Abstract: The arrival of web-based mapping from Google and others has revolutionised, in the space of only five years, the way many people interact with maps and map data. And the success of projects such as Wikipedia highlight how collation of small amounts of information from large numbers of people - an approach called 'crowdsourcing' - can challenge traditional models of data collection and ownership. Bringing these concepts together is OpenStreetMap, a collaborative project to create a free editable map of the world. Well-established enterprises such as the Ordnance Survey are coming under increased pressure from this new model, and large companies such as MapQuest and Microsoft are starting to use and invest in it. Martin Lucas-Smith, Webmaster in the Department, and one of two main developers of the leading UK-wide cycle journey planner website, CycleStreets, will discuss OpenStreetMap, its use within a wide range of systems (from cartography, routing, and even its central role helping deal with the Haiti disaster) and discuss the challenges it poses to traditional forms of cartography and data collection.

1. OpenStreetMap
and CycleStreets
Collaborative map-making and cartography
in the age of the internet
Martin Lucas-Smith
Department of Geography
University of Cambridge

2. “OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a collaborative project to
create a free editable map of the world.” - Wikipedia
Collaborative:
 Jul 2007: 9,000 people; December 2010: 333,000
Project:
 Not just a map - mass of ideas, processes, data, outputs
Free:
 Free financially and Free as in open
Editable:
 Constantly changing
Of the world:
 Global, not just UK where it started

3. OpenStreetMap
“OpenStreetMap creates and provides free
geographic data such as street maps to anyone
who wants them.
“The project was started because most maps you
think of as free actually have legal or technical
restrictions on their use, holding back people
from using them in creative, productive, or
unexpected ways.”

4. OpenStreetMap
UK – Ordnance Survey:
High quality, but ...
Cost can be prohibitive
 (particularly voluntary sector)
Derivative data restrictions
 Ordnance Survey claims derived data rights when
you place something over one of their maps
 Incompatible with direction of the Internet, where
data is being ‘mashed’ together to make useful
information and visualisations
Central control – change can be slow

5. Crowdsourcing principle
“Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job
traditionally performed by a designated agent
(usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an
undefined, generally large group of people in the
form of an open call.”
http://crowdsourcing.typepad.com/
Everyone knows a little bit about something in
their area. Put that together and you get:

6. OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap website default style

7. OpenStreetMap
Cloudmade ‘Fresh’ style (#997)

8. OpenStreetMap
Cloudmade ‘Googley’ style (#5138)

9. OpenStreetMap
OpenCycleMap

10. OpenStreetMap
OpenCycleMap

11. OpenStreetMap
CycleStreets data view

12. OpenStreetMap
CycleStreets data interrogation

13. OpenStreetMap
http://tolu.giub.uni-bonn.de/karto/osm-3d/Screenshots/Dresden/Dresden2.jpg

14. OpenStreetMap
Glosm 3D (Russia)

15. OpenStreetMap
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/File:Rostock-warnemuende.leuchtturm.osm-3d.jpg

16. OpenStreetMap
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/File:Seamap.png

17. OpenStreetMap

18. OpenStreetMap
http://opengeodata.org/pretty-osm-derived-art-maps

19. OpenStreetMap
Urban accessibility of Castelfiorentino

20. OpenStreetMap
Bike Hub app, uses CycleStreets routing

21. OpenStreetMap
First tactile map based on OSM data published on May 12, 2009

22. OpenStreetMap
OpenPisteMap

23. OpenStreetMap
Marikina Mapping Party cake (4th Mapping Party in the Philippines)

24. CycleStreets Journey planner

25. Data collection
 Structured ground surveys
 Ground surveys, performed by a mapper
 On foot, bicycle or in a car or boat.
 Usually collected using a GPS unit
 Government data sources
 Landsat 7, US TIGER data, OS OpenData
 Commercial data sources
 AND from Netherlands
 Traced from satellite imagery
 e.g. Yahoo!, Microsoft Bing have donated

26. Objective data
 OSM is a store of objective data
 Everything must be verifiable
 Subjective data is not welcome
 Subjective assessment is the realm of
the user of the data
 E.g. Cycle journey planner decides on the likely
niceness of a street based on objective attributes
like speed limit, width, surface quality
 My cycle to work would be different to my mum’s:
we have different preferences for a ‘good’ route

27. OpenStreetMap
ITO World animation 'OSM 2008 - A Year of Edits'

28. Data collection
 Mapping takes place
individually or in groups

29. Ground surveys
 Individuals or groups survey using
GPS and taking notes
 Made easier by GPS technology
 2000: Bill Clinton switches on wider GPS
availability
 Mid-2001: GPS units available for $100
 2004: GPX standard (GPS data transfer)
widespread

30. Mapping parties
 A group of openstreetmappers and novices
 Go to area & map it exhaustively, usually over a weekend
 Dividing up an area between participants and mapping it
 Mapping by car, cycle or walking
 Social aspect important: people can meet up and talk
(usually at a pub) between mapping sessions

31. Mapping parties
 e.g. Walking Papers:
Print current state,
annotate, load back
in
 http://walking-papers.org/

32. Social context
 Social context important
 Community decides on data collection and structure norms
appropriate to their situation
The mapkibera project is
training locals people of
Kibera, Nairobi to create a
map with OpenStreetMap
Technologies used depend
on circumstances

33. Social context
 Importing other people’s data?
 Massive debate within the OpenStreetMap community
 (Assumes donated data is compatibly licensed)
 One view: importing data gives the impression that an
area doesn’t need to be mapped in person and reduces
volunteer input
 TIGER data import in US very problematical
http://www.slideshare.net/harrywood/wherecampeu-session-state-of-the-states-in-openstreetmap
 Another view: importing data gives a massive head-start
and means we can get into much more detailed mapping
 Data creators vs Data consumers have different
perspectives
 CycleStreets needs a reasonably complete map!

34. Social context
 Is objectivity
always possible?
 WikiProject Gaza
 Practical issues
 How do you represent a
location where only some
people can enter/exit?

35. Social context
 How do you represent a
location where only
some people can
enter/exit?

36. Social context
 Crisis Mapping:
WikiProject Haiti
 Before January 12, 2010
 Then NOAA, GeoEye, DigitalGlobe flew planes over the
area, and donated their imagery for tracing purposes
 People around the world at their computers contributed to effort
 Roads, buildings and refugee camps of Port-au-Prince
mapped in just two days
 “The most complete digital map of Haiti's roads”

37. Haiti
 The resulting data & maps have been used by
several organisations providing relief aid, such
as the World Bank, the European Commission
Joint Research Centre, the Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs,
UNOSAT, others

38. Data collection

39. Informal data structure
 No formal specification of how to
represent things
 No database schema – just key-value pairs
 Reflects the social context of the users
 Users make it up as they go along
 Communities of interest  norms
 Conventions established, then stability
 User/collector cycle embeds the convention

40. Informal data structure
 Nodes & Ways, Tags
 http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Map_Features
describes the (many) conventions formed so far
 Examples
 Motorway represented as: “highway=motorway”
 Local street: “highway=residential”
 Guided bus! “highway=bus_guideway”
 Fence: “barrier=fence”
 Cycleway: “highway=cycleway”. But what type?
 “cycleway=lane”
 “cycleway=track”
 “cycleway=opposite_lane”
 POIs: “amenity=postbox”, “shop=charity”
 Not to forget... “amenity=pub”

41. Adding data
Potlatch 2 – www.openstreetmap.org (www.geowiki.com)

42. Adding data
Potlatch 2 – www.openstreetmap.org (www.geowiki.com)

43. Potlatch 2 editor
[Quick demo]
http://www.cyclestreets.net/edit/

44. Adding data
JOSM – Java OpenStreetMap Editor – advanced users

45. Adding data
The ArcGIS Editor provides:
• Simple tools to upload and download OSM data
• An OSM-compatible geodatabase schema to locally store OSM data
• An OSM symbology template for faster editing
• Conflict-resolution tools for reconciling data back to the OSM database
ArcGIS plugin for OpenStreetMap (free)

46. OSM vs Google Maps
Google often doesn’t have information needed by
cyclists/walkers – park paths, cut-throughs, pubs!
Google doesn’t provide any data – just a picture
OSM Google maps

47. OSM vs Ordnance Survey
 Depends what scale
 Question is intended use
 “Good enough” notion
 OSM will never be good
enough for utility companies
needing exact location of pipes
 But for many other uses,
appropriate and good enough
Sutton Coldfield B72:

48. OSM vs Ordnance Survey
 Costs money – not free
 Big difference is the license –
not free (libre)
 Plot points on a map and the
OS claim some rights to that
 Derivative data issues
 Major problem in the age of the internet, where
data is being shared, mixed, repurposed
 By contrast, OSM uses a Creative Commons
license

50. Challenge to traditional mapping agencies
 OSM and internet sharing more generally
forcing a change in business models
 Ordnance Survey seeing more competition
 Lowering data use costs
 Lowering data collection costs
 Forcing derivative data restrictions to be
removed
 Challenge in the small scale map data area

51. Opens new opportunities
 Businesses like Microsoft, Google and others
presumably spend a small fortune on
mapping data
 Bing Maps (Microsoft) and MapQuest (AOL)
now actively putting money and resources
into OSM project
 OSM provides them with a cheaper way of
providing data with far fewer restrictions

52. Quality assurance issues
 Can we trust the data?
 Depends whether it’s ‘good enough’ for your use
 Can we trust formalised data?
 Tales of lorry satnavs for instance
 Balance between accuracy and speed/volume
 Arbury Park was in OSM as it was built – OS slower
 Quality around the country variable
 How can we ascertain this?
 Vandalism
 But there’s the ability to watch an area for changes
 More people = more vigilance or more vandalism?

53. Challenge to traditional cartography
 Cartography is a major area of interest within
the OpenStreetMap community
 Cartography is becoming more automated as
Web 2.0 steams ahead
 http://maps.cloudmade.com/

54. Cloudmade map renderer demo
[Quick demo]
http://maps.cloudmade.com/
Click ‘Edit map style’
Click on a design to start from
Click ‘Clone Style’ in the bottom-right
Use the ‘Object Visibility’ box
on the right to remove/add features

55. OpenStreetMap ecosystem
 At the heart of the OpenStreetMap project is a database
holding all the map data that people work with.
 Left: editors people use to enter data into the database
 Right: all sorts of interesting uses for the data, e.g. ...

56. OpenStreetMap uses
 Non-commercial
 Commercial / profit-making use absolutely fine
 As long as people adhere to the license, i.e. give attribution and
allow downstream users to share/re-use the data
 Maps of very many kinds
 Web routing
 SatNav devices
 Data analysis (e.g. accessibility analysis)
 Placefinding
 GPS background
 Humanitarian
 ...

57. CycleStreets Cycle journey planner

58. Journey planner: features
 Plan route from A-B, anywhere in UK
 Simplest possible interface
 Click-click-plan, and simple Namefinder
 Gives set of route choices
 (fastest, quietest, balanced)
 Takes accounts of hills (uses NASA SRTM)
 Turn-by-turn directions
 Photos-en-route

59. CycleStreets Journey planner
[Quick demo]
http://www.cyclestreets.net/

60. Journey planner: features
 Shows distance, time, CO2, soon: calories
 Google Street View at any point
 Feedback system
 Localised versions for easy linking
 E.g. cambridge.cyclestreets.net
 Link methods
 E.g. www.cyclestreets.net/journey/to/cb1+2py/
 ‘Fly in Google Earth’
 Export to GPS

61. Photomap

62. Photomap: features
 Icons on map (per type of feature)
 Click to view image and info
 Add photo
 Crowdsourcing: lots of people, but each
donating a small effort
 Categorisation
 E.g. “Show me all the cycle
parking problems in
Cambridge”

63. Mobile
 Key features on
small screen
 iPhone app out
 Android under
development
 Generic mobile
web version under
development

64. Mobile
 Other apps now
incorporating our
routing
 Data interface
 Bike Hub – great
world-first iPhone
bike real-SatNav
 In the leading Boris
Bike app, ‘London
Cycle’

65. Why?
 Fundamentally, we want to see “More people
cycling, more safely, more often”
 New cycle users face many challenges in UK:
 Poor infrastructure, traffic hostility
 Confidence cycling (address with training)
 Cultural/identity issues: not yet mainstream
 Lack of utility bikes in shops
 Routes – different to car routes!
 We try to tackle the last problem
 ... and the first (through the Photomap)

66. How it works (briefly)
 1. Data comes from people collecting
data on-street for OpenStreetMap
 Factual data only – e.g.
presence of road
 NOT “This is a nice
cycle route”
 2. We take OSM data ‘off the shelf’
 Though we’re part of the community in practice
 Import each week (daily in ideal world): fresh data
 Conversion process is complex – understanding the data

67. How it works (briefly)
3. Score each
type of path:
4. Take account of hills (add/remove penalty)
5. Account for turn delays (work ongoing)
6. Take account of detailed cyclist behaviour (ditto)

68. How it works (briefly)
 7. Compress the network, to make the system
much faster (system called ‘Cello’):
A A
9 8
4
9: AC
10 7: AD,BD
D
3
B B
6 6: BC
C C
9
Park: 4 nodes & 7 ways After: 3 nodes & 3 ways

69. How it works (briefly)
 So each path / road / shortcut / etc.
now has a score
 Higher score = worse for cycling (more ‘friction’)
 8. Find the lowest total score from A to B
 Standard problem in
computer science, we use A* method
 9. Route is found
 10. Repeat for quietest, fastest modes – each
have different scores
 11. Routes shown to user

70. Route feedback goes to OSM contacts

71. OpenStreetMap
 Lots of different renderings
 We are using OpenCycleMap by Andy Allan
 Cloudmade serves ‘tiles’ which form a static background once a route
has been planned – i.e. we just put this behind a line we have
calculated

72. CycleStreets: history
 Cambridge-only cycle journey planner
 Originally written for Cambridge Cycling Campaign
 Launched June 2006
 Google Map –based
 5,000 lines drawn over
satellite imagery
 Google doesn’t give you
data: just cartography
 47,000 journeys planned
 15,000 photos added

73. CycleStreets: history
 Lots of requests for same thing in other places
around the UK
 Result is CycleStreets
 We are using OpenStreetMap for our data
 We don’t have money for an OS license
 Went to public beta in March 2009
 Over 500,000 journeys planned
 Promotion ramping up this year
 Key deficiencies being fixed

74. Transport Direct CJP CycleStreets
www.transportdirect.info/Web2/JourneyPlanning/FindCycleInput.aspx www.cyclestreets.net
£2.4 million (from tax) £28k
92,000 journeys planned 458,000 journeys planned
(dated Jan 2011) (dated Jan 2011, reached 500k on 22nd Feb 2011)
£26.09 per journey 6p per journey
£1m – budget for 2011 £130k needed
32 areas (professionally surveyed) UK-wide (but depends on OSM completeness)

75. UKGov
We think cycle journey planning is more effective when
done by local people using Open Data
So we are working to ensure that CycleStreets is the
solution of choice

77. Big Society –compliant
We tick all the boxes:
 Collaborative: involves local people
 Low cost: datasets have no license
fee, agile delivery
 Trusted: for the people, by the people
 Open Data
http://www.green-alliance.org.uk
 Citizen involvement: combines skills
and input of large numbers of people
(collecting data)
 Quality delivery: problems can be
fixed easily
 Transparency: more people oversee
the data and spot problems or
potential improvements
Cabinet Office

78. Currently main feature on data.gov.uk!

79. Local Authorities
 www.cyclestreets.net/localauthorities
 http://cyclejourneyplanner.westsussex.gov.uk/

81. Difficulties we face with OSM
 Lack of static IDs – unique numbers for features
change – potential issue for the future
 Lack of quality control: makes harder to engage
Local Authorities
 Coverage not uniform
 Vandalism a concern for some
 Ability to engage local mappers when an area is
deficient
 Subjective data?
 Many of these problems will go away as OSM matures

82. OpenStreetMap: Summary
 Applies the Wikipedia approach of crowd-sourcing
 Extremely flexible
 Free (cost) and Free (libre)
 Challenging traditional map agencies / business
models and government funding models
 Communities of interest and norms
 Much scope for research
 Varied uses: maps, electronic devices, humanitarian, ..
 CycleStreets using it
 As more data goes in, more uses, so more people add
data, so more people use it, so ...

83. David Earl
Martin Lucas-Smith,
www.CycleStreets.net
Twitter: @cyclestreets
info@cyclestreets.net