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Wednesday, 14. January 2026

OpenStreetMap User's Diaries

the first 20.000 contributions

I’ve been updating bus routes;
it’s a fun task, but takes a real long time; slow progress in the wiki: osm.wiki/Braga

i’ve added tons of sidewalks and crosswalks and i’m totally happy to see them start rendering on OSMAnd;

if ppl actually used OSM while driving they would get vocal warnings for crosswalks, i’ve tried it before and it works and its really good to know wheneve

I’ve been updating bus routes;
it’s a fun task, but takes a real long time; slow progress in the wiki: osm.wiki/Braga

i’ve added tons of sidewalks and crosswalks and i’m totally happy to see them start rendering on OSMAnd;

if ppl actually used OSM while driving they would get vocal warnings for crosswalks, i’ve tried it before and it works and its really good to know whenever you approach a sidewalk as a driver; ofc this is a feature which is pedestrian centered, so the whole point is to especially help people navigate on foot; also i really like the added complexity layer when sidewalks appear on the map and you can actually start navigating the city through sidewalks, footways, footpaths and informal paths, the city is more interesting when seen through a walking perspective

we need to properly address this, i’m thinking of starting activism, we cant have 300 ppl getting run over per year (just in braga!)

i’m quite confused if and how exactly i should mark informal crossings (especially in cases where theres heavy crossing pedestrian and bike traffic (see: node/1888043292); it may seem easy but im afraid that ppl could get misled into crossing in a bad place;

there should be a more compreensive aproach to these situations so we can map this for safety first; then, we should take this stuff to city hall and press for more permanent proper solutions, like new crossroads and better safety measures!!!

as to sidewalks, it’s a bad situation; there are not as many as i believe there should be (this gets really bad as you get farther from the city center).

so many of the newer roads and rotundas dont even have a proper sidewalk, like whaaat;

i do this out of sheer worry bcs i know how hard it is to navigate the city while not knowing which side of the road you should be on to be able to actually get where you wanna go, bcs sidewalks collapse onto the road or suddenly dissappear into nowhere. (“wheres the crosswalk?”) so this feels important specially to point people towards the safest marked crossing and so they can check which sidewalk is in better state etc.

also i really like informal paths, and pedestrian exclusive paths like alleyways or roadside paths… i’ve added some of those to guimaraes already also;

one interesting case i found is this (rare in Braga) alley, which is closed off by a fence way/1463261788; - which is kind of a similar situation to this in guimaraes way/1463370151 ; in both cases they are exclusively pedestrian paths, which do exist, where built up, in the case of guimaraes have even public lighting equipment and stuff but they are closed off to the public (god knows why)= so i added them out of curiosity for osm urban dwellers; i tried to keep them clearly tagged as closed or having no entry or exit, but they do exist so i believe its ok to have them mapped, even if they are not allowed access for some reason

mapping for accessibility is a goal, but a bit complex; i havent mapped curbs to most of my crosswalk interventions yet, bcs sometimes its hard to know whats their state;

a thing i like are wayside shrines, i’m starting to map them, i’ve added 3 or 4 so far;

07:54 • 23 hours ago

Tuesday, 13. January 2026

OpenStreetMap User's Diaries

La protezione Civile del Friuli-Venezia Giulia usa Mapillary per i suoi rilievi fotografici a 360°

♦, da Wikimedia Commons" loading="lazy"> © Protezione_Civile_FVG_Rilievi @ Mapillary, CC BY-SA 4.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, da Wikimedia Commons

Questa notizia è stata segnalata dall’utente fabiotofy che ringrazio per la cortesia.

La Protezione civile del Friuli Venezia Giulia ha recentemente montato1 una fotocamera Insta360 Titan 11K sul tettuccio di un proprio

Spherical panoramics in Palmanova, Italy by Protezione_Civile_FVG_Rilievi @ Mapillary, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, da Wikimedia Commons © Protezione_Civile_FVG_Rilievi @ Mapillary, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, da Wikimedia Commons

Questa notizia è stata segnalata dall’utente fabiotofy che ringrazio per la cortesia.

La Protezione civile del Friuli Venezia Giulia ha recentemente montato1 una fotocamera Insta360 Titan 11K sul tettuccio di un proprio veicolo 4x4 e percorso le strade meno mappate della Regione autonoma per acquisire fotografie a 360° ad altissima definizione, che poi vengono caricate su Mapillary.

L’intento è quello di permettere ai cittadini, alle amministrazioni e ai soccorritori di avere a disposizione gli stessi strumenti e di migliorare conseguentemente l’efficacia e la rapidità degli interventi di emergenza del numero di emergenza unico europeo (NUE) 112.

Il progetto ha finora raccolto oltre 150 mila foto con una copertura totale di più di 500 chilometri.

Nella pagina dedicata al progetto, la Protezione civile Friuli-Venezia Giulia sottolinea di credere fortemente nel valore della condivisione dei dati e della collaborazione aperta e fa esplicitamente riferimento ad OpenStreetMap e alla possibilità di usare le foto per aggiornare il “nostro” database utilizzando i suoi principali editor, iD e JOSM.

Note:

  1. il sito web della Protezione civile è accessibile soltanto da Italia, Austria e Slovenia ↩

15:16 • a day ago

Geofabrik

Nik5, a C++ port of Nik4

If you render maps using the Mapnik rendering engine, you might have come across Nik4 by Ilya Zverev. It is a Python utility rendering single map images for a given bounding box, center coordinate, image dimensions and/or scale. At Geofabrik we use it to create maps for printouts. Nik4 has one problem. It relies on […]

If you render maps using the Mapnik rendering engine, you might have come across Nik4 by Ilya Zverev. It is a Python utility rendering single map images for a given bounding box, center coordinate, image dimensions and/or scale. At Geofabrik we use it to create maps for printouts.

Nik4 has one problem. It relies on Mapnik’s Python bindings. They do not have any releases and fail to build from time to time. In order to get rid of that unstable dependency, we decided to port Nik4 to C++ because Mapnik is written in C++.

Nik5 aims to behave exactly as Nik4 in order to make migration easy for its users. However, the syntax of the command line options --bbox, --size-px and --size was changed from space to comma as separator. If you wrote --size-px 800 600 in the past, you now have to use --size-px 800,600.

Nik4 used ImageMagick’s montage utility to stitch tiles together if the requested map size exceeded the maximum image limits of Mapnik. We replaced it by the libgd. Tiles will be stored in memory now and not stored as temporary files on disk.

If you render large images beyond Mapnik’s limits, you will appreciate the new --tile-buffer option. It will render all tiles with a buffer to avoid labels being cut at tile boundariess.

The code is published on Codeberg.

12:48 • 2 days ago

Monday, 12. January 2026

OpenStreetMap User's Diaries

Geopolitika a OSM v praxi

Děje se toho tolik, že pokud se na něco konkrétního nesoustředím, tak už to nelze zpozorovat pouhým periferním vnímáním. A abych byl alespoň trochu v širším obraze, nakonec ke zpozorování používám i dostupné technologie tak, jak se postupně rozvíjejí.

Digitální kartografie prošla zásadní proměnou a OpenStreetMap se stala pilířem globální informační infrastruktury. Od svého založení v roc

Děje se toho tolik, že pokud se na něco konkrétního nesoustředím, tak už to nelze zpozorovat pouhým periferním vnímáním. A abych byl alespoň trochu v širším obraze, nakonec ke zpozorování používám i dostupné technologie tak, jak se postupně rozvíjejí.

Digitální kartografie prošla zásadní proměnou a OpenStreetMap se stala pilířem globální informační infrastruktury. Od svého založení v roce 2004 se tento projekt vyvinul v unikátní kolaborativní databázi využívanou pro navigaci i krizové řízení. Současná geopolitická situace charakterizovaná napětím mezi mocnostmi klade na otevřená data nové nároky. Mapa již není pouhým zrcadlem reality, protože její role v politickém a vojenském rozhodování přímo ovlivňuje dění ve světě. V tomto kontextu bylo nezbytné zkoumat, jakým způsobem jsou data využívána v oblastech konfliktů a jak jsou chráněna před restrikcemi ze strany státních aktérů usilujících o digitální suverenitu.

Základem metodologie OpenStreetMap zůstala doktrína popisu skutečnosti na zemi. Tento přístup upřednostňoval fyzickou kontrolu nad územím před mezinárodně uznávanými hranicemi. Již v roce 2013 vydala nadace oficiální pokyny vysvětlující, že databáze není právním dokumentem a její obsah nevyjadřuje politické uznání jakéhokoli režimu. V Kašmíru hranice sledovala linii aktuální vojenské kontroly a v roce 2024 byl Krym zobrazován jako součást obou států s překrývajícími se hranicemi. Spor o jezero Gramos v roce 2025 musela vyřešit pracovní skupina pro integritu dat, aby zabránila neustálým změnám nevytyčené hranice.

V zónách ozbrojených konfliktů se role otevřeného mapování dramaticky měnila. Válka na Ukrajině v roce 2022 vyvolala výzvu k zastavení editací z obavy, že by útočník mohl využívat aktualizace k přesnějšímu zaměřování cílů. Vysoká podrobnost mapy zahrnující informace o materiálu budov nebo poloze inženýrských sítí představovala značný zpravodajský zdroj. Naproti tomu v Súdánu po eskalaci konfliktu v dubnu 2023 mapovací aktivita prudce vzrostla. Počet zmapovaných budov do srpna 2024 stoupl o téměř pět tisíc procent a v březnu 2024 dosáhl počet denně aktivních maperů historického maxima. Tato data umožnila humanitárním organizacím lépe porozumět potřebám vysídlených osob v oblastech jako je Chartúm nebo Dárfúr.

Technologické inovace nad daty OpenStreetMap přinesly nové možnosti vizualizace i sběru informací. Například projekt Streets GL umožnil trojrozměrné vykreslování měst v reálném čase přímo v prohlížeči. Využívá technologii WebGL2 k zobrazení detailů jako jsou tvary střech nebo materiály fasád. Humanitární tým v roce 2025 úspěšně nasadil nástroj ChatMap pro usnadnění mapování v komunitách s omezenou technickou gramotností. Tato aplikace umožnila uživatelům exportovat konverzace z platformy WhatsApp a automaticky z nich extrahovat geografická data. Vědecká komunita využívala sadu nástrojů OSMnx k analýze uličních sítí a k modelování odolnosti infrastruktury vůči extrémním událostem jako jsou záplavy nebo zemětřesení.

Digitální suverenita se stala klíčovým pojmem pro státy usilující o nezávislost na zahraničních technologiích. Rusko a Čína budovaly systémy pro izolaci národních segmentů sítě a v dubnu 2025 vstoupily v platnost zákony omezující používání cizích komunikačních platforem. Rizika centralizace cloudových služeb se potvrdila v květnu 2025 při tlaku na omezení přístupu k platformě Azure pro mezinárodní instituce. Společnost Esri v srpnu 2025 realizovala přechod na řešení založené na datech nadace Overture Maps ve snaze o vytvoření firemně kontrolovaného ekosystému. Přesto zůstala OpenStreetMap nenahraditelným zdrojem díky schopnosti zachytit nejaktuálnější změny v terénu, které korporátní databáze často přehlížely.

Navzdory geopolitickým rizikům můžeme do budoucna hledět s mírným optimismem. Decentralizovaná povaha OpenStreetMap přislibuje, že data existují v mnoha kopiích po celém světě a nelze je úplně zlikvidovat politickým zásahem. Využití umělé inteligence v rámci projektu fAIr pomáhalo maperům v Africe nebo Asii rychleji a přesněji digitalizovat budovy pro potřeby ochrany obyvatelstva. Víra v uvědomělý pokrok vychází z přesvědčení, že přístup k prostorovým informacím je důležitým právem umožňujícím občanům lépe se orientovat v komplexní realitě. Otevřená mapa zůstává symbolem spolupráce která překračuje hranice a dokazuje, že kolektivní inteligence dokáže čelit výzvám měnícího se světa.

22:11 • 2 days ago

Peter Reed

Preston Tower

 

♦My ride today was from Embleton to Preston Tower, and back. 

The earliest records of Preston Tower date from 1415 and 1499, but Peter Ryder believes that it was originally the defensible south end of a 14th century hall house.  By 1719 it was no longer used as a house, and the tower needed a new roof. In 1799 the house alongside the tower burned down and had to

 

My ride today was from Embleton to Preston Tower, and back. 

The earliest records of Preston Tower date from 1415 and 1499, but Peter Ryder believes that it was originally the defensible south end of a 14th century hall house.  By 1719 it was no longer used as a house, and the tower needed a new roof. In 1799 the house alongside the tower burned down and had to be rebuilt. In 1864 the tower was restored and the clock inserted by Henry Robert Baker Cresswell.

It wasn't a day to hang around, but there are information panels outside, and apparently there's a display inside the tower which sound as though they are worth a return visit.

A lapse of concentration on the way back meant that I missed a turning so the return journey was a bit longer than planned. That resulted in ride of a little over ten miles. Back at Embleton the Old Vicarage is another 14th century house, with a tower constructed c.1390. It was extended by John Dobson in 1828 for Rev. George Grimes. I believe it's now a private house, so can only be viewed from a distance.

19:43 • 2 days ago

OpenStreetMap User's Diaries

Mapping the Jakarta torrential rain of January 12, 2026

This morning, when I woke up, I felt that something was different. The sky looked darker, the temperature felt colder, and the faint sound of drizzling rain outside carried a gloomy tone.

I immediately rushed to check the forum chat that morning, trying to scrape together information. What was going on out there?

07:17:55: “Heavy rain”
07:18:44: “Same here in Bogor”
07:19

This morning, when I woke up, I felt that something was different. The sky looked darker, the temperature felt colder, and the faint sound of drizzling rain outside carried a gloomy tone.

I immediately rushed to check the forum chat that morning, trying to scrape together information. What was going on out there?

07:17:55: “Heavy rain”
07:18:44: “Same here in Bogor”
07:19:39: “With a storm like this, how am I supposed to get to the office?”
07:39:11: “Anyone in North Jakarta who lives toward the east / near Bekasi. Is it storming there?”
07:40:20: “Yep. Storming. Starting to ease up a bit though.”
07:48:25: “Seems pretty widespread. Cikarang’s getting wind and rain too.”
07:50:04: “Still early morning but the rain is insanely heavy. What a Monday.”
07:55:41: “With rain this heavy, it’s best to just go back to sleep~”
08:00:26: “Heavy rainnn”
08:10:46: “The rain is so damn heavy.”
08:14:28: “Waiting for it to stop, but it’s just getting heavier.”
08:16:52: “This storm. No way I’m working. Just want to WFH.”

Heavy rain? A storm? How bad could it be? Here, the rain was only a light drizzle, but the darkness of the sky and the chill in the air felt very different. This wasn’t ordinary rain.

I kept reading the forum.

08:15:11: “Same in Central Jakarta, storm-level rain. Can’t work at all.”
08:29:58: “Force majeure, man. I ain’t leaving for work like this.”
08:37:55: “With rain this bad, offices should really normalize letting employees WFH, at least for sectors that don’t need physical presence."
08:40:00: “Stuck getting out of Tanah Abang. The rain’s way too heavy.”
08:45:47: “Early morning chaos in the airspace above CGK. Looks like no planes can land. Four domestic flights diverted to Lampung. Flight SQ950 had to do three go-arounds. This morning’s rain is insane.”

Huh?

So many planes couldn’t land at Soekarno-Hatta? How bad was the rain last night?

I switched apps and opened Instagram, checking gadinglyfe’s story. I found out that there were several flooded spots in the Gading area.

Photo posted on Gadinglyfe’s Instagram story

07:25: “Storm.”
07:45: “Flooding in front of Greenhill Apartment, Jalan Pegangsaan Dua. The intersection is flooded too.”
08:00: “A tree fell in front of Total Buah Kelapa Nias (Jalan Raya Kelapa Hybrida, Pegangsaan Dua).”
08:44: “Lots of motorcycles stalled in front of Astra. The water’s getting higher, guys. Stay safe if you’re heading in or out of Gading.”
09:12: “RW 12 post in Cengkir collapsed.”

I kept trying to scrape together information from other sources, turning to weather radar. Unfortunately, for the past four days, the weather radars around Jakarta at Radcumar Stamet Serang, Rainviewer, and Windy have all been inaccessible. At the very least, however, SYNOP reports from the Soekarno-Hatta weather station were still available. I shared this information with friends on the forum.

From the SYNOP report, it was recorded that on January 12, 2026, rainfall in Jakarta had reached 52 mm. Hmm? That seemed fairly normal. The data also showed that a few days earlier, daily rainfall had even reached 61 mm. And back then, there was no “major news” as dramatic as today. It hadn’t gone so far as to prevent planes from landing.

Hmm… Maybe the SYNOP data hasn’t been fully released yet?

It was time to switch to yet another source: TransJakarta’s live tweets.

It could be said that Jakarta’s public transportation network already reaches even the city’s most outlying corners. So whenever there is any kind of “incident” that disrupts the operation of this public transport system—whatever the cause may be, from flooding, riots, fires, street fights, and so on—it is usually reported immediately in the form of live tweets on TransJakarta’s Twitter account.

Jakarta’s public transportation network

I opened TransJakarta’s Twitter account and checked all of the latest tweets, especially announcements about routes that had been suspended due to flooding or diverted because of waterlogged roads. I took notes on everything: which routes were affected and which flood points were being reported. Then I reorganized all of that information into a web-based dashboard.

07:49: JAK58 Cilincing–Rorotan diverted due to flooding on Jalan Raya Gereja Tugu.

07:59: JAK71 Kampung Rambutan–Pinang Ranti diverted due to flooding in Penggilingan Baru.

08:05: 3E Sentraland Cengkareng–Puri Kembangan diverted due to flooding in Royal Palem.

08:08: Flooding reported on Jalan Tongkol. There is a bit of a future spoiler in this screenshot, because I built the web dashboard in reverse chronological order, while here I’m telling the story in forward chronological order. So yes, those 10:10 and 08:37 flood points are future spoilers.

08:17: JAK79 Cengkareng–Tubagus Angke diverted due to flooding on Jalan Peternakan Raya.

08:37: Flooding reported in Pademangan.

08:40: JAK37 Cililitan–Condet diverted due to flooding on Jalan H. Ali.

09:14: JAK07 Tanah Abang–Grogol diverted due to flooding on Jalan Muardi.

09:27: Route 9 Pinang Ranti–Pluit could not continue to Pluit because of flooding in Grogol. It only stopped at Grogol and did not proceed further north to Pluit.

09:42: JAK40 Pulo Gebang–Rawa Kuning–Harapan Baru diverted due to several flood points in Harapan Baru.

09:49: 5N Ragunan–Kampung Melayu diverted due to flooding in Pasar Kambing.

10:01: JAK27 Pulo Gebang–Rorotan diverted due to flooding in Rorotan IX.

10:03: 12B Senen–Pluit fully suspended. The exact location of the flooding was not specified. I suspect it was in Pluit.

10:09: 10H Tanjung Priok–Bundaran Senayan fully suspended. Again, the exact flood location was not specified. I suspect it was in Tanjung Priok.

10:10: 1W Blok M–Ancol fully suspended.

10:24: From PGC it was not possible to reach Tanjung Priok. Services could only go as far as Cempaka Putih.

10:38: All Jaklingko routes affected by flooding were posted in a single tweet.

10:55: All TransJakarta routes affected by flooding were posted in a single tweet.

10:59: Additional TransJakarta routes were cut off. Balai Kota to Pantai Maju. The flood location was not explained, but I suspect it was in Pantai Maju.

11:04: Cililitan–Kayu Manis–Condet diverted due to flooding on As Salam, Al Hawi, and Dewi Sartika.

11:29: SH1 Kalideres–Soekarno-Hatta Office Complex diverted due to flooding at Soewarna and Cargo Terminal 2.

11:36: 2A Rawa Buaya–Pulogadung fully suspended. The flood point was not specified, but I suspect it was somewhere north of Monas.

12:16: T31 Blok M–PIK 2 diverted due to flooding on MH Thamrin, PIK 2.

12:56: 2B Pulo Gadung–Harapan Indah experienced a route shortening due to flooding at the Harapan Indah gas station.

In the end, this was the result:

https://altilunium.github.io/LocationPad/sample/BanjirJKT120126/

After I was done, I sent the web dashboard to the forum.

Then, unexpectedly, someone replied to my earlier post.

They said they had Jakarta weather radar data.

Wow. I contacted them immediately and asked for the data.

I got it. I “cooked” the data. Yes, unlike Radcumar Stamet Serang, Rainviewer, or Windy, which present weather radar data in an already “fully processed” form, they gave me semi-raw data. So it still needed further processing.

The processing method was too technical here, so I posted it instead on my Substack blog over there.

After processing the weather radar data, I arrived at a conclusion.

First, the spatial distribution of heavy rainfall points on the radar closely matched the distribution of TransJakarta service disruptions. The worst-affected areas were in northern Jakarta, starting near Soekarno-Hatta Airport in the west, then Muara Angke, Pluit, Ancol, Tanjung Priok, all the way to Kelapa Gading and Rorotan in the east. From the north–central area, it spread slightly southward, reaching Monas, City Hall, and Senen. The heaviest rainfall was estimated to have occurred around two in the morning.

The weather radar at 02:01, which was estimated to be the peak point of the heaviest rainfall that night. Blue indicates light rain. Green indicates rain. Yellow indicates heavy rain. Orange indicates very heavy rain. The system stretched from around Soekarno-Hatta Airport, across most of North Jakarta, widening slightly into Central Jakarta up to Monas, and then eastward to Kelapa Gading and Cakung.

The yellow–orange zones on the weather radar corresponded closely with the distribution of disrupted TransJakarta and Jaklingko routes reported on Twitter.

This was the weather radar at 02:01, zoomed out to the West Java level.

The second conclusion was that after reaching its “peak” at around two in the morning, the rain gradually eased and continued to subside until sunrise.

The weather radar at 06:49 in the morning showed that it was starting to weaken, although in several spots the rain was still falling.

I then checked the Soekarno-Hatta SYNOP data again. Maybe there was an update?

Wow. There was.

The total daily rainfall on January 12, 2026 turned out to be 151.6 mm.

At that level, the figure was no longer marked in “light blue” or even “dark blue,” but already in black.

I looked more closely at the detailed SYNOP data.

It turned out that rain had been recorded since 10 p.m. Then its status escalated to “storm” from 11 p.m. until 6 a.m. The worst phase of the storm occurred between 00:00 and 03:00 (oh, perfectly matching my processed weather radar conclusion that the peak rainfall happened around two in the morning), with a total rainfall of 123 mm. From 03:00 to 06:00, rain continued to fall but at a lighter intensity, adding only 12 mm more, from 123 mm to 135 mm.

Finally, I checked Kompas (a national newspaper) to confirm the reports about planes having trouble landing at Soekarno-Hatta that morning.

And it turned out to be true.

“It was recorded that 16 aircraft were instructed to divert to alternative airports, including Palembang (2 aircraft), Semarang (3), Halim Perdanakusuma (3), Tanjung Pandan (1), Pangkalpinang (1), Solo (2), Yogyakarta International Airport (4), and Jambi (1).”

“Changes in navigation services occurred particularly between 05:00 and 10:00 WIB, when heavy rain reduced visibility to below 1,000 meters across all runways at Soekarno-Hatta Airport.”

“ATC officers managed aircraft to perform holding in designated areas or patterns. Holding durations ranged from 40 minutes to one hour, with the number of aircraft reaching up to 15 units. Procedures such as go-arounds, holding, and diverting to alternative landing locations are part of standard aviation safety measures when weather conditions do not meet required standards.”

Update : On Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, I came across further details about the torrential rain that occurred on Monday, Jan. 12.

“Three people were killed in Cilincing after being electrocuted as floodwaters inundated the area. A married couple, identified as HW, 55, and NJ, 50, were found dead in Semper Barat, while another victim, MS, 43, was discovered in Kalibaru.”

“HW and NJ were first found by their son, MD, 17, who had just returned home from school at around 10:30 a.m. on Monday (Jan. 12). He was shocked to see the bodies of his parents floating in floodwater inside the house and screamed for help from neighbors, who later assisted with the evacuation. Preliminary findings indicate that a refrigerator cable with damaged insulation may have caused the electrocution.”

“MS was found dead at her home at around 9:00 a.m. Earlier, she had been seen cleaning her flood-hit house. She was electrocuted and lost consciousness. First aid was administered by her brother-in-law, who is also the head of the local neighborhood association, but her life could not be saved.”

“Extreme rainfall occurred from Monday morning to afternoon, with precipitation exceeding 100 millimeters per day in several areas. Recorded rainfall included 130 mm at Kali Duri, 124 mm in Sunter Jaya, 116 mm in Rorotan, 114 mm on Yos Sudarso Road, 106 mm in East Kelapa Gading, and 105 mm at Jembatan Merah. “This level of rainfall has exceeded the capacity of Jakarta’s infrastructure,” said the head of Jakarta’s Water Resources Agency Data and Information Center. Authorities have deployed 612 stationary pumps at 211 locations and 590 mobile pumps across the city’s five administrative regions to respond to the flooding.”

15:49 • 3 days ago

Some Retro Diary Entries

1st January 2026

Happy New Year!

I went for a walk, today, to geo locate some benches. Given my physical challenges (not to mention my tendency to over do it all the time), benches are an absolute godsend — more often than not, a four-mile stroll feels like a ten-mile slog (and today, ironically, was no exception).

I got the job done, though,

1st January 2026

Happy New Year!

I went for a walk, today, to geo locate some benches. Given my physical challenges (not to mention my tendency to over do it all the time), benches are an absolute godsend — more often than not, a four-mile stroll feels like a ten-mile slog (and today, ironically, was no exception).

I got the job done, though, and bagged both benches at 51.4751546, -3.2752249 and 51.4742791, -3.2777702. There's a really cool MapComplete theme called Benches that I use a fair bit, so I've also got some photos ready.

I'll upload everything shortly — just as soon as my back stops hurting, my legs stop wobbling, and my ankle stops threatening an early retirement.



3rd January 2026

Locating a Quarry

I've decided to find and map the quarry in Plymouth Great Wood. According to Outdoor Cardiff's guide, it should be located somewhere around 51.483825, -3.257899.

The quarry was excavated in the late 1800s (starting around the 1860s) to provide ballast and building materials for the Great Western Railway (the main London to Swansea line).

The rock from the quarry (locally known as 'Radyr Stone') is a rare Triassic breccia that's famous for its deep red colour mixed with grey (limestone) and white (sandstone) clasts.

It was during the excavations that workers found a Bronze Age hoard in the quarry which consisted of two spearheads, five axes, and part of a sword blade.

After the woodland was gifted to the city by the Earl of Plymouth, ordinance survey maps from around the 1920s referenced the quarry as 'old' (which suggests that the site had since been decommissioned).

I'm not sure when I'll be heading out as steep muddy trails and wobbly old legs don't play nice, but I hope to at least get an eyeball of the place fairly soon.



7th January 2026

Around the Houses

The weather's not been great this week, so I've kept myself busy (and out of harm's way) by updating OpenStreetMap — there were lots of missing buildings here and there, and a few missing pathways and trails.

I've been focusing on the Ely, Caeru, and St Fagans areas in Cardiff as I've a particular interest in their history (see my previous posts). My aim is to add more detail to the woodland areas, especially the locations of hidden historical sites and secluded trails.

15:30 • 3 days ago

signed up

12-01-2026 signed up.

12-01-2026 signed up.

14:20 • 3 days ago

নাগা বাজারের নিকটে নিছু কাতিলা গোবিন্দ মন্দিরের ম্যাপিং

এই ডায়েরি এন্ট্রিতে বাগমারা উপজেলার কাতিলা এলাকায় অবস্থিত নাগা বাজারের নিকটে অবস্থানরত নিছু কাতিলা গোবিন্দ মন্দিরের তথ্য সংযোজন করা হয়েছে। স্থানীয় হিন্দু সম্প্রদায়ের জন্য এটি একটি গুরুত্বপূর্ণ পূজাস্থল। ম্যাপে এই মন্দিরের অবস্থান চিহ্নিত করার মাধ্যমে নাগা বাজার ও আশপাশের এলাকা সম্পর্কিত ভৌগোলিক তথ্য আরও নির্ভুল হয়েছে এবং স্থানীয় সম্প্রদায়ের সাংস্কৃতিক ও ধর্মীয় দিকের প্রতিনিধিত্ব নিশ্চিত হয়।

এই ডায়েরি এন্ট্রিতে বাগমারা উপজেলার কাতিলা এলাকায় অবস্থিত নাগা বাজারের নিকটে অবস্থানরত নিছু কাতিলা গোবিন্দ মন্দিরের তথ্য সংযোজন করা হয়েছে। স্থানীয় হিন্দু সম্প্রদায়ের জন্য এটি একটি গুরুত্বপূর্ণ পূজাস্থল। ম্যাপে এই মন্দিরের অবস্থান চিহ্নিত করার মাধ্যমে নাগা বাজার ও আশপাশের এলাকা সম্পর্কিত ভৌগোলিক তথ্য আরও নির্ভুল হয়েছে এবং স্থানীয় সম্প্রদায়ের সাংস্কৃতিক ও ধর্মীয় দিকের প্রতিনিধিত্ব নিশ্চিত হয়।

07:09 • 3 days ago

নাগা বাজারের নিকটে মণ্ডল হাউস ম্যাপে সংযোজন

এই ডায়েরি এন্ট্রিতে বাগমারা উপজেলার কাতিলা এলাকায় অবস্থিত নাগা বাজারের পশ্চিম পাশে মণ্ডল হাউসের অবস্থান ম্যাপে যুক্ত করার তথ্য তুলে ধরা হয়েছে। স্থানীয় বাসিন্দাদের বসতবাড়ি হিসেবে পরিচিত এই বাড়িটি নাগা বাজারের নিকটবর্তী হওয়ায় এলাকার ভৌগোলিক তথ্য আরও নির্ভুল ও হালনাগাদ হয়েছে। এই সংযোজনের মাধ্যমে নাগা বাজার সংলগ্ন আবাসিক এলাকার ম্যাপিং উন্নত হবে এবং ভবিষ্যতে স্থানীয় সেবা ও নেভিগেশনে সহায়ক ভূমিকা রাখ

এই ডায়েরি এন্ট্রিতে বাগমারা উপজেলার কাতিলা এলাকায় অবস্থিত নাগা বাজারের পশ্চিম পাশে মণ্ডল হাউসের অবস্থান ম্যাপে যুক্ত করার তথ্য তুলে ধরা হয়েছে। স্থানীয় বাসিন্দাদের বসতবাড়ি হিসেবে পরিচিত এই বাড়িটি নাগা বাজারের নিকটবর্তী হওয়ায় এলাকার ভৌগোলিক তথ্য আরও নির্ভুল ও হালনাগাদ হয়েছে। এই সংযোজনের মাধ্যমে নাগা বাজার সংলগ্ন আবাসিক এলাকার ম্যাপিং উন্নত হবে এবং ভবিষ্যতে স্থানীয় সেবা ও নেভিগেশনে সহায়ক ভূমিকা রাখবে।

06:00 • 3 days ago

Sunday, 11. January 2026

OpenStreetMap User's Diaries

Relato sobre meu trabalho como voluntário no OpenStreetMap.

Comecei a contribuir com o OpenStreetMap movido pela curiosidade e pela vontade de ajudar. Aos poucos, percebi que mapear não era apenas desenhar ruas ou ajustar pontos no mapa: era participar de um projeto global que transforma informação em impacto real.

Nos últimos meses, tenho dedicado boa parte do meu tempo ao mapeamento do Vale do Rio Pardo, no Estado da Bahia. É uma região rica, d

Comecei a contribuir com o OpenStreetMap movido pela curiosidade e pela vontade de ajudar. Aos poucos, percebi que mapear não era apenas desenhar ruas ou ajustar pontos no mapa: era participar de um projeto global que transforma informação em impacto real.

Nos últimos meses, tenho dedicado boa parte do meu tempo ao mapeamento do Vale do Rio Pardo, no Estado da Bahia. É uma região rica, diversa e ainda pouco representada nos mapas digitais. Cada nova via identificada, cada edificação revisada e cada detalhe adicionado ajuda a tornar o território mais visível e acessível para quem depende dessas informações.

Antes disso, concentrei meus esforços na melhoria do mapa de vários municípios do Sul e Sudoeste Baiano. Foram horas revisando imagens, corrigindo traçados, adicionando estradas rurais e atualizando áreas urbanas. Ver essas regiões ganhando mais precisão e completude no OSM é uma sensação de realização difícil de descrever.

Meu trabalho voluntário envolve revisar imagens de satélite, conferir trilhas, ruas e edificações, além de adicionar detalhes que fazem diferença no dia a dia de quem usa o mapa — desde ciclistas procurando rotas seguras até equipes de resposta a emergências que dependem de dados atualizados. Cada edição que faço carrega um pouco da minha atenção e do meu cuidado, porque sei que alguém, em algum lugar, vai se beneficiar daquela informação.

Também aprendi que mapear é um exercício de paciência e responsabilidade. Às vezes passo longos minutos analisando uma área para garantir que estou representando o mundo real com precisão. Outras vezes, descubro lugares que nunca visitei, mas que passam a fazer parte da minha rotina de voluntário.

O mais gratificante é perceber que, mesmo sem sair de casa, posso contribuir para que comunidades inteiras tenham acesso a mapas melhores. O OpenStreetMap me mostrou que colaboração aberta é poderosa: cada pessoa adiciona um pequeno pedaço, e juntos construímos algo muito maior.

Ser voluntário no OSM é, para mim, uma forma de deixar uma marca positiva no mundo — uma rua corrigida, um caminho adicionado, um bairro mais completo. E enquanto houver algo a mapear, sigo contribuindo, edição por edição.

21:02 • 3 days ago

#FOSMBL: Banja Luka auf die (digitale) Karte setzen!

[Ex-YU] Naški

##Postavimo Banju Luku na (digitalnu) kartu – Pridružite se #FOSMBL

Da li ste se ikada zapitali kako možemo najbolje iskoristiti potencijal našeg regiona? Sve počinje sa podacima. Pod hashtagom #FOSMBL (Friends of OpenStreetMap Banja Luka) želimo da sve izmjene na OpenStreetMap-u u Banjoj Luci i okolini učinimo vidljivijim i lakšim za pronalaženje.

Zašto #FOSMBL? Ko

[Ex-YU] Naški

##Postavimo Banju Luku na (digitalnu) kartu – Pridružite se #FOSMBL

Da li ste se ikada zapitali kako možemo najbolje iskoristiti potencijal našeg regiona? Sve počinje sa podacima. Pod hashtagom #FOSMBL (Friends of OpenStreetMap Banja Luka) želimo da sve izmjene na OpenStreetMap-u u Banjoj Luci i okolini učinimo vidljivijim i lakšim za pronalaženje.

Zašto #FOSMBL? Korištenjem ovog hashtaga u komentarima vaših izmjena (changesets), pomažete u stvaranju lokalne zajednice. To nam omogućava da pratimo napredak i bolje se koordinišemo. Ali cilj je mnogo veći od samog mapiranja:

Turizam: Ažurne karte pomažu turistima da pronađu naše znamenitosti, ugostiteljske objekte i staze.

Ekonomija: Precizni podaci su ključni za logistiku, lokalne biznise i ekonomski razvoj.

Vizija: Vrijeme je da razmislimo o formiranju zvanične OSM grupe za Banju Luku i regiju. Zajedno možemo organizovati “mapatone” i unaprijediti kvalitet podataka na viši nivo.

Hajde da zajedno pokrenemo Banju Luku u digitalnom svijetu!

[DE] Deutsch

##Banja Luka sichtbarer machen – Ein Aufruf an alle Mapper

Hast du dich jemals gefragt, wie wir das volle Potenzial unserer Region ausschöpfen können? Alles beginnt mit Daten. Unter dem Hashtag #FOSMBL (Friends of OpenStreetMap Banja Luka) wollen wir ab sofort alle Änderungen in OpenStreetMap in und um Banja Luka bündeln.

Warum #FOSMBL? Indem wir diesen Hashtag in unseren Changeset-Kommentaren verwenden, machen wir unsere Arbeit sichtbar. Es hilft uns zu sehen, wer woran arbeitet, und Fortschritte gemeinsam zu feiern. Aber es geht um mehr als nur Linien auf einer Karte:

Tourismus: Aktuelle Karten helfen Gästen, unsere Sehenswürdigkeiten, Cafés und Wanderwege zu finden.

Wirtschaft: Eine präzise Infrastruktur ist die Basis für Logistik und lokale Unternehmen.

Gemeinschaft: Es ist an der Zeit, über die Gründung einer festen OSM-Gruppe für Banja Luka und Umgebung nachzudenken. Gemeinsam können wir Mapping-Events (Mapathons) organisieren und die Qualität unserer Daten auf ein neues Level heben.

Lass uns Banja Luka gemeinsam digital vorantreiben!

[EN] English

##Putting Banja Luka on the (Digital) Map – Join #FOSMBL

Have you ever wondered how we can unlock the full potential of our region? It all starts with data. Under the hashtag #FOSMBL (Friends of OpenStreetMap Banja Luka), we want to make all changes in and around Banja Luka more visible and searchable.

Why use #FOSMBL? By adding this hashtag to your changeset comments, you help build a local community. It allows us to track progress and coordinate better. But the impact goes far beyond the screen:

Tourism: Up-to-date maps help tourists discover our landmarks, restaurants, and hidden gems.

Economy: Accurate geospatial data is a backbone for local businesses and regional development.

Vision: We are considering forming a dedicated OSM User Group for Banja Luka and the region. A formal group would allow us to organize mapathons and advocate for open data.

Let’s map the future of Banja Luka together!

19:42 • 3 days ago

weeklyOSM

weeklyOSM 807

01/01/2026-07/01/2026 [1] Participants in what is surely the first mapathon of 2026 😉 in Braga, Portugal | © waldyrious Community [1] The OpenStreetMap community of northern Portugal met in Braga on Saturday 3 January at the Municipal Market of Braga. In an informal and open atmosphere, participants from Braga and the surrounding area came together…

Continue reading →

01/01/2026-07/01/2026

lead picture

[1] Participants in what is surely the first mapathon of 2026 😉 in Braga, Portugal | © waldyrious

Community

  • [1] The OpenStreetMap community of northern Portugal met in Braga on Saturday 3 January at the Municipal Market of Braga. In an informal and open atmosphere, participants from Braga and the surrounding area came together to map, learn, and share knowledge about the territory. Between collaborative edits, conversations and exchanges of experiences, there was time to work on topics such as pedestrian and cycle mobility, accessibility and collaborative cartography. Newbies, curious onlookers and experienced editors worked side by side, reinforcing the spirit of mutual help that characterises OSM. The event was reported on social media Facebook and Mastodon and in a blog post.
  • Arjunaraoc explained how to make an OpenStreetMap edit timelapse video using QGIS.
  • Mateusz Konieczny is proposing a bot edit to remove amenity=office where it duplicates the existing office=* tagging.
  • Dr Raquel Dezidério Souto reported, in her OSM user diary, about four tagging schemes for thematic mapping with OpenStreetMap (rural villages, beach access, toponymy, and mining), published in 2025. The documents were prepared by IVIDES DATA, a company associated with the Virtual Institute for Sustainable Development, and are the result of new joint research and training sessions conducted with three Brazilian higher education institutions: University of the São Francisco Valley – Univasf, Federal University of Minas Gerais – UFMG, and Federal University of Rio de Janeiro – UFRJ.
  • Metapod was doing ► some OpenStreetMap wiki maintenance and discovered a list of Portugal-related geospatial datasets that could be added to OpenStreetMap.
  • Rphyrin has developed Altilunium Locationpad to help plan someone’s trip to the Ragunan Zoo.
  • Penegal has drafted a tagging scheme proposal for mapping restriction ideograms, as displayed on highway destination signs. As traffic signs are currently mapped following two differing principles (with human-readable keys and values, or with national traffic sign IDs), he has asked for the community’s opinion about which principle would be better suited for his proposal. You are invited to cast a vote and to discuss which principle is better suited.
  • Sunni24 explained ► how to set up a 360° camera mount on a bicycle using the Samsung Gear 360 (2017).

OpenStreetMap Foundation

  • The OSMF invites the OpenStreetMap community to provide input for the EU Commission’s consultation on the Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy – seeking feedback on the strengths, challenges, and support needs of the open-source sector, as well as its role in EU digital sovereignty, cybersecurity, and competitiveness.

Events

  • The FOSSGIS Conference 2026 will take place from 25 to 28 March 2026 in Göttingen, Germany, where you can also take part in the OSM Saturday and Community Sprint on 28 March. Registration is now open .

OSM in action

  • Scott Reinhard, graphics editor of The New York Times, published on LinkedIn about an open source interactive mapping solution, developed with Ben Walsh. The solution adopts OpenStreetMap, MPTiles, and Maputnik, focusing on automated data analysis and map generation. A short guide is offered.

Software

  • MapYourGrid has released the ‘GridInspector’ to analyse quality of power grid data in OpenStreetMap.
  • Over the past six months, OpenHistoricalMap’s developers have been busy keeping services running reliably and improving existing features. You can now log in with a Wikimedia account, explore the map in ancient languages, and inspect larger changesets in OSMCha.

Programming

  • fghj753 started the new year with a weekend mapping project to locate and map public traffic camera feeds in Tallinn, Estonia.
  • By combining OpenStreetMap railway network data with population figures from INSEE, Michaël has estimated that 40.8 percent of France’s metropolitan population lives within 50 kilometres of the London–Marseille railway line.
  • Bastian Greshake Tzovaras wrote about how to locally serve map files for CoMaps, using a small command-line tool, CoMaps Map Distributor, which he has built.

Releases

  • CycleStreets has released a new ‘white label sites system’ feature that allows organisations and companies to easily embed an active travel route planner into their websites.

Did you know that …

  • … you can ask mappers to add your business to OSM using the website On OpenStreetMap, which has support in various languages?
  • … there is a development server to help contributors try things out with OSM, which is provided by the OSMF?

OSM in the media

  • El País has published an article on the US attack on Venezuela, including some maps based on OpenStreetMap.
  • You can read some reviews of OpenStreetMap, and a lot of software, on the G2 portal.

Upcoming Events

Country Where Venue What When
MapYourGrid webinar: Data quality in OpenStreetMap for energy system planning 2026-01-08
flag Berlin Restaurant Neumanns 211. OSM-Stammtisch Berlin-Brandenburg 2026-01-08
flag Dresden Bottoms Up, Dresden OSM-Stammisch Dresden 2026-01-08
flag Online OpenStreetMap Midwest Meetup 2026-01-08
flag Bochum Das Labor, Alleestraße 50, Bochum OSM-Treffen in Bochum 2026-01-08
OSMF Engineering Working Group meeting 2026-01-09
flag Jitsi-Meet Erstes Online-Treffen der OSM-Mapper:innen im Sauerland 2026-01-09
flag Zürich Bitwäscherei Zürich 183. OSM-Stammtisch Zürich 2026-01-09
OSM World Mappy Hour 2026-01-09
flag Chiasso Mapping party @ New Year’s brunch by Wikimedia CH 2026-01-10
flag New Delhi Indian Coffee House, Connaught Place OSM Delhi Mapping Party No.25 (Central Zone) 2026-01-11
flag København Cafe Bevar’s OSMmapperCPH 2026-01-11
Missing Maps : Mapathon en ligne – CartONG [fr] 2026-01-12
flag Grenoble La Turbine Coop Atelier de janvier du groupe local OpenStreetMap de Grenoble 2026-01-12
flag 臺北市 MozSpace Taipei OpenStreetMap x Wikidata Taipei #84 2026-01-12
flag Madrid Online Mappy Hour OSM España 2026-01-13
flag Hamburg Voraussichtlich: “Variable”, Karolinenstraße 23 Hamburger Mappertreffen 2026-01-13
flag München Echardinger Einkehr Münchner OSM-Treffen 2026-01-13
flag Mangaluru Mapping Party @ Surathkal 2026-01-18
flag Tacoma [Virtual] TCAT’s Mappy New Year 2026 2026-01-19
flag Derby The Brunswick, Railway Terrace, Derby East Midlands pub meet-up 2026-01-20
Missing Maps London: (Online) Mid-Month Mapathon [eng] 2026-01-20
flag La Trattoria, Rue du Village 88, Aubange OpenStreetMap Belgium — Arlon / Ardenne belge / Gaume — Social 2026-01-20
flag Lyon Tubà Réunion du groupe local de Lyon 2026-01-20
flag Bonn Dotty’s 196. OSM-Stammtisch Bonn 2026-01-20
flag Derby The Brunswick, Railway Terrace, Derby East Midlands pub meet-up 2026-01-20
flag Ferme du Clémarais, Aubange OpenStreetMap Belgium — Arlon / Ardenne belge / Gaume — Meeting 2026-01-20
flag Online Lüneburger Mappertreffen (online) 2026-01-20
flag Ninkasi Saint-Romain-en-Gal Réunion du groupe local de Vienne 2026-01-21
flag Nashik Nashik Engineering Cluster, MIDC Ambad State of the Map India 2026 2026-01-24
Missing Maps : Mapathon en ligne – CartONG [fr] 2026-01-26

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 Raquel Dezidério Souto, Andrew Davidson, barefootstache, derFred.
We welcome link suggestions for the next issue via this form and look forward to your contributions.

18:40 • 4 days ago

OpenStreetMap User's Diaries

Filtri per area geografica

Come circoscrivendo l’area interessata, contattare chi ha già effettuato mappature o rilievi? Agosto77

Come circoscrivendo l’area interessata, contattare chi ha già effettuato mappature o rilievi? Agosto77

15:14 • 4 days ago

U-Bahn Nürnberg-Fürth Überwachungskameras

Mir ist aufgefallen, daß die Überwachungskameras, die an jeder U-Bahn-Station im Raum Nürnberg-Fürth hängen, in OSM kaum verzeichnet sind. Ich habe daher angefangen, alle, die mir beim Warten auf die U-Bahn auffallen, einzuzeichnen. Dafür verwende ich Vespucci am Handy mit folgenden Tagsets:

man-made:surveillance
surveillance:public
surveillance-type:camera
surveillance-zone:publ

Mir ist aufgefallen, daß die Überwachungskameras, die an jeder U-Bahn-Station im Raum Nürnberg-Fürth hängen, in OSM kaum verzeichnet sind. Ich habe daher angefangen, alle, die mir beim Warten auf die U-Bahn auffallen, einzuzeichnen. Dafür verwende ich Vespucci am Handy mit folgenden Tagsets:

man-made:surveillance
surveillance:public
surveillance-type:camera
surveillance-zone:public_transport_platform
camera-type:#ist entweder fixed oder dome
camera-mount:#ist entweder wall oder ceiling
camera-direction:#oft nur geschätzte Richtwerte
camera-angle:#ich versuche, mit der Android-App Clinometer möglichst akkurate Schätzwerte zum Neigungswinkel zu bekommen, funktioniert bisher erstaunlich gut
height:#nur Schätzungen
level:#selbsterklärend
operator:VAG Verkehrs-Aktiengesellschaft Nürnberg
operator-type:public
operator-wikidata:Q1557682
ref:#jede gerichtete VAG-Kamera hat an der Seite ein gelbes Schild, auf dem eine alphanumerische Referenznummer aufgedruckt ist, nach dem Schema 'VAG-NR. ###', wobei # jeweils eine Ziffer darstellt.

Die Referenznummern scheinen keinem bestimmten Schema zu folgen, jedenfalls nicht, soweit ich das nachvollziehen kann. Außerdem scheinen die dome-type Kameras kein Schild mit einer Referenznummer zu haben.

Wenn ihr Fragen oder Anregungen zu dem Thema habt, schreibt mir gerne, dann können wir ins Gespräch kommen. Fröhliches Kartographieren mittens_unofficial

14:00 • 4 days ago

Strada da mappare - Belmonte - sentiero della Felce

Devo mappare una strada privata a uso pubblico vicino al Sentiero della Felce, sotto il Parco di Belmonte…ho visto che alcuni nodi, parti del sentiero sono stati mappati da utenti diversi, ma non questa strada carrabile.. Chiedo aiuto per indicazioni a chiunque voglia contribuire. Agosto77

Devo mappare una strada privata a uso pubblico vicino al Sentiero della Felce, sotto il Parco di Belmonte…ho visto che alcuni nodi, parti del sentiero sono stati mappati da utenti diversi, ma non questa strada carrabile.. Chiedo aiuto per indicazioni a chiunque voglia contribuire. Agosto77

12:51 • 4 days ago

Osmose and OSMI

Quantity vs Quality Assurance

I wanted to know how well I was performing as an armchair mapper, internally I was concerned that I was creating more issues than I was helping so I learned about a website that answers the question “How did I contribute?”.

On my name I looked at the quality assurance section and the quantity of errors was too very high, almost over a 4000 issues ignored. I

Quantity vs Quality Assurance

I wanted to know how well I was performing as an armchair mapper, internally I was concerned that I was creating more issues than I was helping so I learned about a website that answers the question “How did I contribute?”.

On my name I looked at the quality assurance section and the quantity of errors was too very high, almost over a 4000 issues ignored. I have attempted to improve the quality of my mapping change sets using Osmose and OSMI. OSM contributions by JosephTJames on 2025-12-30

Osmose

Initially I had 26 level 1(major) issues, 50 level 2(intermediate) issues and 800(minor). I quickly adjusted the level 1 issues and over half of my level 2 issues. I have a single level 1, 19 level 2 and over 700 level 3 issues. Systematically I hope to solve; *amenity=parking issues *building=construction issues *building overlap issues *waterway issues.

OSMI

Routing issues have been harder for me to pin down, I have many sidewalk issues since I reworked the pedestrian walkways through the Bulawayo CBD. I am not sure how to resolve the issues involving sidewalks that terminate without connecting with other ways, but I will have to keep investigating the issue after I have resolved other issues I can understand.

Goals

In the estimated 3 months I will focus on these types of problems I hope I can resolve around 20 to 40 Osmose issues a day, it will take me at least a month and a half to resolve the list. I suspect I will need an additional 3 weeks of learning and research as I try to standardise mapping across areas and then maybe another 3 weeks of rest breaks in between efforts.

Routing issues are over 100 an increase after my initial attempts to fix them, if I can resolve 20 per day, it should take me only 5 days to have completed. Realistically if I am mapping 13 days a month I should be done by April.

OSM contributions by JosephTJames on 2026-01-11

I hope to update by next month with a progress report

06:07 • 4 days ago

260111

从宜昌回来半个月后依然怀念肥鱼的味道

从宜昌回来半个月后依然怀念肥鱼的味道

00:42 • 4 days ago

Saturday, 10. January 2026

Peter Reed

Hipsburn to Amble and back

♦
My second ride of the year was on familiar ground. I enjoy the route between Hipsburn and Amble. It's mostly off-road with views of the coast and River Coquet. Usually I meet a few walkers and cyclists, but it's never been busy. 

The section between Warkworth and Amble is mostly a shared-use path that follows the River Coquet. The section between Hipsburn and Warkworth is


My second ride of the year was on familiar ground. I enjoy the route between Hipsburn and Amble. It's mostly off-road with views of the coast and River Coquet. Usually I meet a few walkers and cyclists, but it's never been busy. 

The section between Warkworth and Amble is mostly a shared-use path that follows the River Coquet. The section between Hipsburn and Warkworth is mostly a shared-use path alongside the A1068 coast road. Navigation through Warkworth is straightforward in both directions. Navigation through Amble is another story, but more of that some other time.

Today the weather was clear and sunny, with temperatures hovering just above freezing. There was some frost and ice on the path. Enough to justify taking things carefully in places, but nothing too problematic. I covered just over 11 miles at a sedate pace.

The sharp-eyed will notice that I've replaced the G-Line standard G-One tyres with Marathon Plus. Between Hipsburn and Warkworth the shared-use path is almost entirely separated from the road by a thorny hedgerow. People say the thorns cause punctures and in my experience the reputation isn't entirely undeserved. I've used Marathon Plus in the past and had very little trouble with thorns. This is likely to be a favoured route in future - so we'll see how these cope.

17:38 • 5 days ago

First ride of the year

 

♦On thursday I had to take the car to Newcastle for a service so I decided to take the bike for it's initial check at the same time. This was originally planned for Monday but had to be rescheduled after heavy snow.

While I waited for the car to be ready I rode into town, and dropped the bike off. I pottered around for a bit, had some lunch, then collected the bike. I rode dow

 

On thursday I had to take the car to Newcastle for a service so I decided to take the bike for it's initial check at the same time. This was originally planned for Monday but had to be rescheduled after heavy snow.

While I waited for the car to be ready I rode into town, and dropped the bike off. I pottered around for a bit, had some lunch, then collected the bike. I rode down to the quayside then along the Tyne. 

Only eight miles, in total, but it's a start. I had been a bit apprehensive about the weather, the traffic and finding my way round. But all went smoothly. The bike and the car are both fine.

16:51 • 5 days ago

OpenStreetMap User's Diaries

The relevance of teachers´ favorite joke for wheelchair access mapping

“I don’t know, can you?” is a joke of mediocre quality that is supposed to point out the difference between being able to do something and being allowed to do something. It is annoying to students all over because in everyday language, the word “can” gets used universally for both instances, and context clues make such comments seem pedantic. There is, however, a great place where pedantry is m

“I don’t know, can you?” is a joke of mediocre quality that is supposed to point out the difference between being able to do something and being allowed to do something. It is annoying to students all over because in everyday language, the word “can” gets used universally for both instances, and context clues make such comments seem pedantic. There is, however, a great place where pedantry is more than welcome: When maintaining a database, such as OpenStreetMap.

So, what’s the issue?

Access tags, including more granular specifications like motor_vehicle, bicycle or foot, specify whether someone is allowed to use a way, an amenity or whatever else. The wheelchair tag, on the other hand, specifies if it is possible to access or use the place, independent of whether it is allowed or not. Tag combinations like access=private and wheelchair=yes make perfect sense. Only a limited set of people are allowed to access a certain area, but when they are, they won’t be hindered by stairs, narrow paths or other issues that might make using a wheelchair difficult or impossible. Therefore, the only values that really make sense to use for the wheelchair tag are yes, no, limited, and designated. There are some other, user defined values that might make sense in a specific setting, but it does not make sense to apply the access tag logic to wheelchair tagging. Tag values like private, permissive and customers are an established way to convey access permission information, which is not what the wheelchair tag is.

To underline the difference between access tags and wheelchair tags, you can look at the iD editors input mask and see that they are completely different segments.

iD-Editor showing allowed access and wheelchair access in two different segments

But why is this important?

Using a limited set of a few standardized tags is important for several reasons, which are especially useful in the context of wheelchair access mapping. Each of the standard values has a very specific meaning, making it possible to convey a lot of information with a single short word. Specialized apps that use the accessibility data from OpenStreetMap like wheelmap.org rely on our data being standardized and therefore machine readable. If a wheelchair tag does not fit the standard tagging scheme, it might as well not exist from the perspective of those services. That’s also why issues like typos and capitalization of tags are important because even if us humans understand what is meant by wheelchair=1yes, a non-fuzzy search will not return this place as a wheelchair accessible result. Furthermore, it is important to note that wheelchair users are people, too, and having them count as foot traffic with the same access permissions as leg users is an important mental image, not only in order to produce accurate and useful geodata, but also to view our fellow humans more generously.

13:45 • 5 days ago

Friday, 09. January 2026

日本の主な鉄道路線リレーションの修正（標準化）

ここでいう鉄道路線リレーションとは、wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:route=railway（例えば、東海道本線、片町線）であり、列車の運行系統を示すwiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:route=train（例えば、JR神戸線、湘南新宿ライン）とは違う。

修正進捗

高山本線（2026/01/06 済）

東海道本線（2026/01/10 済）

山陽本線（進行中）

東北本線

（ほか）

ここでいう鉄道路線リレーションとは、https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:route=railway（例えば、東海道本線、片町線）であり、列車の運行系統を示すhttps://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:route=train（例えば、JR神戸線、湘南新宿ライン）とは違う。

修正進捗

高山本線（2026/01/06 済）

東海道本線（2026/01/10 済）

山陽本線（進行中）

東北本線

（ほか）

17:09 • 6 days ago

From Doubt to Data Quality: My Journey with the ESA Hub Fellowship

First and foremost, I want to express my sincere gratitude to the ESA Hub organization for selecting me for this fellowship. It was an honor to be chosen, and I am thankful for the opportunity to learn and contribute. When I began the program, I must admit I lacked confidence in the validation process. While I understood the basics of OpenStreetMap (OSM), the responsibility of critiquing and cor

First and foremost, I want to express my sincere gratitude to the ESA Hub organization for selecting me for this fellowship. It was an honor to be chosen, and I am thankful for the opportunity to learn and contribute. When I began the program, I must admit I lacked confidence in the validation process. While I understood the basics of OpenStreetMap (OSM), the responsibility of critiquing and correcting other mappers’ work felt daunting. I often second-guessed my ability to distinguish between a mapping error and a local anomaly. However, looking back now, this fellowship has been a deeply enriching and practical experience that completely transformed that hesitation into technical authority.

The program didn’t just teach me how to map; it provided a robust understanding of the OSM ecosystem and the HOT Tasking Manager workflows. Through hands-on practice, I moved from simple digitization to mastering advanced tools in JOSM, including plugins, filters, search functions, and custom map paint styles.

A significant part of my growth came from the specific tips and tricks shared by my peers and mentors. I am especially grateful to Brenda, who taught me the ingenious technique of turning satellite imagery to black and white to better distinguish building outlines from the surrounding terrain. Kingsley was also instrumental, introducing us to various keyboard shortcuts that have significantly enhanced the speed and precision of my mapping and validation. Furthermore, I learned about features I didn’t even know existed, such as a ford (a shallow place in a river allowing a crossing). Learning how to identify and tag such specific infrastructure made me realize that high-quality mapping is about more than just drawing shapes; it’s about capturing the reality of the ground to aid responders.

None of this would have been possible without the support structure of the fellowship. A special thanks goes to our moderator, Rebecca Chandiru, who ensured we always had access to session recordings so we never fell behind. Her constant encouragement pushed me to overcome my initial fears and step up to validate with confidence.

Reflecting on this journey, the ESA Hub Fellowship has been a milestone in my professional growth, bridging the gap between technical theory and real-world humanitarian impact.

16:19 • 6 days ago