A few weeks ago TrekClimbing asked on talk-gb about tagging various types of vegetation. He has documented some of the more problematic ones on the wiki.

The usage of natural=heath in the UK has not been particularly consistent, and his examples confirmed this. The situation is not helped because large swathes of natural=heath were added by a single mapper. Although doubts were expressed at the time, no-one was confident enough to say that such mapping was wrong.

Colourful late summer heath at South Stack

I have been aware that in upland areas of Great Britain natural=heath includes things I would describe differently. Notably these include : upland acid grassland used for rough grazing (mainly of sheep) and blanket bog.

It occurred to me that by comparing OSM data with another source would quantify this impression. Fortunately, a suitable source exists for Wales: Phase 1 habitat data.

Phase1

Phase 1 is a base level habitat survey for the United Kingdom introduced in the 1970s by the JNCC. It is at a finer scale (minimum feature size) than Corine and largely meant for ground surveying rather than remote classification. The main habitat classes and most of the detailed classes are understandable for laypeople. It also has an open access manua, which is quite readable. There are even convenient fold-out sheets of typical plant species for Phase 1 survey of Heaths.

I maintain, in a somewhat desultory manner, a wiki page showing correspondences between OSM tags and a subset of Phase 1 codes. Phase 1 codes can be tagged directly using the plant_community key.

Wales was unusual in that the official nature conservation body at the time CCW now NRW) decided to survey the whole country. The Welsh data has been available since 2005, more recently under an Open Government licence. A number of counties in England also carried out area-wide surveys, but these are not public.

Upland grasslands seen from Moel Eilio.

Analysis

I extracted all areas tagged with landuse or natural for Wales transforming them to the British National Grid. Although most natural tags represent habitat classes, a few (peninsula, mountain_range) represent geographical concepts . These latter were excluded from further analysis.

The basic steps were to find all OSM polygons which intersected with the Phase1 heath categories ( prefixed with “D”), and the converse, all Phase1 polygons intersected with natural=heath. OSM tags were grouped into broader categories (woodland for natural=wood and landuse=forest; grassland for natural=grassland, natural=grass, landuse=meadow etc). The results are shown below:

Fortunately pretty much all Phase1 heath polygons correspond with natural=heath (or natural=fell, which may by now be a synonym), where any type of habitat or landuse has been mapped on OSM. As expected, the reciprocal relationship covers a range.of habitat classes. The most significant, accounting for 90% of the area were:

• Grassland (Phase1 “B” classes)
• Heath (Phase1 “D” classes)
• Bracken (Phase1 “C.1.1” in the tall herb “C” group)
• Wetlands (Phase1 “E” classes, most being E.1.6 and E.1.7 : blanket bog.

OSM heath compared with Phase 1 codes

The last step was to take the most common Phase 1 classes (“B”,”C”,”D” and “E”) and find all OSM polygons overlapping these. I’ve chosen to represent these with an alluvial flow diagram (apologies for it’s somewhat rough and ready appearance: I haven’t mastered the available R packages (alluvial & ggalluvial) to allow finer control of elements).

Flows between detailed Phase 1 codes, OSM tags and Phase 1 generic classes. The original diagram is here, and an alternative (ggalluvial) version here.

A direct comparison with these Phase 1 codes shows a close correspondence of natural=heath and the relevant Phase 1 polygons.

Caveats

This analysis did not perform any extensive processing on either dataset. The following issues might affect the results:

• Invalid polygons. The Phase1 data has a number of invalid polygons. I merely used ST_MakeValid, and excluded any not do repaired. Phase1 data was compiled some time ago and habitsts have changed (most obviously with forestry plantations)
• Overlapping OSM polygons. Despite the desire of some for each area of land to have a single landuse or natural polygon, there will always be overlaps (as natural=peninsula shows). For upland heathland typical overlaps are water bodies, and conifer plantations. These will have resulted in some overcounting although I believe the effect is very minor.
• OSM tagging. Some polygons have both natural & landuse tags (e.g., natural=heath, landuse=military). A few of these are inconsistent (natural=wood, landuse=grass). I arbitrarily selected one of these values. A few typos were corrected but a polygon tagged natural=health had been “corrected” so many times I could not reliably restore the original mapper’s intent (it is on a remediated colliery spoil heap adjacent to a park: similar places exist in Notts and are part of Country Parks).
• Mosaic Phase 1 polygons. These were not included in the analysis.

Findings & Conclusions

The main finding is that various Phase1 habitat codes have a high correspondence with natural=heath. This is not true for some other codes, such as “B.4” grassland. This is a positive result, in that natural=heath usage seems to represent a coherent range of, predominantly upland habitats. I would expect similar patterns hold on much of Europe because the Corine code mapped to natural=heath includes Moorland.

I know this does not really answer the original queries, but by looking how a tag is actually used on OSM I think it is possible to identify some ways to resolve some of the issues.

Recommendations & Next Steps

I think I can formulate a simple set of recommendations & follow-up research:

• Use a heath subtag. Given that natural=heath appears to represent a coherent group of habitats in Wales, and elsewhere in the British Isles, the obvious way to map the clearly distinct habitats represented by the tag would be through use of a heath subtag, for instance heath=blanket_bog or heath=bracken. There is already some usage on OSM, although dominated by the undocumented ‘heath=alvar’ (all on Gotland).

• Check lowland heaths. Wales is lacking much in the way of lowland heaths which are common in Southern England, and have seem to closely match expectations. So any implications for such heathland need to be considered.

• Check natural=heath elsewhere in Europe. Much natural=heath will be dominated by Corine imports. Again I have the impression that this results in heath having a broader meaning on OSM than its classic ecological interpretation.

• Compare Corine data for Wales. A corollary of the above is to make the same comparison for Wales but using Corine data.

• Map missing areas of heath in Wales identified from Phase 1.

• Document the sub-types of heath mentioned.

This latter item is what I plan to do next.

شركة نقل عفش بالمدينة المنورة نقل العفش داخل المدينة وخارج المدينة شامل خدمة الفك والتركيب جوال رقم 0500908620 #شركة_نقل_عفش_بالمدينة_المنورة

شركة نقل عفش بالمدينة المنورة

This is a collection of gifs illustating the process of me and other mappers redrawing landuse, buildings, paths and other objects in my home city - Wrocław and other places in Poland

Most gifs represent the state of OSMcarto immidiatelly before and after the main bulk of my edits in the area and thus may not include later changes made by me or other contributors

Current goal is to revise the core city centre of Wrocław (marked orange on the map) and then possibly the wider area marked blue. I focus on realigning and correcting the geometry of existing buildings (most of them being remnants of an old, poorly performed import) and adding missing footways, driveways, green areas and landuse, while ignoring the City’s street grid and POIs

Those edits are mainly based on areal photos from 2018 and 2020, complimented by photos from fotopolska.eu and of course my own experiences while walking around the town ;)

Progress (updated 27.10.2021):

Gifs:

• 07.2020 - Krotoszyn county

• 22.05.2021 - Bałtycka/Obornicka/Parnickiego

• 2019 and 05.2021 - Wrocław Station area

• 31.05.2021 - Wrocław, Krynicka/Bardzka/Armii Krajowej

• 13.09.2021 - Wrocław, Psie Pole neighbourhood - huge thanks to maraf24 for help ;)

• 21.10.2021 - Legnica, 100-lecia Odzyskania Niepodległości

• 25.10.2021 - Wrocław, Haukego-Bosaka/Pułaskiego/Traugutta/Krasińskiego

• 26.10.2021 - Wrocław, Gwarna/Kościuszki/Dworcowa/Piłsudskiego

• 26.10.2021 - Wrocław, Dworcowa/Kościuszki/Dąbrowskiego/Małachowskiego

• 27.10.2021 - Wrocław, Dąbrowskiego/Kościuszki/Pułaskiego/Małachowskiego

When working with OSM it’s generally fair to assume that textual data, like tag values, are encoded in UTF-8. Without this assumption, multilingual mapmaking would be almost impossible - custom fonts or browser settings would need to be specified for every language when displaying geocoding results, routing directions or map labels.

As part of the newly resurrected Engineering Working Group, I’m investigating ways to improve OSM’s software ecosystem. One of the top tasks for the EWG is localization, and standardized text encoding is a prerequisite for this, but OSM does not enforce any particular encoding as policy.

Where is the non-Unicode data?

The most obvious instance of non-Unicode in OSM is the Zawgyi encoding for Burmese text. For background on Zawgyi, see this post on the civil war between fonts in Myanmar.

The default Mapnik-based rendering on OpenStreetMap.org, openstreetmap-carto, uses Unicode fonts. Zawgyi-encoded tags appear obviously garbled on the map, with the combining mark ◌ visible:

Myanmar officially adopted Unicode in 2019, but the migration requires both digital services and end user devices to adopt the new standard. OSM still has mixed encodings; this significantly limits its usefulness as a dataset, for not only mappers using Burmese, but any global-scale data products such as geocoders and basemaps that touch Burmese text.

Zawgyi shares a similar space of code points with Unicode, so detecting Zawgyi-encoded text is not trivial. Google and Facebook have open sourced a ML-based model for this detection: see Facebook’s path from Zawgyi to Unicode - which determines a probability an input string is Zawgyi. I have created a list of all OSM name tags with >90% probability according to this model here:

zawgyi_90pct.tsv

The Osmium script to generate this list from a PBF extract is on GitHub.

Next Steps

• A high-quality conversion of non-Unicode data requires users proficient in the written script, ideally native speakers/readers. If you’re a Burmese reader and are interested in this task, please leave a reply.
• The ML model for Zawgyi detection is trained on longer text. Evaluate if it is sufficient for classifying short place names like in OSM.
• Identify what, if anything, should be done at the editor level to detect encodings. For a mapper with Zawgyi set at a device-level, text encoding conflicts will be invisible.
• Does your language have text encoding problems in OSM ? Another, less critical area is the issue of Han Unification (Unihan) characters, but the solutions to this are outside the design of Unicode.

… da fallen einem paar Sachen unangenehm, nervig oder interessant auf, die will ich mal hier festhalten.

Vorweg. Ich hab die letzten Wochen meine Zeit vertrödelt um Thüringer Autobahnen mit Leitplanken zu beglücken. Mehrwert nahe -Null, aber da in der letzten Zeit die Relevanzdiskussionen in OSM immer ekliger werden, dachte ich mir: mach mal was hart OTG, wo Dir keiner vorn Karren scheisst. (Siehe auch) Bis auf die A 71 ist das nun flächendeckend, bei der geh ich’s nun aber bisschen langsamer an.

Ärmel hochgekrempelt und die A 4(overpass) als Beispiel gehts los.

Gibt 2 Arten von Leitplanken, barrier=guard_rail und barrier=jersey_barrier. Ersteres sind die Aludinger, letzteres die Betonklumpen. (Gibt noch ne dritte Art, das wäre barrier=kerb in Tunneln, aber das mach ich ma irnkwann, wenn mir nix anderes doofes einfällt. Vielleicht gibt’s dann hier im Kino was neues dazu.) Die Betondinger sind gern in der Nähe von Brücken anzutreffen, die Aludinger haben auf Brücken gern die Eigenschaft two_sided=yes.

Hach Brücken, hat man mal paar 100km Leitplanken gemappt fällt auf oder ein: Brücken und layer. Also den ganzen Kladderadatsch noch mal “abgelaufen” und layer zugefügt. Im selben Atemzug ca. 50% fehlende man_made=bridge ergänzt incl. Schere im Kopf, was jetzt bridge und/oder tunnel ist. Die ganzen Relevanz- oder echten Diskussionen zum Thema ignoriert und nach gusto “korrigiert”. Meine Interpretation: wenn am Luftbild erkennbar ist, dass die Strasse “überirdisch” verläuft, dann ist es eine Brücke. Ich möchte da hier nicht drüber diskutieren, das Thema ist ein anderes. Und semi-unlösbare Spezielfälle gibts auch.

Wo war ich?

Jedes Mal, wenn ich die Autobahnen ablaufe, finde ich neue Sachen die fehlen.

Was jetzt noch fehlt sind:

• area:highway derzeit in Thü potent (heisst: fehlt dort eher nicht) an der A 9
• barrier=wall/fence neben der Autobahn.
• embankment/cutting neben/an der Autobahn.
• man_made=gantry / Oder Schilder allgemein
• tourism=information/board
• landuse/natural: gibt Haufen begrünte Mittelstreifen, in OSM grob übern Daumen 5% Oder Randstreifen.
• demletzt im Forum: “destination” sollte überall hin und nicht nur in die Nähe von Auf/Abfahrten

(tl:dr: Lasst uns unbedingt nicht mehr vorhandene Bahnstrecken löschen, wir haben viel zu viel unnütze Daten!!111 (wer Polemik findet, bitte behalten))

QA:

• wikiseite zu man_made=bridge meint, dass bridge=yes mit man_made=bridge Schnittpunkte haben sollte. Realität: ca 50%
• Brücken sind in diversen Luftbildern begradigt oder komplett (ge)schief(t). GPS-Tracks oder mapillary-tracks ziehen hilft die halbwegs realistisch in die Karte zu bekommen.

P.s. Die fehlenden Sachen sind in Thü im Vergleich zu anderen Bundesländern eher unterrepräsentiert aber immer noch zu um die 50% (nicht) vorhanden.

Noch so Sachen:

• jersey_barrier hat im Regelfall so nen kleines Häkchen im Anschluss zum Guard_rail: (https://www.picflash.org/viewer.php?img=kdp8q58zjqxher.png) (Kramdown: arr!)

• ich habe mir erlaubt beim Wechsel von 2 Mittelleitplanken zu einer den Übergang generell an man_made=bridge zu pappen. Wenn da wer die bleibenden 2-4 Meter korrigieren möchte: nur zu.

P.p.s Carto-entwickler meinen, dass Wegen unterhalb man_made_bridge+layer=1+ als “covered”=”yes” betaggen kein mappen für den Renderer ist. Ich hab da ein paar Tage drüber geschlafen und bin mir nicht einig, ob ich das gut oder schlecht finde. Ich tendiere eher dazu, dass man covered taggen (vulgo: für den Renderer) sollte.

Objective

For a while now I’ve been contributing in smallish countryside cities. While not small through their surface area nor their population count, they have a low proportion of active OpenStreetMap contributors and their urban development share a common pattern that is “downtown commercial arteries” leading me to classify them as “countryside cities” rather than “modern evolved and distributed cities”. Those commercial arteries are defined by a street network of mixed uses buildings with shops at ground level and housing at higher levels ; Walking down one of these street, one could model the facade as a succession of doors allowing access to either a shop or housings and that’s exactly what I am looking a software for.

Criterias

I have searched and tested multiple solutions in my journey but haven’t quite found the ideal one so far. The criterias I am looking for are as follows:

• Lightweight: I’m one of those still using old hardware limited both in memory and performance ;
• Offline map: I’m a cheap guy, allow me to cache the mapping area through WiFi before leaving home ;
• “Notes” creation rather than Waypoints: Most of the apps allows you to create “waypoints” on a GPS trace, while those have their use I definitely can’t use those as GPS function is rather battery intensive and high-rise buildings, or simply clouds, highly affects signal quality. Given a map (see aforementioned point) I would rather be allowed to pinpoint a location and add my own tags to it. Those data could then be exported to a computer to be processed through comparison with OpenStreetMap data.

While not dealbreaking, the app use could be extended through an uncluttered UI and workflow, a customizable presets to one-tap buttons function could make themed mapping parties a breeze, and pictures/voice records.

Tested solutions

Below are some solutions I tested with no success so far.

“Utility” solutions

Three applications stood out for their uses, having clear aims, they offer both mapping function and lightweightness. Sadly, none of them fill all my criterias.

• Keypad Mapper 3: The last version of the Keypad Mapper suite, last updated in 2013, is explicitly oriented toward house numbering. While offering rather interesting functions such as “relative to position note location”, it doesn’t offer presets nor pinpoint function. It is GPS dependent and while one could use the pad to write comments instead of housenumbers the process would be painfully slow. Moreover, there seems to be an issue with the app making users share cell towers location to CellTowerID. While I do contribute to this database too, I would rather have the choice to do so ;
• OSMTracker: One of the KeypadMapper successors, while not being perfect offers more flexibility and uses. As I see it, the application follows the same workflow of a buttons-filled screen but with the possibility to create presets. The so called custom layouts, while rather difficult to create, can easily be shared to multiple devices. The only downside in my opinion is the once again “waypoint GPS dependent” function rather than a pinpoint one ;
• StreetComplete: While having many benefits, StreetComplete is too limited for my use. Its main aim could be described as “data refinement” rather than mapping. Furthermore, it only offers limited offline functions ;
• GeoNotes (Suggested by GOwin): The closest app to what I’m searching so far. It is indeed very lightweight and run smoothly on my device allowing me to take notes and pictures to export. On the other hand it still insists on having my position without the option to disable it and offer no offline map. I still decided to keep it and give it a try in the future with a few workaround for the two point aforementioned. One can decide to not give it the permission to search for location, an option to disable it would still be welcomed for less tech-vocab users and experimenting different methods. It’s still possible to use WiFi at home to cache an area data, Not sure about the memory cap but will certainly test it.

“Maps” solutions

These solutions deliver a map-like experience, which can be extended with some freemapping functions at the cost of ressources use and device bloating. Using those for mapping require prior mapping experience and can be clunky for first time users.

• Organic Maps: A fork developped by the MapsMe team, without any editing capabilities. I find it quite interesting in its own category, that is an offline map, and could use it as my main smartphone map application given some refinement. One thing I disliked while testing it is the absence of option to turn off GPS, launching the app automatically starts location search even before acquiring map data (that needs to be downloaded at first use). I have high expectations for this app in the future if given the option to turn off GPS (using it as a map exclusively) and some refinement to the search function ;
• OSMAnd: One of Android OpenStreetMap based bigshots and my main smartphone map application. It offers both a map and editing functions but I find it quite cluttered and ressources heavy. Not using it daily, I often find myself lost in the interface. Some links directing to the same content while important ones are scattered among minor ones. I would prefer a standalone application to this, more lightweighted that could be installed on devices for mapping parties.

“Editors” solutions

Fully fledged map editors offer limitless tagging possibilities to users at the cost of being too complex for beginners and ressources intensive. I would rather have a lightweight data surveyal tool and a power editor at home than having under my, more often than not, frozen fingers a tool capable of nuking entire OpenStreetMap areas given an hazardous tap.

• Vespucci: The community goldstandard OpenStreetMap mobile editor, offers a complete contribution solution on a smartphone. Tried it once and instantly made my device freeze and reboot, potentially because its ressource consumption or my device being outdated. For the glimpse I caught of the user interface, it seemed very bloated on my small screened device ;
• OsmGo! (Suggested by jambamkin): While not being what I’m looking for it’s nonetheless interesting. I see it as a kind of light iD with more than enough editing capabilities to work with POIs and nodes. It doesn’t seem to feature offline maps nor export function thus wouldn’t fit in my expected workflow.

Special cases

JOSM

My computer editor of choice for its capabilities and extensive addons library. On top of not being keen of the idea of laptop surveying, it would not be an acceptable solution for mapping parties and beginners. I would still use it to process surveys data, comparing with OpenStreetMap database.

Pen & Paper

Of course, the simplest, most accessible and lowtech answer would be to grab a pen and some paper onto which one could have printed the building footprint through OpenStreetMap. Using some kind of code it’s rather easy to have “presets”. Unfortunately that process is too time consuming, tinkering heavy and beginner unfriendly in my opinion.

Mapillary/KartaView

Until recently, I considered buying an action cam to survey street facades and upload pictures to Mapillary and/or KartaView (previously known as OpenStreetCam). The two of them are the most known survey pictures hosting services, and while sharing them under open licences they aren’t fully opensource. The aquisition of Mapillary by Facebook back in 2020 has been a major dealbreaker to me while looking for a decentralized and fairer internet and the idea will be undefinitely pending until the next Mapillary.

Conclusion

During my journey I searched for a way to make street surveyal easier. So far, one have to stop at each doorstep to take notes while hoping to have a precise enough GPS signal. My main take on it would be to completely ditch the use of GPS location service for an offline map marker system. So far I found offline maps or marker solutions, but none offered both of them. The closest is GeoNotes, courtesy of GOwin, which isn’t perfect but fine enough for fieldtesting (I’ll try to come back and give an update once that’s done). Once again, the ideal workflow as I see it would be a lightweight smartphone application that allows its user to describe elements’ succession while walking down a street before exporting it to a computer for further processing. I am by no mean expert in UI, UX, software development nor even GIS. This diary entry simply aims to share my idea upon making data surveyal easier through a basic application that could be further extended by users feedback.

Edit: Formatting, typo and moved JOSM to “special cases” as someone who, didn’t liked me putting it next to Vespucci in the “Editor” category, nagged me to do so. Also added some users’ suggestions.

The LCCWG is excited to invite OpenStreetMap local chapters and community organisers and leaders to the 2021 Local Chapters and Communities Congress!

The LCCC 2021 is a virtual event where leaders and members of various OSM communities, whether they are officially recognized Local Chapters of the OSM Foundation or just a regular user group of OSM mappers, come together to share stories and learn from each other.

Last year, 35 community leaders came together from more than 20 different countries and the LCCWG is asking you to spread the word far and wide so that even more communities come to exchange knowledge and build networks this year!

The LCCC takes place online on 06 November from 1200 – 1500 UTC and you can find more details on the OSM wiki, here.

12/10/2021-18/10/2021

Mapping campaigns

• The Planning Department of the Ministry of Education in Madagascar, in collaboration with the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP-UNESCO) and UN Mappers, is seeking to map the full road network of the Vakinankaratra region to make sure that the journey to school for children can be as straightforward as possible. The road network produced will then be processed using the IIEP-UNESCO school catchment plugin to assess travel times. A mapathon open to everyone will be held next Wednesday 27 October.

Mapping

• Mapillary’s change from API version 3 to 4 has apparently resulted in changed photo IDs, which had been tagged in OSM on some objects with mapillary=*. There is a discussion on the tagging mailing list about how to handle the tag in the future. Mateusz Konieczny proposes abolishing the tag if a changeover is not possible.
• Sebastian asked > the talk-de mailing list how to correctly record hydrants with blue bordered signs and if there is an already established procedure.
• DUGA humorously describes mapping practices that they believe are incorrect and offers better solutions, which are also welcomed to be discussed in the comments.
• Requests have been made for comments on the following proposals:
  • inlet=* for tagging the details of where the flow enters a culvert or pipeline.
  • Avalanche transceiver training zones for mapping areas where skiers can practice using their avalanche beacon.
• Voting has ended for the following proposals:
  • natural=fumarole, to map an opening in our planet’s crust, which emits steam and gases, was approved with 16 votes for, 0 votes against and 0 abstentions.
  • landuse:secondary=*, for mapping multiple land uses in a single area, was not successful with 14 votes for, 23 votes against and 3 abstentions.
  • headlight=*, for reflecting the legal requirement on some roads to use your headlights, was approved with 28 votes for, 1 vote against and 0 abstentions.
  • foraging=*, to indicate whether or not foraging for plants/fruit/fungi etc. is permissible for a given location or plant, was approved with 11 votes for, 0 votes against and 3 abstentions.
• tffmh has reviewed the streets of Mühlheim an der Ruhr to make sure the de:strassenschluessel (a street’s unique identifier) and etymology are correct.

Community

• arnalielsewhere shared the collaboration project: ‘Localization as an Inclusion and Participatory Enabler’, which aims to bridge the gap between language and accessibility of HOT Humanitarian Open Mapping resources. The project is in collaboration with local communities and contributors from Vietnam, Madagascar, and Mozambique, as well as the Open Mapping Hubs in the Asia-Pacific and East and Southern Africa.
• The HOT Open Mapping – Asia Pacific Hub is launching ‘She Leads and She Inspires’, a programme that will engage 100 women between December 2021 and June 2022.
• Volunteers are needed from all corners of the global OpenStreetMap community to participate in the OSMF Moderation Team to lead efforts to keep the lists safe, welcoming, and inclusive.
• Many user accounts were created in order to vote in the proposal to include cryptocurrencies into the payment tag, resulting in questioning whether it could be an issue or not and how the voting system could be reduced to absurdity through mass new user account creation.
• Valerio Bozzolan illustrated how he maps and locates veterinarians for rabbits with an expansion of a proposal submitted in 2012 to detail veterinary tagging.
• Feye Andal reviewed her work as the Southeast Asia YouthMappers Ambassador in 2021. The number of chapters in the region grew from four to nine.

OpenStreetMap Foundation

• Allan Mustard, current chair of the OpenStreetMap Foundation board, announced that he will not be standing for re-election.
• On the OSMF-Talk mailing list, Dorothea Kazazi announced that questions to candidates in the next OSMF board elections can be submitted on a OSM wiki page until 2 November.
• The Openstreetmap Foundation Local Chapters and Communities Working Group (LCCWG) is inviting you to the Local Chapters and Communities Congress 2021 on 6 November.
• The Microgrants Committee has submitted a report on the trial run of the OSMF microgrants programme. Project reports by grantees are also linked off the same page.

Local chapter news

• [1] The France OSM community celebrated > the 10^th anniversary of the foundation of OSM-FR with meetings linked by BigBlueButton. A special delegation visited the site of the meeting which created OSM France, and left a (temporary) plaque.
• The call for proposals of State of the Map US 2022 (1 to 3 April 2022 in Tucson, Arizona) is open until 17 December 2021.

OSM research

• Siddharth Joshi et al. have published an article in Nature Communications on a global assessment of rooftop solar photovoltaic’s potential for renewable electricity generation. The study used road and building data from OpenStreetMap.

Humanitarian OSM

• The HOT Disaster Services Team have shared an after action report on the activation in response to the Mediterranean Wildfires, sharing their internal assessment of how the activation was carried out.
• The HOT Quality Control and Assurance Working Group has started a Tasking Manager Project Gardening Process wiki page with the objective of defining the workflow for the administration of the Tasking Manager, specifically the oversight of projects. Phase 1 looks at archiving projects that no longer have a reason to remain active on the Tasking Manager.

Maps

• webkid have produced an OSM based map which shows the age of every building in Berlin using a public dataset. The map is used under the title – ‘Old or new building? So lives Berlin’ – on an interactive site of the Berliner Morgenpost.
• Aishworya Shrestha from Kathmandu Living Labs announced the launch of the Before-After Map Query tool and invited users to make maps of their own areas. This query tool shows data for a place at two different points in time. Its main objective is to compare how a particular area looks in two different years, side by side, and show local mapping efforts over a specific time period. Users must provide name and email details to be notified once the map is generated.

Software

• The Geo Data Merger is a desktop open source tool for merging data from csv, json, geo- and topojson files.
• During this year’s State of the Map, Davey Lovin (user mDav) introduced a webmap and quality assurance tool for long distance hiking trails. Superroute aims to gather together a community of hikers to maintain and improve the data quality of these trails.
• The A/B Street traffic simulator now lets you reimagine your city as it would be if designed for safe travel by bicycle. This extension of the project aims to show how such changes to the road network would impact travels citywide.

Programming

• HeiGIT and HOT have partnered together and extended the Humanitarian OSM Stats website to help relay mapping statistics to the public. It includes data, not only from HOT Tasking Manager projects, but also from all the other OSM contributors.

Did you know …

• … that it is possible to run Go Map!! on your Mac?
• … Organic Maps? Another offline map app using OpenStreetMap data, forked from MAPS.ME, it features no ads, no tracking, nor data collection.

Other “geo” things

• Google unnecessarily continues to censor part of Israel after receiving updated imagery from Airbus.

Upcoming Events

Where	What	Online	When	Country
Черкаси	Open Mapathon: Digital Cherkasy		2021-10-24 – 2021-11-20	ua
Budapest	Survey around the University of Óbuda (please vote!)		2021-10-25
Hlavní město Praha	“50 years of MSF” mapathon with Missing Maps CZ community 2021 #6		2021-10-25
	Code for Toyama City シビックテックナイト#33 参加できるデジタル地図づくり		2021-10-25
Bremen	Bremer Mappertreffen (Online)	✓	2021-10-25
San Jose	South Bay Map Night	✓	2021-10-27
Derby	East Midlands OSM Pub Meet-up : Derby		2021-10-26
Bruxelles – Brussel	OpenStreetMap Belgium IRL meeting		2021-10-26
	Mapathon: United Nations for Madagascar		2021-10-27
Düsseldorf	Düsseldorfer OSM-Treffen (online)		2021-10-27
Decatur County	OSM US Mappy Hour		2021-10-28
	[Online] OpenStreetMap Foundation board of Directors – public videomeeting		2021-10-29
Amsterdam	OSM Nederland maandelijkse bijeenkomst (online)	✓	2021-10-30
Prévessin-Moëns	Cartographie dans le Pays de Gex		2021-10-31
	[Online] OpenStreetMap Foundation – Board of directors and advisory board public videomeeting		2021-11-02
Greater London	Missing Maps London Mapathon		2021-11-02
Landau an der Isar	Virtuelles Niederbayern-Treffen	✓	2021-11-02
Nordrhein-Westfalen	OSM-Treffen Bochum (November)		2021-11-04
	OSM Local Chapters & Communities Virtual Congress		2021-11-06
	Crowd2Map is 6! Join our party mapathon to learn more about our work..		2021-11-07
臺北市	OSM x Wikidata Taipei #34		2021-11-08
Zürich	OSM-Treffen Zürich		2021-11-11
Berlin	161. Berlin-Brandenburg OpenStreetMap Stammtisch	✓	2021-11-11
	FOSS4G State of the Map Oceania 2021		2021-11-12

Note:
If you like to see your event here, please put it into the OSM calendar. Only data which is there, will appear in weeklyOSM.

This weeklyOSM was produced by Climate_Ben, Lejun, Michael Montani, Nakaner, Nordpfeil, PierZen, SK53, Strubbl, TheSwavu, YoViajo, arnalielsewhere, derFred, tordans.

I’m having a ton of fun trying to fix up my local community and close surrounding areas and other little interesting things. Here’s hoping that what I am doing will have an impact on someone’s journey thru town or even one of my fellow locals! I’m having a blast as a beginner, why didn’t I do this sooner?!

Hoje venho compartilhar com vocês as novas pastas criada pelo IBGE ( Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e estatisticas ) orgão que disponibiliza os dados para que possamos mapear e atualizar os dados existente no Openstreetmap para o Brasil.

Só tinhamos dados de 2010 da area Urbana e 2017 da area Rural, hoje temos dados de 2019 e 2020.

Esse link tem os endereços para baixar os arquivos zipados de 2010, 2019 e 2020. https://geoftp.ibge.gov.br/recortes_para_fins_estatisticos/malha_de_setores_censitarios/censo_2010/

No Gith temos esse repositorio com os endereços para baixar os arquivos e ainda disponibilizados os arquivos para baixar no modo torrent, facilitando ainda mais o donwload dos arquivos. https://github.com/vgeorge/cnefe

Baixar torrent dos arquivos do IBGE.

ARQUIVO PDF CNEFE 2010 https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vgeorge/cnefe/master/torrent/cnefe-2010.torrent

Faces de Logradouros (2010) https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vgeorge/cnefe/master/torrent/cnefe-2010-logradouros-2010.torrent

Faces de Logradouros (2019) https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vgeorge/cnefe/master/torrent/cnefe-2010-logradouros-2019.torrent

Faces de Logradouros (2020) https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vgeorge/cnefe/master/torrent/cnefe-2010-logradouros-2020.torrent

FTP IBGE - 2010. https://geoftp.ibge.gov.br/recortes_para_fins_estatisticos/malha_de_setores_censitarios/censo_2010/base_de_faces_de_logradouros_versao_2010/

FTP IBGE - 2019. https://geoftp.ibge.gov.br/recortes_para_fins_estatisticos/malha_de_setores_censitarios/censo_2010/base_de_faces_de_logradouros_versao_2019/

FTP IBGE 2020. https://geoftp.ibge.gov.br/recortes_para_fins_estatisticos/malha_de_setores_censitarios/censo_2010/base_de_faces_de_logradouros_versao_2020/

Today I come to share with you the new folders created by the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) which makes the data available so that we can map and update the existing data on Openstreetmap for Brazil.

We only had data for 2010 for the Urban area and 2017 for the Rural area, today we have data for 2019 and 2020.

This link has the addresses to download the zipped files for 2010, 2019 and 2020. https://geoftp.ibge.gov.br/recortes_para_fins_estatisticos/malha_de_setores_censitarios/censo_2010/

At Gith we have this repository with the addresses to download the files and also the files to download in torrent mode, making it even easier to download the files. https://github.com/vgeorge/cnefe

Download torrent from IBGE archives.

CNEFE PDF FILE 2010 https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vgeorge/cnefe/master/torrent/cnefe-2010.torrent

Sides of Streets (2010) https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vgeorge/cnefe/master/torrent/cnefe-2010-logradouros-2010.torrent

Sides of Streets (2019) https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vgeorge/cnefe/master/torrent/cnefe-2010-logradouros-2019.torrent

Sides of Streets (2020) https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vgeorge/cnefe/master/torrent/cnefe-2010-logradouros-2020.torrent

FTP IBGE - 2010. https://geoftp.ibge.gov.br/recortes_para_fins_estatisticos/malha_de_setores_censitarios/censo_2010/base_de_faces_de_logradouros_versao_2010/

FTP IBGE - 2019. https://geoftp.ibge.gov.br/recortes_para_fins_estatisticos/malha_de_setores_censitarios/censo_2010/base_de_faces_de_logradouros_versao_2019/

FTP IBGE 2020. https://geoftp.ibge.gov.br/recortes_para_fins_estatisticos/malha_de_setores_censitarios/censo_2010/base_de_faces_de_logradouros_versao_2020/

capmas

It took us 2 years, and 22 days but it’s now “complete.” 😉

Well, at least, all the published tasks has been completely reviewed, resulting in 39,129 mapped schools out of the 39,966 tasks. An additional 837 tasks has also been reviewed but was deemed unverifiable, or needed further information.

The school dataset was informally released to the OSM-PH community in 2013 but languished in the pipeline because of a murky data license until official permission to use it with OpenStreetMap was obtained in 2016. Even with that out of the way, it still needed tons of work before it was ready for use.

In October 2019, the cleaned-up dataset was made into a MapRoulette challenge, as a practical mapping exercise for MapAmore’s mentoring program for NSTP volunteer students from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines’ campus in San Juan City.

However, a few months after we started, the coronavirus pandemic ensued, and we were unable to pursue the mentoring program, or face-to-face mapathons. Thankfully, a wider OSM community took up the slack.

School data in OSM

At the end of 2018, there were 16,445 Philippine schools in the OSM database. Today it has grown 284%, at 46,638 schools, and most are mapped as polygons, with additional attributes added, thanks to information provided by the Department of Education.

You can download the Philippine school dataset using this Overpass query.

So, how was it?

Apart from the obvious, that is mapping the schools themselves, the effort positively impacted OpenStreetMap in the country, and has substantially improved the fundamental quality of the local OSM database (e.g. routing for navigation, place names, and schools, of course). The schools became effective proxies of previously un-mapped settlements in the Philippines. Many contributors has added other features, including remote sitios (hamlets) and purok (zones), local parks, gyms – even flagpoles! – while working on their respective OSMaPaaralan tasks.

OSM in the Philippines now has the most comprehensive open dataset for schools, with more accurate geographic locations verified through up-to-date aerial imagery. Most school buildings, as well as surrounding highways has been mapped, too.

We have learned that direct engagements through mapathons is a fun and fast way of completing a large number of tasks, and investing in quality training is paramount to ensuring quality output.

We also observed that using RapId instead of regular iD allowed us to maximize our investments in training, and tap the power of artificial intelligence detection of road networks.

It also goes to say that “deadlines” won’t always work. In the beginning, I projected the project’s completion within 12 months, with regular mapathons from our NSTP mentoring program, and the contributions of the general community, but the corona virus way-laid those plans.

In the end, the Pareto Principle (aka the “80/20 rule”) held true: a smaller group of people contribute the most number of features. In our case, from the pool of 1,577 usernames who’ve added at least one Philippine school in OSM, a handful of contributors were responsible for 79.74% of total schools added.

All contributions, of course, are valuable. This understanding is important if you’re embarking in any similar effort, to learn why these mappers are motivated (altruism, personal goals, ideologies, etc.) and how to effectively work with them.

Thank you!!

Our warmest thanks to everyone who mapped a school in the Philippines – and those people and orgs external to OSM who supported (venue hosts, snack donors, Internet service support, your kind words) us ! 😍

Just for fun, here’s a wordcloud of usernames who has mapped at least one school in the country:

radikal ang mag-mah̶a̶l̶pa

* Auto-magically generated using wordclouds.com using weighted usernames based on OSM data count of schools contributed. A high-res version of this image is available here.

What’s next?

We’re excited with what’s possible with the data:

• Next year, we’re having a national general elections, and apps could leverage this dataset in assisting (new) voters to find their respective polling precincts.
  • the feedback could be useful for adding missing, or mislocated schools, too
• It would be easier for local authorities to update their disaster preparedness plans, since schools in our country are often designated or utilized as a shelter during emergencies.
• There are still over 4,000 unpublished tasks (because of issues with their provided geographic locations – missing, invalid, or improbable) and we are planning to make these available soon. Perhaps, as a monthly project to tackle at the province level.
• We’ve requested Education department to release additional datasets for schools created after 2012, and informed them of the improved version available in OSM.
• Or, somebody from the local community might come up with a different project altogether!

Currently upgrading around Mid-Selwyn area.

Including: - Residential areas - Buildings - Roads - Intersections - General tidying up

I would like to start by explaining that this is an exercise in imagination on how we could improve the UX/UI in the OSM profile, this means that some changes were based on my experience and there are still some things missing that I have not explored, like the Diaries, settings and Messages, I would love to get feedbacks from you!!!

More social and personal

OpenStreetMap is a platform that encompasses not only the map but also its mappers and their communities. To start, I chose to give an air of greater personalization to the profile, bringing a larger picture of the user and a cover giving more room for customization, so they can show more of their passions beyond the map. Bringing a more familiar experience as in other social networks I gave a greater emphasis to the follow button and replacing the “add as friend” function that nowadays is kind of in disuse not to say “cringe”, A good function would be to be able to choose and manage who can follow you and from that who can send you messages too, giving more control to the user of who can follow and send messages can reduce the number of spam. Another point would be to show which organizations the person participates so it would be easier for other mappers to identify paid mappers, for example.

More statistics please!

One of the things missing in OSM profile is statistics. This is useful to know better who is the profile owner but also for future employers.

Gamefication

How to motivate the mappers more? given goals to be achieved! One of the things that most motivated me to continue mapping was to complete all the Missing Maps Bagdes. I am not only talking about a baghdad system and goals, but also a scoring system based on what is edited or added. Another point would be bagdes for participation in mapathons promoted by local and international communities demonstrating that the mapper is an active person in the community.

Profile of Organizations and Teams

The same way Github has specific pages for organizations OSM should also have, this would make it easier to know who are the organizations that work on OSM, who participates and where they participate, the intention is to better centralize the information. Today if we see that each OSM application has a different way to divide their teams and track their performance what I propose is that teams are created directly on OSM and made available via API for other applications

Eu gostaria de inicio explicar que se trata de um exercício de imaginação de como poderíamos melhorar a UX/UI no perfil do OSM, isso quer dizer que algumas mudanças foram com base na minha experiencia e ainda faltam algumas coisas que não explorei, como os Diários, configurações e Mensagens, adoraria receber o feedbacks de vocês!!

Mais social e pessoal

OpenStreetMap é uma plataforma que engloba não só o mapa mais também seus mapeadores e suas comunidades. para começar optei por dar um ar de personalização maior para o perfil, trazendo uma foto maior do usuário e uma capa dando um maior espaço para personalização, para que possam demostrar mais suas paixões além do mapa. Trazendo uma experiência mais familiar como em outras redes sociais dei um maior destaque para o botão de seguir e substituindo a função “adicionar como amigo” que nos dias de hoje está meio em desuso para não se dizer “cringe”, Uma boa função seria poder escolher e gerenciar quem pode te seguir e a partir disso quem pode te mandar mensagem também, dando mais controle ao usuário de quem pode segui-lo e mandar mensagem pode diminuir o numero de spam. Outro ponto seria mostrar quais organizações a pessoa participa assim ficariam mais fácil para outros mapeadores identificarem mapeadores pagos por exemplo.

Mais estatísticas por favor!

Uma das coisas que falta no perfil do OSM é estatísticas isso serve até para conhecer melhor quem é o dono perfil mais também para empregadores futuros

Gamefication

Como motivar mais os mapeadores? dado objetivos a serem cumpridos! Umas das coisas que mais me motivaram em continuar mapeando foi completar todas as Bagdes do Missing Maps. Não falo somente em um sistema de bagdes e metas mas também um sistema de pontuação com base no que for editado ou adicionado. Outro ponto seria bagdes por participação em mapathons promovidos pelas comunidades locais e internacionais demostrando que o mapeador é uma pessoa ativa na comunidade.

Perfil de Organizações e times

Da mesma forma em que o Github tem paginas especificas para organizações o OSM também deveria ter, isso facilitaria conhecer quem são as organizações que trabalham no OSM, quem participa e onde participam, a intenção é centralizar melhor as informações. Hoje se formos ver cada aplicação do OSM tem uma maneira diferente de dividir seus times e acompanhar seu desempenho o que proponho é que sejam criados times direto no OSM e disponibilizado via API para outras aplicações

Avenida Joaquina Ramalho 100% numerada , incluso pontos de interesses atualizados

When the current OSMF board some time ago spoke (during a board meeting) of the upcoming OSMF board election season as silly season i interpreted that as a indication of highly problematic collective and undifferentiated disrespect and loathing for the constituency (what we in German call Wählerbeschimpfung). I failed to consider that this would be prophetic regarding board members’ own actions during this time.

Compare:

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Foundation/AGM21/Election_to_Board#List

and last paragraph of:

https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/mikelmaron/diary/391498

(in the not unlikely case of retroactive censorship here is the permanent record).

OTOH of course the saying is: In a democracy people (collectively) always get the government they deserve…

The FOSS4G SotM Oceania Perth Hub conference program has just been announced, with a few things about OSM (including a small talk by me, but I’m not promising anything amazing!). The bit I’m most excited about is an OSM workshop all day on Saturday the 13th: everyone should come along, with laptops, cameras, and GPSs (or just a phone), and learn to edit the map!

What I did in OpenStreetMap in September 2021

(I was on holidays for a few weeks in September)

• Mapping
  • I can’t remember for sure. Since I was travelling outside Germany, I was able to add lots of things that are all done in England. Thank the gods for StreetComplete. I really think it’s wonderful.
  • I was able to do some micromapping with vespucci fedi post, tweet
• OSMF Board
  • Our bookkeeper needed my new address & IBAN to pay me expenses I incurred doing CWG stuff
  • Filed expense account for the payment, and filled in the OSMF board internal wiki page, and then posted on Mastodon/fediverse
  • WeeklyOSM № 579 says “at present announcements of upcoming meetings are being made within a week of the meeting, so it is not possible for us to announce them accordingly”. I got in touch, and tried to explain that we only finalize the agenda 7 days before the meeting. The dates are announced well in advance
  • I posted a status update on board decision re: ToU on osm-website github
  • Sept Board meeting, ensured the LCCWG mod subcttee were aware.
  • SotM & “illegal to be gay”
    • Emailed board to say SotM OC & HOT Board, and talked at the Sept. mid-month chat
  • HOT Trademark grant, emailed LWG to confirm they want a new call
  • Since I’ve changed my name, I had to upload a new signature
  • Local Chapters
    • seav is going to help with upgrading Local Chapters to the new Local Chapters Agreement
  • EU Transparency Reg: logged in with reset password & updated details
  • AGM
    • Emailed Michael Collinson if he’d want to do the Q&A facilitation again
    • Thomas__ made new graphs of OSMF membership numbers, I updated the wiki page
    • emailed osmf-talk to remind them about resolutions
  • Replied to email from a company about trademarks
  • Talked to 2 people to run for the board
  • Attented 2 × 1 hour calls from mod subcttee
  • Since I was travelling, I missed the Sept 2021 OSMF Board meeting.
• CWG
  • Promotional Material Programme
    • posted ~600 stickers to Berlin, and Italy
    • ordered another 1,000 OSM Surveyor Was Here stickers, they’re quite popular!
    • After someone asked on the fediverse, I asked if we could make StreetComplete stickers (“I’m not against it”)
  • Wrote a draft OSM Blog post for the Mastodon server
• Sept 2021 Karlsruhe hack weekend
  • First hack weekend in 1½ years (due to corona)
  • It was great to see many people again. Alas we had to keep the numbers small.
  • I talked to xamanu who’s been doing lots of good work with making proper, modern Debian packages for lots of OSM software like mod_tile or Tirex.
  • I attempted to fix mod_tile bug #188 which I have encountered a few times. I haven’t made much progress, but it was fun to get down and dirty with poking an apache module in C.

2021: Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug.

2020: Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec.

Detalles

As a validator and #Slack validation channel visitor I am regularly confronted with complaints from fellow validators about the sometimes bad quality of the mappings of beginner mappers. This refers especially to buildings and to a lesser extent highways. Adding to the frustration is that instructive comments after invalidation of tasks hardly seem to be read by these same beginner mappers. The result is often that a task is invalidated several times for much the same reason(s).

Therefore validators can get the feeling that they are “fighting against all odds”. This can work as a demotivating factor. Possibly that even some validators quit validating.

Several solutions have been tried and applied. Ranging from getting the notifications more in sight within the Tasking Manager, limiting iD Editor in which features can be mapped to making Project authors creating their project more beginner friendly.

And of course there are the training webinars organized by the Training Working Group. These are good introductions for new mappers to get themselves onboard. However, they are imo mainly visited by the more motivated mappers. While the bulk of the problem is with the large group of casual mappers, of whom some only map incidentally (e.g. during a one-time mapathon event).

But why not attack the issue right from the start? Why not educate new mappers before they make their first edit?

There are several possibilities.

Sandpit

A virtual space where new mappers can exercise their skills and get some form of basic automatic feedback. Mimicking how mapping a real world task would look like. The mappings will not be saved in the OSM database, so mappers can make mistakes without consequences. Feedback is given automatically, through popups or messages in the margins. The ID Editor WalkThrough could serve as an example.

Quiz

New mappers can do an introductory quiz/questionnaire. After successfully completing it they can earn a badge. This badge could be placed on their Tasking Manager profile.

This is already happening on a small scale, with success, at Crowd2Map. It turns out that mappers like it and the quality of their mapping improves.

Introductory video

New mappers get to see an introductory video after their first login. This video is short enough to keep their attention and covers all important subjects.

Feasibility

The most ideal would be the sandpit option. Creating a sandpit however involves developers. The Tech team was positive towards this. However circumstances (personnel shortage among others) hindered it being started up. For the time being this option is postponed.

The quiz could be placed on the hotosm courses site. This suggestion was investigated, but for several reasons did not materialize (personnel shortage among others).

An alternative could be to host it on an external source. Crowd2Map did this: their quiz is hosted by Canvas Network - Free online courses - MOOCs . Of course this brings with it limitations.

The most feasible option turned out to be the introductory video. The Training Working Group has much experience in making these sort of videos, so they could take care of this.

Voluntarily

It could be argued that an introductory sandpit or quiz, or even a video, raises a barrier for some mappers. It could give them a feeling they are “tested” before being able to take part in the mapping. And thus opposes the notion of inclusiveness that is at the heart of Openstreetmap.

It is therefore important to stress that this all is not mandatory. New mappers should be encouraged to take part in the introduction. If mappers refuse to do it, so be it.

But hey, in the context of HOT every mapper is tested in the end, namely by a validator.

What are your thoughts about this?

Or do you have other ideas to encourage good mapping from new users?

Please leave a reply in the comments. Thanks in advance.

Slack discussion about this subject: https://hotosm.slack.com/archives/C4GLC45PY/p1613406227116200

Early in 2021, we at the Open Mapping Hub - Asia Pacific (OMH-AP) first began discussions to collaborate with the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM), through the World Scout Bureau/Asia Pacific Region (WSB/APR). Both organizations understood the atypical environment and the challenges we are all working around with amidst the pandemic. On the other hand, we also saw exciting and innovative opportunities to bring together technology and open-source mapping through OpenStreetMap (OSM), and the energy of the young people that WOSM is working with in the region.

We are delighted to share that the OMH-AP and WOSM, through WSB/APR have signed a Letter of Intent on October 17, 2021, signifying a three-year agreement between the two organizations. It captures our mutual commitment of creating and using up-to-date, high quality map data in OSM for humanitarian response and decision-making in the region. Through this partnership, we aim to mobilize the network of Scouts from their 30 national Scout organizations within the Asia-Pacific Region to map from the grassroots level. Both OMH-AP and WOSM recognize that to achieve this impact, it is vital to work together as part of a larger movement.

In the Asia Pacific region alone, there are about 30 National Scout organizations with 30 million Scouts or around 75% of the total Scouts worldwide. WSB/APR and WOSM had been engaging their Scouts worldwide in the middle of the pandemic to continue Scouting@Home. Coordinating their initiatives and mobilizing the million Scouts, WOSM’s partnership with OMH-AP will help further these. Doing so will allow young people to have access to cutting edge technology, learn to map in OSM, and subsequently expand their knowledge and widen their understanding of their own neighborhood and communities.

Both organizations will be engaging the various National Scouts organizations for the next three years in the region, starting with select pilot countries to train their Scouts in mapping their communities. The OMH-AP and WOSM will also explore opportunities to promote the use of OSM data for the Scouts activities and other purposes, including disaster response and preparedness.

“This development provides an avenue for all the 30 National Scout organizations in the Asia Pacific and their Scouts to collaborate and provide significant contributions to the humanitarian mapping community”, expressed WSB/APR Regional Director, Mr. J. Rizal C. Pangilinan during the signing ceremony. He also mentioned his optimism of this partnership spreading not only in the Asia Pacific region, but also to the whole of WOSM.

“Scouts always take part in many humanitarian efforts across all the region,” shared Ambassador Ahmad Rusi from Indonesia, who is also the Chair of the APR Scout Committee. “The activities of the Scouts strengthen the resilience of the local communities in times of humanitarian crisis”.

“Mapping will enable the Scouts to explore the world around them and consciously observe their community. Hence there is a perfect synergy in our partnership,” OMH-AP Regional Director, Dr. Nama Budhathoki remarked. He believes we can bring together data, technology, and the young people to do interesting things in the region and promote a culture of evidence-based humanitarian decision making.

We look forward to beginning translating the Letter of Intent to reality. As our Regional Director emphasized, “Mapping is not just mapping. It is learning about the world.” This partnership between OMH-AP and WOSM exhibits our mutual goal to look for ingenious ways to engage the young people of the region, for them to be part of the wider community in the OSM movement, and to meaningfully contribute even during the time of COVID-19.

.

Bramford Lane in Ipswich is currently part closed for gas main works. Bramford Lane is a residential road in and out of west Ipswich in-between 2 main roads. It is signed as a local cycle route, and part of it is on national cycle route 51 (just off the part that is closed).

There are several schools and nurseries on or just off Bramford Lane and during the school run there is normally a large amount of traffic along the length of it, especially near the schools. Sometimes the traffic can come to a standstill in part due to the parking.

The roadworks are between Cromer/Eustace Road and Wallace Road, where there’s housing on one side and allotments on the other side of the road. The gas mains to properties are being replaced. All of the holes being dug on the side of the road furthest from the housing, with plenty of space to walk and cycle past most of the time.

The signage approaching the closure is saying road closed with a diversion at pretty much every side road along Bramford Lane. It’s nice to see that many of the signs are on the road instead of the pavement.

At the roadworks the closure is simply “Road closed”. Nothing about access still being open for or able to be used by people walking and cycling. The Wallace Road end is partially open so that residents have access to their properties, whilst the town end has the barriers closing it off more, requiring people to cycle or drive over the pavement to get past.

Occasionally there are vans parked or loading blocking the road, so having to cycle on the pavement, if it was The Netherlands, then cycle and walking provision would be standard through the roadworks in this scenario, with any vehicles parked in such a way to allow the walking and cycling to continue unhindered with the minimum of disruption.

Why should we emphasise that the road is open to people walking and cycling more?

• Suffolk County Council has declared a climate emergency, and as part of that they should be encouraging as much walking and cycling a possible.
• To help encourage people to walk and cycle shorter distances, when these temporary restrictions come up things should be done to encourage the walking and cycling of the shorter journeys, a bit like a trial for a low traffic neighbourhood.
• We should survey residents to see what they think about the reduced level of motor traffic and noise, would they like to have that more in the longer term? Could it be a way to start a conversation to get more low traffic neighbourhoods?
• Some diversion routes can be very long and inappropriate for people walking and cycling, yet they are rarely advertised, instead only have to guess if you can walk or cycle through, or review maps and other information for alternatives.
• Some people find it difficult to dismount and push their bike, they use the bike as a mobility aid and so need to stay on the bike.
• Bikes such as cargo bikes/trikes are often much easier to manoeuvre whilst sat on the bike with full control of the pedals and brakes, whereas pushing whilst on foot is a lot harder to control the bike.
• Alternative diversion routes will often be busier due to the higher level of motor traffic. This increases the road danger for people walking and cycling on the diversion routes, hence protecting infrastructure or alternative quieter routes should be found.

I’ve notice a change in the pattern of traffic along Bramford Lane due to the roadworks. There’s a lot less traffic along the length of Bramford Lane, however the motor traffic crossing Bramford Lane is much more noticeable

What can Suffolk County Council and other councils do to ensure that the roadworks are designed for active travel, especially when it’s other organisations who are doing the road closure?