Open US GPS Data?

tobiasly writes "I read an article today about a map error on the popular Garmin GPS devices which often leads to truckers in a particular town becoming trapped. From my own experience, every electronic map I've ever seen (Google, Mapquest, my Mio GPS) has the layout of my neighborhood completely and frustratingly wrong. A quick search turned up only one open-source mapping project, but it's for New Zealand only. Why are there no comparable projects in the U.S. or elsewhere? Obviously such a project would need a good peer-review/moderation/trust system but I'd gladly put in the time necessary to drive around town with my GPS in "tracking" mode, then upload, tag, and verify my local data. Has anyone with more technical knowledge in maps and auto-routing looked more into this? Are there technical limitations to such a project? Should the government subsidize a project to create open, free, up-to-date electronic maps? Surely there is a public benefit available from such a project."

open street map?

http://www.openstreetmap.org/ [openstreetmap.org]

Re:open street map?

Open Street Map is a good start but needs some enhancements to allow for proper data attribution and segregation of the different feature types (point, line, polygon) into "layers". Being able to distinguish a bike path from a highway is significant. A community based approach to data reviews would also be nice (i.e. if a user always enters bad data, other users could moderate them so that their input doesn't have the same "value" that a good contributor does).

Re:open street map?

Being able to distinguish a bike path from a highway is significant

Are you looking at the same OpenStreetMap as me? I just looked up the area around my house on OSM and Google Maps. OSM has more accurate mapping of the extents of the park (Google Maps is just plain wrong here). It also shows footpaths through the park (as dotted lines - Google doesn't show them at all) and indicates the different road types correctly (Google uses nonstandard colouring for roads) and shows roads inside the university campus, where Google just shows a grey blob. OSM also shows the hospitals and carparks correctly (sadly not the pubs). When it comes to road names, both have some that the other lacks (neither has complete coverage, but both have all of the major ones).

Re:open street map?

Around where I live (rural England), OSM seems only to have the medium-small roads on it that lead to pubs - make of that what you will!

No? There are commercial applications...

I disagree. OSM is very useful in many areas, including where it is hard to find maps (try Baghdad [openstreetmap.org] for example). With the recent addition of TIGER data [slashgeo.org] for the whole U.S., OSM became useful even in the U.S.

this project is lllloooooonnnnggg ways off from being useful everywhere

This is obviously not true when considering there have been commercial applications of OSM for a long time [slashgeo.org] (Isle of Wight - October 2006). See also this related wrap-up entry [slashgeo.org].

I am amongst the ones who believe we're only seeing the beginning of OSM everywhere. Contrary to your comment, I believe it is happening and will not take that long to reach some level of overall maturity. As to why is doesn't need an army of volunteers? Because, as done with the TIGER dataset, datasets are directly piped into OSM, as done in the Netherlands last year [slashgeo.org].

Re:open street map?

I could help that project by uploading my route tracks but what if I use mapsource (garmin software) to look up the road name am I infringing on something?

Yes. Unfortunately you are not allowed to do that. Map-vendors are protecting themselves against copying by deliberately introducing errors. See for example http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Copyright_Easter_Eggs [openstreetmap.org]

Re:open street map?

Well, map makers don't really make maps anymore. They collect data like that which is available at tiger maps (if it is still around) but they get this data from cities, state, county and federal courthouses. The cities and political entities makes the maps and basically just sell the information to the map makers who organize it and compile it to the same scale and fit it to their presentation.

Often the errors you see is because there was a planned development that never went through it they (the city/county whoever) changed the traffic flow more recently then the map data is. I found this to be the case back in 1991 when I was delivering pizzas. I grabbed a city map from a tourist booth only to find some roads didn't exist. I purchased a random McNally or whatever the name is from a gas station to find the same errors. After I went to the city engineers office looking for an accurate map, they explained this to me. It was also interesting that I would watch development projects going up and already have a map complete with street names several years after this.

If you see a map problem with any map, I would bet it is something to do with the political entity more then the map maker. It might be them in some cases but roads dead ending when they should go through a town is the cities fault. And you will likely find the same error across multiple maps.

Re:open street map?

Street names in the US are assigned by the government and the government can't own a copyright in the US. All most all of those maps have errors and they have a lot of the same errors because they are based on the TIGER, Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing system, database. The TIGER database [census.gov] is maintained by the U.S. Census and while they are huge, you can have a lot of fun with them especially when you mix in the Perl module Geo::Coder::US [cpan.org] and GMT, Generic Mapping Tool [hawaii.edu]. The TIGER is a database of any known and and a huge number of interpolated data points, for example my house is listed as a known point with it's "official" latitude and longitude, two blocks down is another known point and every house in between is estimated. One thing you quickly notice when playing with the database is that roads often have multiple "official" name, Roads may "officialy" exist but not physically exists and roads may physically exist with out "officially" existing. Roads can even meander and move, especially dirt fire-roads and trails in the woods.

Re:open street map?

So fix it. You're obviously a geek since you read slashdot. You obviously have a lot of spare time, since you read slashdot. You also know about the errors and how it's supposed to be. Give an hour of your time to the project. The more complete it is, the more people will fix the details.

Frustrating

It can definitely be frustrating. There's a street near my house where I grew up that is complete on every online map I've ever seen, but the truth is it's actually two dead ends that don't meet up. I've seen other mistakes as well. Unfortunately the same bad data keeps getting recycled everywhere, because companies are too lazy to verify things. I'm all for an open source mapping project, or at the very least better ways of reporting errors.

Re:Frustrating

Unfortunately the same bad data keeps getting recycled everywhere, because companies are too lazy to verify things.

I think you are underestimating just how many roads there are in the US.

Source: National Highway System (United States) [wikipedia.org]
The National Highway System (NHS) of the United States comprises approximately 160,000 miles (256,000 kilometers) of roadway, including the Interstate Highway System as well as other roads, which are important to the nation's economy, defense, and mobility.

Further down in the same article:
The 160,000 miles of NHS include only 4% of the nation's roads, but they carry more than 40% of all highway traffic, 75% of heavy truck traffic, and 90% of tourist traffic.

That's a lot of roads. Stupid lazy companies... :)

So do something about it...

I've reported errors to several map makers, including Google maps and the makers of the maps in our phone directory. They all have ways to report errors. If each one of grabs a map right now and reports just one error, just think how much better the maps will be next year...

To the submitter:

From my own experience, every electronic map I've ever seen (Google, Mapquest, my Mio GPS) has the layout of my neighborhood completely and frustratingly wrong.

So why not move to somewhere with exquisitely accurate and detailed mapping? I hear that the nuclear reactors in Pyongyang and Iran have been mapped out quite well.

That's a pretty big job

The only two suppliers of nav map data in North America are Navteq and TeleAtlas. They have both invested huge amounts of money in creating their maps, including driving around cities doing street-by-street mapping with vans, although most of their data came originally from official public street maps. Both companies have been the target of multi-billion dollar take over offers in the last year. In addition to capturing the map data, tagging (street names, one-way, turn restrictions, road type etc.) and validation (making sure streets link up correctly in the database) are also huge jobs. I wouldn't want to say that an open-source effort is not possible, but we shouldn't underestimate the magnitude of the job. It involves a lot more effort than just driving around a few streets in your neighborhood.

Re:That's a pretty big job

I work at a GIS company.
Keep in mind that there's USGS [usgs.gov], and that's not the only source of public maps (though that particular source isn't really focused on making navigation easier).

Most states are now working on providing a unified system for people to put their map info into (currently the best source of maps is counties and property appraisers - both of which can easily be mandated to upload their data if it doesn't cost them much).

So give it time. In the US this will become something provided as a government service, and the only people selling things will be the ones writing software that analyzes the data.

Odd routing

I had an experience recently where I was driving through an unfamiliar town the next state over, following my Garmin. It took me on a route that, while leading eventually to the right place, did not seem to make much sense given the other roads available. I noticed a camper in the lane next to me that didn't seem to belong, and that driver also had a GPS navigator mounted on his windshield. So I found myself wondering: does he have the same unit (or data source) as me? If I did a study of all the non-local cars driving down this road, how many of them would have the same unit in their cars?

There are several interesting implications, the most obvious being "sponsored routing" down a particular street in a business dist.....gotta go, I'm on the phone with my patent attorney.

Government Maps - of course

The government already creates these maps (TIGER [wikipedia.org]), which are in the public domain. But I'll admit, it's a little fun to pretend that Google/MapQuest/Yahoo and whoever else are driving around all of the Western world with GPSs attached to their cars :)

~whm

Re:Government Maps - of course

Yes, and TIGER is put together by the USGS, and it already *is* the "open source" data that the geniuses here are talking about. If you find an error, alert the USGS. I've done it myself - call their number and ask.

Now, as for the fantasy of people driving around with a gps attached to their car (ha ha, isn't that stupid!), um, oh:

http://www.navteq.com/about/whatis_difference.html [navteq.com]

"NAVTEQ digital map data is built on the roads of the world. Over seven hundred NAVTEQ field researchers from approximately 168 offices drive millions of kilometers of the road network each year. To provide uniformity and maximize precision each team works to a single global specification. And each team has state-of-the-art equipment, including our proprietary GPS-based collection technology and GWS software.

These field teams are constantly verifying and updating the database, not only in terms of road geometry, but also in details. Each team finds and records up to 260 attributes--everything from addresses and road signs to turn restrictions--for each segment of road. The result is the NAVTEQ difference: digital map data that is precise, robust and multifaceted."

There's no pretense; Navteq has people driving around, with gps's, verifying speed limits, road conditions, etc. That's why companies like Google and Yahoo buy their data. Before you act like an ass, you might want to do some rudimentary fact-checking...

Open Source UK GPS Data

We have been collecting GPS positions at 10 second intervals since we began operations in London in 2004 (we're a courier company with a technology twist). We have collected 173 million positions on a 24/7 basis (growing by about 1 million per day) across our bicycle, motorbike, and van fleet. We have been donating to OpenStreetMap for years and have released our data for noncommercial use via a public API http://api.ecourier.co.uk/ [ecourier.co.uk] under a CC license. Have fun!

Re:TomTom MapShare

Try TomTom MapShare.

Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with an "open source project". It is more like:

1. Make something that is so-so.

2. Profit!

3. Let the people who pay a lot of money for this so-so product do work for You without paying them for it. These users will take Your product from the so-so stadium and turn it into a good product.

4. Even more Profit! without any costs.

Reminds me a bit of cddb... What the OP wants is something like Freedb.

Re:TomTom MapShare

If you wait for a manufacturer to make all the corrections, you will wait forever because they can't check all places at all times and certainly wouldn't know all the best PoI and restaurants even if they're full time residents. For instance, both TomTom and Garmin GPS list a TGI Fridays that was a few blocks from my home as still in business when, in fact, it moved 2 miles away over 6 months ago and is being replaced by a new restaurant. There is also a fantastic Thai restaurant (it has won awards for best Thai) tucked behind a strip mall that isn't listed and I'd love to add it.

Personally, I like features like this [gizmodo.com] on TomTom, but yes, an open source database would rock. Even something that pulled from google maps would be cool, IMO, as long as google maps stays free.

Sometimes they're easy to spot...

Try searching Google maps for "Dummy1456".

Re:Note that Mapmakers make intentional mistakes..

Folks, be aware that one way that a mapmaker "improves" on a copyright protection is to intentionally alter a small section of a map (and in a book, a few at random) that is hopefully not used.

Having mapped a couple of square miles for OpenStreetMap [openstreetmap.org], I can attest to the fact that these alterations are incredibly common on Google Maps. There are half a dozen within half a mile of my house, most being added curves or extensions to dead-end roads and added or removed traffic islands. Google also cunningly add fake roads to the map data which correlate with features which look like roads on the satellite imagery but actually aren't - they're private drives, streams, paths rather than roads through woodland etc. The ones near me wouldn't seriously affect navigation, but some I've seen in the past would. Oh yes, Google Maps is also shifted by about 5m from WGS84 (GPS coordinates) round here, I presume this is intentional too.

Re:Government involvement

You think adding the Government would help improve mapping products? I'll keep my tax dollars, thanks.

I would point out that Government funding is the reason that you are able to A) connect to thousands of computers/websites across the globe right now, and B) the reason that you even have a "computer" sitting on your desk. Ironically, this funding is also the reason that satillites in space can provide us with overhead images that you see in Google Maps and the like as well.

Re:Make a U-Turn

So it might ACTUALLY send you over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's House????