changes to the Openstreetmap SVN-repository in the hope that it might be useful for others as well.</p>
  <p>BTW, Max is using <a href="http://tilecache.org/">TileCache</a> which I could probably use as well. Probably someone can enlighten me about the pros and cons of Tirex vs. TileCache.</p>


guid: http://blog.gegg.us/?p=975
url: http://blog.gegg.us/2011/07/rendering-von-waldflachen-2-0/
title: Rendering von Waldflächen 2.0
updated: 2011-07-04 09:27:40
fetched: 2019-06-09 18:12:03.757708
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:03.839819
updated_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:03.839819
summary:
  Vor ziemlich genau 3 Jahren habe ich in Osmarender die Regeln eingebaut verschiedene Typen von Wald (Mischwald, Laubwald, Nadelwald) auf der Karte verschieden darzustellen. Seitdem ist viel passiert im Openstreetmap Umfeld. Inzwischen hat sich Mapnik als Standardrenderer etabliert und der Tod von Osmarender ist eigentlich nur noch eine Frage der Zeit. Das Teil ist ja...<br/> <p> <a rel="bookmark" class="read-more btn btn-primary" href="http://blog.gegg.us/2011/07/rendering-von-waldflachen-2-0/">Read More <span class="screen-reader-text">on Rendering von Waldflächen 2.0 </span>&#187;</a></p>

content:
  <p>Vor ziemlich genau 3 Jahren habe ich in <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/DE:Osmarender">Osmarender</a> die Regeln eingebaut verschiedene Typen von Wald (Mischwald, Laubwald, Nadelwald) auf der Karte verschieden darzustellen.</p>
  <p><img src="http://a.tah.openstreetmap.org/Tiles/tile/16/34315/22499.png" alt="Waldtyp in Osmarender" /></p>
  <p>Seitdem ist viel passiert im Openstreetmap Umfeld. Inzwischen hat sich Mapnik als Standardrenderer etabliert und der Tod von Osmarender ist eigentlich nur noch eine Frage der Zeit. Das Teil ist ja ohnehin was den CO2 Footprint betrifft kaum vertretbar.</p>
  <p>Seit einiger Zeit gibt es auch einen Mapnik basierten<br />
  <a href="http://blog.gegg.us/?p=982">deutschen Kartenstil</a>. Man ahnt es, meine erste Änderung an diesem Stil betrifft nun wieder die Waldtypen.</p>
  <p>Schon vor drei Jahren gab es auf der Osmarender Mailingliste eine Diskussion um die richtigen Waldsymbole.</p>
  <p><img src="http://geggus.net/sven/blogbilder/coniferous.png" alt="Nadelwald" /><img src="http://geggus.net/sven/blogbilder/deciduous.png" alt="Laubwald" /></p>
  <p>Angeblich sind die hierzulande gängigen Icons aus Topokarten nämlich nicht international üblich. Deshalb haben wir damals für Osmarender diese Symbole gebastelt die an Apfelbäume und Weihnachtsbäume aus Kinderbüchern erinnern.</p>
  <p>Für den deutschen Kartenstil ist das aber ohnehin nicht relevant und deshalb gibt es dort jetzt ab Zoomlevel 14 die in deutschen Karten üblichen Symbole für <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/DE:Key:wood">Waldtypen</a>.</p>
  <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://blog.gegg.us/wp-content/plugins/osm//css/osm_map.css" /><style type="text/css">#map_1 {clear: both; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin-top:0px; margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px; margin-bottom:0px; left: 0px; border-radius:0px;
  box-shadow: none;}#map_1 img{clear: both; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px; width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; margin-top:0px; margin-right:0px;margin-left:0px; margin-bottom:0px; border-radius:0px;
  box-shadow: none;}</style><div id="map_1" class="OSM_Map" style="width:450px; height:300px; overflow:hidden;padding:0px;border:none;"><script type="text/javascript" src="http://blog.gegg.us/wp-content/plugins/osm/js/OL/2.13.1/OpenLayers.js"></script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://blog.gegg.us/wp-content/plugins/osm/js/osm-plugin-lib.js"></script><script type="text/javascript">/* <![CDATA[ */(function($) { OpenLayers.ImgPath = "http://blog.gegg.us/wp-content/plugins/osm/themes/ol/"; map_1 = new OpenLayers.Map ("map_1", {            controls:[              new OpenLayers.Control.Navigation(),              new OpenLayers.Control.PanZoom(),              new OpenLayers.Control.Attribution()              ],          maxExtent: new OpenLayers.Bounds(-20037508.34,-20037508.34,20037508.34,20037508.34),          maxResolution: 156543.0399,          numZoomLevels: 19,          units: "m",          projection: new OpenLayers.Projection("EPSG:900913"),          displayProjection: new OpenLayers.Projection("EPSG:4326")      } );var lmap = new OpenLayers.Layer.OSM("Mapnik DE","http://tile.openstreetmap.de/tiles/osmde/${z}/${x}/${y}.png",{numZoomLevels: 17, transitionEffect: 'resize', sphericalMercator: true, attribution: "OpenLayers with"});var layerOSM_Attr = new OpenLayers.Layer.Vector("OSM-plugin",{attribution:"<a href=\"http://www.hanblog.net\">OSM plugin</a>"});map_1.addLayers([lmap,layerOSM_Attr]);var lonLat = new OpenLayers.LonLat(8.50007,49.02453).transform(map_1.displayProjection, map_1.projection);map_1.setCenter (lonLat,16);var lonLat = new OpenLayers.LonLat(8.50007,49.02453).transform(map_1.displayProjection, map_1.projection);map_1.setCenter (lonLat,16);})(jQuery)/* ]]&gt; */ </script></div>
  <p>Im Zuge dieser Änderung habe ich auch gleich noch das unterschiedliche Rendering von landuse=forest und natural=wood entsorgt. Insbesondere in Deutschland gibt es ja de fakto keinen Urwald mehr und zudem irritieren die Unterschiede im Rendering mehr als sie nützen.</p>


guid: http://www.christeck.de/wp/?p=11746
url: http://www.christeck.de/wp/2019/04/21/neuburgweier-seltz-mit-dem-rad/
title: Neuburgweier – Seltz mit dem Rad
published: 2019-04-21 20:47:28
fetched: 2019-10-26 20:30:19.539062
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:04.844561
updated_at: 2019-10-26 20:30:19.816915
summary:
  Aufgrund des exzellenten Osterwetters bin ich schon gestern eine Strecke gefahren, die ich lange nicht gefahren bin. So auch heute. In Neuburgweier mit der Fähre übersetzen, mit Rückenwind entspannt gen Seltz, mit der Fähre «Saletio» nach Plittersdorf und mit leichtem Gegenwind zurück nach Neuburgweier. Die Fähre in Neuburgweier hatte wohl Probleme mit den neuen Schlagbäumen. [&#8230;]

content:
  <p><img src="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2019/04/20190421_FaehreNeuburgImRueckwaertsgang-300x191.png" alt="" width="300" height="191" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11747" srcset="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2019/04/20190421_FaehreNeuburgImRueckwaertsgang-300x191.png 300w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2019/04/20190421_FaehreNeuburgImRueckwaertsgang.png 599w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></p>
  <p>Aufgrund des exzellenten Osterwetters bin ich schon gestern eine <a href="http://www.christeck.de/wp/2019/04/20/fruher-sommereinbruch-zu-ostern/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Strecke</a> gefahren, die ich lange nicht gefahren bin. So auch heute. In <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=48.9780&#038;mlon=8.2559#map=11/48.9780/8.2559" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Neuburgweier</a> mit der <a href="https://www.rheinfaehre-leimersheim.de/fahrzeiten/#neuburg" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Fähre</a> übersetzen, mit Rückenwind entspannt gen <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=48.8873&#038;mlon=8.1357#map=11/48.8873/8.1357" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Seltz</a>, mit der Fähre «<a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheinfähre_Plittersdorf–Seltz#Neue_Hochseil-Gierfähre" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Saletio</a>» nach Plittersdorf und mit leichtem Gegenwind zurück nach Neuburgweier.</p>
  <p>Die Fähre in Neuburgweier hatte wohl Probleme mit den neuen Schlagbäumen. Einer der beiden blieb dauerhaft geschlossen, der andere dauerhaft geöffnet. In der Konsequenz mussten die Fahrzeuge die Fähre im Rückwärtsgang verlassen.</p>
  <p>In Lauterbourg wurden in den vergangenen Jahren Industrieflächen erschlossen, weshalb die Streckenführung von vor ein paar Jahren unterbrochen ist. Die Daten in <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=48.9546&#038;mlon=8.1847#map=15/48.9546/8.1847" rel="noopener" target="_blank">OpenStreetMap</a> habe ich ensprechend korrigiert.</p>
  <p>In Elchesheim-Illingen wird derzeit der Rheindamm ertüchtigt, weshalb sich auch hier ein paar <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=48.9406&#038;mlon=8.1989#map=15/48.9406/8.1989" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Streckenanpassungen</a> ergeben, deren Endergebnis allerdings vor Ort noch nicht ganz ersichtlich ist.</p>


guid: http://www.christeck.de/wp/?p=11282
url: http://www.christeck.de/wp/2017/12/26/der-furst-puckler-park-in-bad-muskau/
title: Der Fürst Pückler Park in Bad Muskau
published: 2017-12-26 00:35:27
fetched: 2019-10-26 20:30:19.539062
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:04.849334
updated_at: 2019-10-26 20:30:19.820435
summary:
  Den Fürst-Pückler-Park in Bad Muskau hatte ich 2011 auf einer Radtour von Zittau nach Usedom bereits kennengelernt. Allerdings hatte es seinerzeit für nicht viel mehr als ein Nachmittagsschläfchen auf einer schattigen Parkbank gereicht. Bei trüb-kühlem und windigem Dezemberwetter bietet der Park eine gänzlich andere Atmosphäre. Durch das fehlende Laub sieht man viel mehr von den [&#8230;]

content:
  <p><a href="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2017/12/20171223-Wasserfall-im-Fuerst-Pueckler-Park-Bad-Muskau.jpg"><img src="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2017/12/20171223-Wasserfall-im-Fuerst-Pueckler-Park-Bad-Muskau.jpg" alt="" width="1368" height="912" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-11286" /></a></p>
  <p>Den <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%BCrst-P%C3%BCckler-Park_Bad_Muskau" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Fürst-Pückler-Park</a> in <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Muskau" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Bad Muskau</a> hatte ich 2011 auf einer Radtour <a href="http://www.christeck.de/wp/2011/06/16/wo-gehts-hier-zur-oder-neise-linie-ii/">von Zittau nach Usedom</a> bereits kennengelernt. Allerdings hatte es seinerzeit für nicht viel mehr als ein Nachmittagsschläfchen auf einer schattigen Parkbank gereicht.</p>
  <p>Bei trüb-kühlem und windigem Dezemberwetter bietet der Park eine gänzlich andere Atmosphäre. Durch das fehlende Laub sieht man viel mehr von den Bäumen. Etliche sind am Absterben und der Windbruch leistet seinen Beitrag. Man kann stundenlang dies- und jenseits der Neiße durch die Landschaft laufen und ständig neues entdecken. Im Park ist es dieser Tage, wie auch in Bad Muskau, ziemlich ruhig. Genau das Richtige, um den Trubel der vergangenen Wochen und Monate hinter sich zu lassen.</p>
  <p>Das <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=51.5491&#038;mlon=14.7295#map=15/51.5491/14.7295" rel="noopener" target="_blank">OpenStreetMap-Datenmaterial</a> bedarf nach wie vor der Hege. Zwar sind die Wege grundsätzlich vorhanden, sie sind aber noch recht grob eingezeichnet und getaggt. Auch sonstige Details fehlen noch. Sollte ich wiedermal vorbeikommen sollte ich vielleicht versuchen, mein geschätztes <a href="http://www.christeck.de/wp/2008/11/07/first-mapping-using-osm2go/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">N900 mit Osm2Go</a> nochmal in Betrieb zu nehmen. Um beim Wandern zu mappen waren die beiden ein ziemlich gutes Gespann, für das ich noch keinen äquivalenten Ersatz gefunden habe.</p>


guid: http://www.christeck.de/wp/?p=11278
url: http://www.christeck.de/wp/2017/12/26/der-rhododendronpark-in-kromlau/
title: Der Rhododendronpark in Kromlau
published: 2017-12-25 23:55:28
fetched: 2019-10-26 20:30:19.539062
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:04.852203
updated_at: 2019-10-26 20:30:19.823169
summary:
  In Kromlau liegt der durch Friedrich Hermann Rötschke begründete Rhododendronpark. Im Sommer dürfte der Besuch wohl eher lohnen als jetzt im Winter, wenn die Vegetation ruht. Auch stand das Wasser in den Seen und Tümpeln recht niedrig, weshalb an eine spektakuläre Aufnahme der Rakotzbrücke nicht ansatzweise zu denken war. Dafür hat man dieser Tage bei [&#8230;]

content:
  <p><a href="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2017/12/20171224-Rhododendronpark-Kromlau.jpg"><img src="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2017/12/20171224-Rhododendronpark-Kromlau.jpg" alt="" width="684" height="456" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-11279" /></a></p>
  <p>In <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kromlau" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Kromlau</a> liegt der durch Friedrich Hermann Rötschke begründete <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azaleen-_und_Rhododendronpark_Kromlau" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Rhododendronpark</a>. Im Sommer dürfte der Besuch wohl eher lohnen als jetzt im Winter, wenn die Vegetation ruht. Auch stand das Wasser in den Seen und Tümpeln recht niedrig, weshalb an eine <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Rakotzbr%C3%BCcke.jpg" rel="noopener" target="_blank">spektakuläre Aufnahme</a> der Rakotzbrücke nicht ansatzweise zu denken war.</p>
  <p>Dafür hat man dieser Tage bei Spaziergängen im ausgedehnten Park seine Ruhe, denn es hatten sich, wohl auch ob des trüben und kühlen Wetters, kaum Besucher eingefunden. Zudem wollte das <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=51.5374&#038;mlon=14.6353#map=15/51.5374/14.6353" rel="noopener" target="_blank">OpenStreetMap</a>-Datenmaterial weiter verfeinert werden :) .</p>


guid: http://www.christeck.de/wp/?p=11190
url: http://www.christeck.de/wp/2017/10/31/using-osmand-and-maps-me-for-a-short-vacation/
title: Using OsmAnd and Maps.me for a short vacation
published: 2017-10-30 22:55:03
fetched: 2019-10-26 20:30:19.539062
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:04.855170
updated_at: 2019-10-26 20:30:19.825896
summary:
  For the latest trip I once again used Android apps that make use of Openstreetmap data for offline Navigation. This included three uses: car navigation (routing), hiking support (display a prerecorded track), and finding POIs inside a small town. I used OsmAnd and Maps.me. In short, I prefer the former for hiking and the latter [&#8230;]

content:
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  <p>For the latest trip I once again used Android apps that make use of <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=10/49.8225/5.8488">Openstreetmap</a> data for offline Navigation. This included three uses: car navigation (routing), hiking support (display a prerecorded track), and finding POIs inside a small town. I used <a href="https://f-droid.org/packages/net.osmand.plus/">OsmAnd</a> and <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mapswithme.maps.pro">Maps.me</a>. In short, I prefer the former for hiking and the latter for car navigation. As with any other tool, both have strenghts and weaknesses.</p>
  <p><strong>Maps.me</strong></p>
  <p>Maps.me focusses on ease of use. Compared to OsmAnd, it is much faster calculating routes. It can also display tracks on top of the map, but only in kml format, not the popular gpx format. Like OsmAnd, it provides synthesized speech output for turn instructions. However, those alone are not reliable enough to reach the destination without deviations. A car mount for the handset is mandatory so that the driver can see the route on the display at crossings.</p>
  <p>Unlike OsmAnd, Maps.me stops routing in case the display is switched off. This means the driver cannot switch off the display on highways when the next turn is far ahead. Not to talk about the ability to automatically switch on the display as soon a turn is approaching. That would be great when driving without daylight.</p>
  <p>For car routing, Maps.me remains my favourite, mainly due to its overall ease of use.</p>
  <p><strong>OsmAnd</strong></p>
  <p>OsmAnd feels like a swiss army knife. It can do almost anything one might expect of a mapping application. It features a highly configurable map with several overlays (SRTM contour lines, hillshading, POIs), can import and export tracklogs, supports car, bike, and pedestrian routing and can even warn when violating speed limits. Its routing engine can also cope with stopovers.</p>
  <p>Over the years, it became more and more easy to use, despite its many features. On the other hand, those features require a certain amount of controls, while some features are well hidden in some sub menus (I detected one just a couple of days ago).</p>
  <p>Its routing engine is rather slow and has difficulties coping with long distances. As a former <a href="https://code.google.com/archive/p/monav/">MoNav</a> developer, I really wonder why none of the routing apps seems to be aware its &#8220;realtime&#8221; routing engine, which is available for about 7 years now.</p>
  <p>Due to its stopovers, I&#8217;m still struggling with basic routing like &#8220;Just route me back to my hotel.&#8221;. In the car mount, the display often is flickering a lot, the handset becomes rather hot and the battery tends draining. Where I love it is during hiking trips. Switch off the phone&#8217;s display, put the handset into the pocket and grab it at the next crossing. OsmAnd is still running, did continue to record the tracklog and immediately shows the current location. One can even add waypoints to the current tracklog (though it requires a couple of clicks). I simply love it for that purpose.</p>
  <p>OsmAnd also warns about railroad and pedestrian crossings. The latter ones became rather annoying in case multiple of them follow each other. At leat OsmAnd should not announce the next before the first was passed. The current implementation made me mute the car&#8217;s hifi system completely.</p>
  <p>I got the impression that the POIs in OsmAnd only contain POIs which are present as nodes in the openstreetmap data set. POIs that are mapped as polygons (e.g. shelters while hiking or churches) are not part of the POI set.</p>
  <p><strong>Phantom turn instructions</strong></p>
  <p>Both OsmAnd as well as Maps.me provide phantom turn instructions. I haven&#8217;t figured out yet what is causing those issues, but since both applications suffer from it, it is likely based in the OpenStreetMap data set. Unfortunately, I haven&#8217;t figured out the reason yet.</p>
  <p>What happens is that both apps tend to say something like &#8220;turn left&#8221; or &#8220;turn slightly right&#8221; while driving on a road where no crossing exists at all. I observed this behaviour every now and then, e.g. excessively between <a href="https://openstreetmap.org/?mlat=49.87101&#038;mlon=6.29125">this point</a> and Echternach a couple of days ago. Checking the data didn&#8217;t show any abnormality, except that the street&#8217;s path contains some very short segements every now and then.</p>
  <p><a href="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2017/10/Short-segments-near-Echternach.png"><img src="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2017/10/Short-segments-near-Echternach.png" alt="" width="1000" height="724" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-11213" /></a></p>
  <p>Maps.me also suffers from this issue. Today it two times told me &#8220;turn left&#8221; &#8211; in the middle of a highway bridge (like the <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=49.7334&#038;mlon=6.5028#map=16/49.7334/6.5028">Sauertalbrücke</a>). A driver following such instructions should face the consequences :) . Unlike the aforementioned way, the bridge does not contain short segments, so I have no clue what actually is causing those mysterious turn instructions.</p>


guid: http://www.christeck.de/wp/?p=11083
url: http://www.christeck.de/wp/2017/09/20/the-minoan-path-from-mithi-to-karydi/
title: The minoan path from Mithi to Karydi
published: 2017-09-20 18:50:01
fetched: 2019-10-26 20:30:19.539062
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:04.857992
updated_at: 2019-10-26 20:30:19.828447
summary:
  A couple of years ago a new hiking trail from Mithi to Karidi has been marked. Regardless wether it is true or not that it already has been used by the minoans, it&#8217;s a nice trip anyway. It&#8217;s not an easy walk though. It&#8217;s almost constantly a steep incline to Karydi, and the surface consists [&#8230;]

content:
  <p><a href="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2017/09/20170920_075526-Minoan-Path-Signpost-Mithi.jpg"><img src="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2017/09/20170920_075526-Minoan-Path-Signpost-Mithi.jpg" alt="" width="1202" height="905" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-11090" /></a></p>
  <p>A couple of years ago a new hiking trail from Mithi to Karidi has been marked. Regardless wether it is true or not that it already has been used by the minoans, it&#8217;s a nice trip anyway.</p>
  <p>It&#8217;s not an easy walk though. It&#8217;s almost constantly a steep incline to Karydi, and the surface consists of the typical stones of alpine hiking trails. I strongly recommend hiking boots instead of sneakers. I took the same way back to Mithi which was much easier than the incline. I thus recommend to visit the &#8220;attractions&#8221; (like the bat&#8217;s cave, the viewpoint and the shepard&#8217;s fridge) while returning. </p>
  <p>That was a total of about eight kilometres, four hours (including rests) and one and a half litres of water.</p>
  <p><a href="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2017/10/201709200008-Minoan-Path-Mithi.jpg"><img src="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2017/10/201709200008-Minoan-Path-Mithi.jpg" alt="" width="1368" height="912" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-11084" /></a></p>
  <p>The trail is marked by some wooden signposts and red dots sprayed on rocks. I didn&#8217;t find a free download of a gpx track, so here&#8217;s <a href="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2017/10/MinoanPathNearMithi.gpx.zip">mine</a>, recorded during the decline from Karydi to Mithi. <a href="https://f-droid.org/packages/net.osmand.plus/">OsmAND</a> served me very well BTW.</p>

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guid: http://www.christeck.de/wp/?p=10463
url: http://www.christeck.de/wp/2015/12/30/spontaneous-xmas-vacation-2015/
title: Spontaneous Xmas Vacation 2015
published: 2015-12-30 12:07:30
fetched: 2019-10-26 20:30:19.539062
created_at: 2019-06-09 18:12:04.860838
updated_at: 2019-10-26 20:30:19.831184
summary:
  After intense working days during november, I once again decided to leave germany during the christmas break by visiting Madeira. As last year, I tried to go hiking each day. Again most trips have been inspired by madeira-tipps.de (german language). Thanks a bunch to Oliver. From Achada do Teixeira (1592 m) to Pico Ruivo (1862 [&#8230;]

content:
  <p>After intense working days during november, I <a href="http://www.christeck.de/wp/2015/01/02/spontaneous-xmas-vacation-2014/">once again</a> decided to leave germany during the christmas break by visiting Madeira. As last year, I tried to go hiking each day. Again most trips have been inspired by <a href="http://www.madeira-tipps.de/40,2,0,listenuebersicht,index,0.html">madeira-tipps.de</a> (german language). Thanks a bunch to Oliver.</p>
  <p><strong>From Achada do Teixeira (1592 m) to Pico Ruivo (1862 m)</strong></p>
  <p><a href="http://www.madeira-tipps.de/html/Wandertouren/AchadaDoTeixeiraPicoRuivo,index,0.html" target="_blank">This</a> is a convenient trip from a parking lot over a paved respectively stepped path. Hiking clothing is recommended anyway.<br />
  The path was not that crowded as expected, I guess mainly due to the foggy and cool weather conditions. At the end, near the Pico Ruivo shelter, more people populated the hill, since two other paths joined.</p>
  <p><a href="http://www.christeck.de/wp/2015/12/31/spontaneous-xmas-vacation-2015/samsung-csc-447/" rel="attachment wp-att-10467"><img src="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-20-0040-Achada-do-Teixeira-to-Pico-Ruivo-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-10467" srcset="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-20-0040-Achada-do-Teixeira-to-Pico-Ruivo-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-20-0040-Achada-do-Teixeira-to-Pico-Ruivo-1024x682.jpg 1024w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-20-0040-Achada-do-Teixeira-to-Pico-Ruivo-624x416.jpg 624w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-20-0040-Achada-do-Teixeira-to-Pico-Ruivo.jpg 1368w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a></p>
  <p><strong>From Christo Rei to Fatima chapel (near Rabacal)</strong></p>
  <p>One more <a href="http://www.madeira-tipps.de/html/Wandertouren/ChristoReiFatima,index,0.html" target="_blank">convenient trip</a>, following the Levada do Paul. Most of the time there is direct sunlight, e.g. no trees. One passes, besides other things, a solar power plant and some rock caves. This trip provides some great views over the Atlantic Ocean.</p>
  <p><a href="http://www.christeck.de/wp/2015/12/31/spontaneous-xmas-vacation-2015/samsung-csc-448/" rel="attachment wp-att-10468"><img src="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-21-0015-Christo-Rei-to-Fatima-chapel-near-Rabacal-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-10468" srcset="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-21-0015-Christo-Rei-to-Fatima-chapel-near-Rabacal-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-21-0015-Christo-Rei-to-Fatima-chapel-near-Rabacal-1024x682.jpg 1024w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-21-0015-Christo-Rei-to-Fatima-chapel-near-Rabacal-624x416.jpg 624w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-21-0015-Christo-Rei-to-Fatima-chapel-near-Rabacal.jpg 1026w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a></p>
  <p>There were not many other hikers populating this trail. One way requires about 1 hour.</p>
  <p><strong>From Encumeada pass to Folhadal</strong></p>
  <p>I&#8217;ve been <a href="http://www.madeira-tipps.de/html/Wandertouren/EncumeadaFolhadal,index,0.html" target="_blank">here</a> last year. The levada do Norte splits after a couple of meters. I followed the left hand branch, avoiding the branch that leads through a long tunnel. This time the tunnel was due :)<br />
  .</p>
  <p>The tunnel is rather straight, so one can always see the light at the end. At both ends, the tunnel is more narrow than in the middle. In case other hikers already pass the tunnel in the opposite direction, there is no need to wait until they passed. There&#8217;s enough space inside.</p>
  <p><a href="http://www.christeck.de/wp/2015/12/31/spontaneous-xmas-vacation-2015/samsung-csc-450/" rel="attachment wp-att-10470"><img src="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-22-Encumeada-pass-to-Folhadal-0015-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-10470" srcset="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-22-Encumeada-pass-to-Folhadal-0015-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-22-Encumeada-pass-to-Folhadal-0015-1024x682.jpg 1024w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-22-Encumeada-pass-to-Folhadal-0015-624x416.jpg 624w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-22-Encumeada-pass-to-Folhadal-0015.jpg 1026w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a></p>
  <p>The landscape on the other side of the tunnel is much different. It&#8217;s cooler and more humid.</p>
  <p><a href="http://www.christeck.de/wp/2015/12/31/spontaneous-xmas-vacation-2015/samsung-csc-451/" rel="attachment wp-att-10471"><img src="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-22-Encumeada-pass-to-Folhadal-0024-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-10471" srcset="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-22-Encumeada-pass-to-Folhadal-0024-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-22-Encumeada-pass-to-Folhadal-0024-1024x682.jpg 1024w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-22-Encumeada-pass-to-Folhadal-0024-624x416.jpg 624w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-22-Encumeada-pass-to-Folhadal-0024.jpg 1026w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a></p>
  <p>Following the levada, soon the next longer tunnel will appear, where I returned. On the left hand side of its entrance, a nice fall invites for a rest.</p>
  <p><a href="http://www.christeck.de/wp/2015/12/31/spontaneous-xmas-vacation-2015/samsung-csc-449/" rel="attachment wp-att-10469"><img src="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-22-Encumeada-pass-to-Folhadal-0010-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-10469" srcset="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-22-Encumeada-pass-to-Folhadal-0010-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-22-Encumeada-pass-to-Folhadal-0010-1024x682.jpg 1024w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-22-Encumeada-pass-to-Folhadal-0010-624x416.jpg 624w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-22-Encumeada-pass-to-Folhadal-0010.jpg 1026w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a></p>
  <p><strong>From Rancho Madeirense to the Parque das Queimadas</strong></p>
  <p><a href="http://www.madeira-tipps.de/html/Wandertouren/RanchoMadeirenseQueimadas,index,0.html">This section</a> of the way along the Levada do Caldeirao Verde is more than convenient. It&#8217;s just a leisure walk, ending at the Parque das Queimadas where you&#8217;ll find some picnick places and a toilet.</p>
  <p><a href="http://www.christeck.de/wp/2015/12/31/spontaneous-xmas-vacation-2015/samsung-csc-452/" rel="attachment wp-att-10474"><img src="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-23-Rancho-Madeirense-to-Queimadas-0006-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-10474" srcset="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-23-Rancho-Madeirense-to-Queimadas-0006-200x300.jpg 200w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-23-Rancho-Madeirense-to-Queimadas-0006-682x1024.jpg 682w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-23-Rancho-Madeirense-to-Queimadas-0006-624x936.jpg 624w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-23-Rancho-Madeirense-to-Queimadas-0006.jpg 912w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /></a></p>
  <p>Optionally one can follow the levada further, but I made this a separate trip.</p>
  <p><strong>From Pico Aieiro to Pico Ruivo</strong></p>
  <p><a href="http://www.madeira-tipps.de/html/Wandertouren/PicoArieiroPicoRuivo,index,0.html">This</a> is the counter part of the abovementioned trip to Pico Ruivo. The path bifurcates in the middle section and is paved respectively stepped up to that point. The western part was closed during my visit, so I had to take the same way forth and back. After the crossing, the surface consists of ground, but is convenient to walk anyway.</p>
  <p><a href="http://www.christeck.de/wp/2015/12/31/spontaneous-xmas-vacation-2015/samsung-csc-454/" rel="attachment wp-att-10476"><img src="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-24-Pico-Aieiro-to-Pico-Ruivo-0022-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-10476" srcset="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-24-Pico-Aieiro-to-Pico-Ruivo-0022-200x300.jpg 200w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-24-Pico-Aieiro-to-Pico-Ruivo-0022-682x1024.jpg 682w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-24-Pico-Aieiro-to-Pico-Ruivo-0022-624x936.jpg 624w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-24-Pico-Aieiro-to-Pico-Ruivo-0022.jpg 684w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /></a></p>
  <p>There are a couple of tunnels to pass, some short, some longer. A torch is recommended.</p>
  <p><a href="http://www.christeck.de/wp/2015/12/31/spontaneous-xmas-vacation-2015/samsung-csc-455/" rel="attachment wp-att-10477"><img src="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-24-Pico-Aieiro-to-Pico-Ruivo-0062-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-10477" srcset="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-24-Pico-Aieiro-to-Pico-Ruivo-0062-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-24-Pico-Aieiro-to-Pico-Ruivo-0062-1024x682.jpg 1024w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-24-Pico-Aieiro-to-Pico-Ruivo-0062-624x416.jpg 624w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-24-Pico-Aieiro-to-Pico-Ruivo-0062.jpg 1026w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a></p>
  <p>During my visit, there was bright sunlight and some light wind &#8211; almost perfect. During the evening hours I noticed I didn&#8217;t cover my head during the trip. Ouch. Be warned :) .</p>
  <p><a href="http://www.christeck.de/wp/2015/12/31/spontaneous-xmas-vacation-2015/samsung-csc-453/" rel="attachment wp-att-10475"><img src="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-24-Pico-Aieiro-to-Pico-Ruivo-0014-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-10475" srcset="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-24-Pico-Aieiro-to-Pico-Ruivo-0014-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-24-Pico-Aieiro-to-Pico-Ruivo-0014-1024x682.jpg 1024w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-24-Pico-Aieiro-to-Pico-Ruivo-0014-624x416.jpg 624w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-24-Pico-Aieiro-to-Pico-Ruivo-0014.jpg 1026w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a></p>
  <p><strong>From Parque das Queimadas to Caldeirão Verde</strong></p>
  <p>This trip is listed at madeira-tipps.de, but a description page is missing. It is the complement to the abovementioned tour from Rancho Madeirense to the <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=32.78403&#038;mlon=-16.90671#map=11/32.7806/-16.9574">Parque das Queimadas</a>.</p>
  <p><a href="http://www.christeck.de/wp/2015/12/31/spontaneous-xmas-vacation-2015/samsung-csc-457/" rel="attachment wp-att-10481"><img src="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-25-Parque-das-Queimadas-to-Caldeirao-Verde-0067-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-10481" srcset="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-25-Parque-das-Queimadas-to-Caldeirao-Verde-0067-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-25-Parque-das-Queimadas-to-Caldeirao-Verde-0067-1024x682.jpg 1024w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-25-Parque-das-Queimadas-to-Caldeirao-Verde-0067-624x416.jpg 624w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-25-Parque-das-Queimadas-to-Caldeirao-Verde-0067.jpg 1026w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a></p>
  <p>Appearently this levada is a very popular one. Today it was releatively quiet, but I met about 10 other hiking parties anyway. To be honest, it is really a nice trip. It features many aspects a levada hiker likes &#8211; nice old trees, the path sometimes covered with roots or stones, often leading over the top of the levada wall, deep cliffs, several tunnels, bridges, humid rocks covered with plants and a really nice fall at Caldeirão Verde.</p>
  <p><a href="http://www.christeck.de/wp/2015/12/31/spontaneous-xmas-vacation-2015/samsung-csc-458/" rel="attachment wp-att-10482"><img src="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-25-Parque-das-Queimadas-to-Caldeirao-Verde-0109-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-10482" srcset="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-25-Parque-das-Queimadas-to-Caldeirao-Verde-0109-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-25-Parque-das-Queimadas-to-Caldeirao-Verde-0109-1024x682.jpg 1024w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-25-Parque-das-Queimadas-to-Caldeirao-Verde-0109-624x416.jpg 624w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-25-Parque-das-Queimadas-to-Caldeirao-Verde-0109.jpg 1026w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a></p>
  <p><a href="http://www.christeck.de/wp/2015/12/31/spontaneous-xmas-vacation-2015/samsung-csc-456/" rel="attachment wp-att-10480"><img src="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-25-Parque-das-Queimadas-to-Caldeirao-Verde-0020-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-10480" srcset="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-25-Parque-das-Queimadas-to-Caldeirao-Verde-0020-200x300.jpg 200w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-25-Parque-das-Queimadas-to-Caldeirao-Verde-0020-682x1024.jpg 682w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-25-Parque-das-Queimadas-to-Caldeirao-Verde-0020-624x936.jpg 624w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-25-Parque-das-Queimadas-to-Caldeirao-Verde-0020.jpg 684w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /></a></p>
  <p>The trail even further follows a levada up to the Caldeirão Inferno. I saved it for the next stay :) .</p>
  <p><strong>From Christo Rei along the levada do Paul</strong></p>
  <p>This trip was planned as a complement to the abovementioned trip from <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=32.7391&#038;mlon=-17.1019#map=11/32.7391/-17.1019">Christo Rei</a> to the Fatima chapel. I hoped the clouds were low enough to get some sunshine at the upper regions of the island. Unfortunately, this was not the case. The trip was baffled by extreme fog and wind at Paul da Serra. A german proverb is like »Wie wir sehn, sehn wir, dass wir nichts sehn.« (translates to something like »As we can see, we do see, that we don&#8217;t see anything.«).</p>
  <p><a href="http://www.christeck.de/wp/2015/12/31/spontaneous-xmas-vacation-2015/samsung-csc-459/" rel="attachment wp-att-10484"><img src="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/20151226-0002-Paul-da-Serra-Nebel-300x200.jpg" alt="SAMSUNG CS" width="300" height="200" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-10484" srcset="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/20151226-0002-Paul-da-Serra-Nebel-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/20151226-0002-Paul-da-Serra-Nebel-1024x682.jpg 1024w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/20151226-0002-Paul-da-Serra-Nebel-624x416.jpg 624w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/20151226-0002-Paul-da-Serra-Nebel.jpg 1026w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a></p>
  <p>The perfect occasion for a lazy day :) .</p>
  <p><a href="http://www.christeck.de/wp/2015/12/31/spontaneous-xmas-vacation-2015/samsung-csc-460/" rel="attachment wp-att-10485"><img src="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/20151228-0003-Madeira-Wein-224x300.jpg" alt="" width="224" height="300" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-10485" srcset="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/20151228-0003-Madeira-Wein-224x300.jpg 224w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/20151228-0003-Madeira-Wein.jpg 394w" sizes="(max-width: 224px) 100vw, 224px" /></a></p>
  <p><strong>Balcoes</strong></p>
  <p><a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=32.7354&#038;mlon=-16.8862#map=16/32.7354/-16.8862">Ribeiro Frio</a> appears to be a hiking center; major hiking routes cross the village, there are a couple of picnick sites in the surroundings, and the main street is well covered with parking cars.</p>
  <p>The <a href="http://www.madeira-tipps.de/html/Wandertouren/Balcoes,index,0.html">trip</a> along the levada »Serra do Faial« to the viewpoint »Miradouro dos Balcões« is short but nice, though the levada to the Balcoes currently is out of operation.</p>
  <p><a href="http://www.christeck.de/wp/2015/12/30/spontaneous-xmas-vacation-2015/samsung-csc-461/" rel="attachment wp-att-10499"><img src="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-29-Ribeiro-Frio-Levada-Serra-do-Faial-to-viewpoint-Miradouro-dos-Balcoes-0012-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-10499" srcset="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-29-Ribeiro-Frio-Levada-Serra-do-Faial-to-viewpoint-Miradouro-dos-Balcoes-0012-200x300.jpg 200w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-29-Ribeiro-Frio-Levada-Serra-do-Faial-to-viewpoint-Miradouro-dos-Balcoes-0012.jpg 456w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /></a></p>
  <p><a href="http://www.christeck.de/wp/2015/12/30/spontaneous-xmas-vacation-2015/samsung-csc-462/" rel="attachment wp-att-10500"><img src="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-29-Ribeiro-Frio-Levada-Serra-do-Faial-to-viewpoint-Miradouro-dos-Balcoes-0019-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-10500" srcset="http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-29-Ribeiro-Frio-Levada-Serra-do-Faial-to-viewpoint-Miradouro-dos-Balcoes-0019-300x200.jpg 300w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-29-Ribeiro-Frio-Levada-Serra-do-Faial-to-viewpoint-Miradouro-dos-Balcoes-0019-624x416.jpg 624w, http://www.christeck.de/wp/wp-content/uploads/christeck.de/2015/12/2015-12-29-Ribeiro-Frio-Levada-Serra-do-Faial-to-viewpoint-Miradouro-dos-Balcoes-0019.jpg 684w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a></p>
  <p><strong>Samsung Galaxy S3 as a GPS receiver</strong></p>
  <p>It was a mistake to leave my beloved <a href="http://www.christeck.de/wp/2010/04/24/mapping-applications-for-the-n900/">Nokia N900</a> at home. Together with osm2go it still is the perfect on-site mapping gadget. </p>
  <p>Instead I only had a Samsung Galaxy S3 with me. Its GPS receiver is rather poor and often cannot provide positioning data. It somehow works in the car (though not perfectly). But when hiking, even when placing it on top of the knapsack, it almost never got a GPS fix.</p>
  <p><strong>Osmand as a mapping application</strong></p>
  <p>I used osmand on the S3 for the following:</p>
  <ul>
  <li>Car routing from the accomodation to the hiking destination.</li>
  <li>Display the hiking trip as a GPX tracklog on top of the map.</li>
  <li>Write a tracklog of the hiking trip and display it on top of the map.</li>
  <li>Insert waypoints into the tracklog, to as to add mapping details to the openstreetmap data set at home.</li>
  </ul>
  <p>For unkown reasons, Osmand was able to display the recorded track as long as I was in the car to the hiking destination. But as soon as I arrived there, osmand stopped routing (great) and it also stopped displaying the recorded trip on top of the map. I checked all preferences but didn&#8217;t find any option like ”Always display tracklog, even when no navigation is performed.”. Back at home I had to notice that Osmand did not only deny to display the track. It even didn&#8217;t record any trackpoints. It did, however, record the remarks I typed for mapping purposes. </p>
  <p>I&#8217;m still scratching my head because I do not know what I did wrong so as to loose my tracklog data. It&#8217;s a pity when you record trips far away from home and you notice nothing was recorded back at home. Fortunately at least my annotations have been saved to the tracklog, so I was able to edit some minor details in the OpenStreetMap data set.</p>
  <p><strong>Camera</strong></p>
  <p>I still use the Samsung NX30 and I am quite pleased with it. However I adapted based on last year&#8217;s experience.</p>
  <ul>
  <li>The lens I used last year was the EX-T50200CSB 50-200 mm. I much missed a wide angle. Thus I meanwhile bought the L18200MB 18-200 mm, despite its price tag. AFAIR I once read in a review that it is the &#8220;weakest Samsung lens so far&#8221;. Yes, it is not the best lens. But it allows me to go hiking without hte need to carry further lenses. Frankly, the quality is not the best. But I really enjoyed to have a lens with such an amazing zoom range at my fingertips.</li>
  <li>Last year I left the tripod at home, so as to save luggage weight. I often missed it. This year the ball head was with me &#8211; and of great use, especially for taking pictures with longer exposure times (tunnels, water, fog).</li>
  <ol>
  <p><strong>Verdict</strong></p>
  <p>I didn&#8217;t expect so much fun. I thought I&#8217;ve seen the most interesting hiking trails last year. I learned that there was enough left to see, and I know there is still enough left for one further visit :) .</p>


