Two's a Crowd: Crowdsourcing Addresses for OpenStreetMap in the UK

1. Two's a Crowd:Two's a Crowd:
OpenStreetMap Experience of
Crowdsourcing Addresses in the UK
Jerry CloughJerry Clough
SK53
SK53.osm@gmail.com
@SK53onOSM
Blog: Maps Matter

2. ExperienceExperience

3. SurveysSurveys
●
Primary means of address collection
– Bicycle or Foot
– 250-1000 addresses per hour (inner
city-suburbs)
– Usually pencil & paper, perhaps with
Field Papers.
●
Data entry usually 2-3 times as long
●
Experience dramatically improves
efficiency
● Low immediate reward from mapping
– Relatively few dedicated address
mappers (~ 5% of active mappers)
GPS traces of address surveys in Nottingham &
Maidenhead. Source: OSM contributors & Mapbox

4. ResourcesResources
● Ground Surveys
● Local Knowledge
● Aerial Images
– Bing / MapBox
● Licensed solely for OSM Mapping
● Photos
– During survey
– Geograph
– Mapillary
– OpenStreetView
● National Open Data
– Ordnance Survey StreetView
– LR Prices Paid, NROSH,
Companies House
● Local Open Data
– Planning
– Food Hygiene
● Old Maps
– NLS
– OpenStreetMap Out-of-
copyright maps

5. Typical OdditiesTypical Oddities
● Addresses not located on
road different from name
– Sherwin Walk, Nott'm
● Roads with houses, but
no valid addresses
– Sherwin Walk, Nott'm
● Roads with different
names on each side
– Poultry/Cheapside, Nott'm
– Long Row/Smithy Row, Nott'm
● Multiple inconsistent
addresses
– Austin Reed, N'ham
– (OSGB, NCC, Royal Mail & Austin
Reed each has different version)
● More nesting of levels
than supported by
BS7666
– Leen Court, Nott'm
– Named terraces (Bangor, N.
Wales)
Photo: 1-6, The Garland, Leen Court, Leen Gate, Nottingham NG7 2HR

6. DifficultiesDifficulties
● Gated Developments
– Sheltered Housing
– Modern flats & houses
– Many modern social housing schemes
● Tower Blocks
● Radburn Estates
● In-fill of Victorian/Edwardian streets
● Absence of housenumbers
● Properties with names only

7. DataData

8. OSM Addresses in UKOSM Addresses in UK
● Largest OPEN set of
accurately located data
– Mostly to within 5 m
– Some at delivery point
● Licensed under ODbL
– Viral CC-BY-SA
– Derived data an issue
● OpenData analogue of
OSGB-derived data
● Created for:
– Geolocation
– Thematic interests
e.g., MESH Edinburgh Historical
Atlas (Richard Rodger)
– Local Maps
– General
obsessiveness

9. Distribution of Address DataDistribution of Address Data
● > 800k (August '14)
● Places
– Cambridge
– Tendring
– Wokingham
– Birmingham
– Nottingham
– Broxtowe
– Runcorn
Excludes interpolated address (~ 100k)
Areas shaded in deciles
Centroid area scaled by number
(Birmingham ~ 100k)

10. Patchy atPatchy at
all levelsall levels

11. ToolsTools

12. KeyPad MapperKeyPad Mapper
● Dedicated Address Mapping
– OpenSource Android app
– Supported by ENIaKOON
● German telematics firm
● Owners active OSM contributors
● Simple to use
– Data collected in OSM XML format
– Location not accurate enough
● Smartphone GPS
● Canyon effect
– Battery Life
● Other Smartphone apps
– OSMAnd
– Vespucci

13. Nominatim:Nominatim:
Gazetteer, Geolocation, Geocoding
● Worldwide search engine
● Builds locational
hierarchies
● Can use non-OSM Open
Data
– ONS CodePoint Open
● Many search strategies
● (Reverse) Geocoding

14. OSM-NottinghamOSM-Nottingham
Integrates searching of OSM &
Open Data
● Browsing of open data on a
map
●
Powerful tool to aid address /
post code mapping
● Other
– Restricted to some NG postcode
districts
– Thematic display of OSM data
– Multiple raster layers
http://osm-nottingham.org.uk/

15. Honourable MentionsHonourable Mentions
●
PostCode FinderPostCode Finder
– by Matt Williams
● No recent work (PhD to finish)
●
Presentation at SotM13
– http://milliams.dev.openstreetmap.org/postcodefinder/
●
OsmoseOsmose
– QA tool by Frédéric Rodrigo
– Extensive used by OSM-FR and elsewhere
●
MapRouletteMapRoulette
– Platform for gamification of OSM edits
– Martijn van Exel & Serge Wroclawski
●
NYPL Building InspectorNYPL Building Inspector
– Crowd-sourcing of parcels & addresses from historical NYC
insurance maps
– Developed by Tim Waters & Topomancy LLP
● And many others
– Search & Geocoding: OpenCageData, MapZen
– QA tools
– Addressing tools: many by Svimik for Estonia

16. CommunityCommunity

17. Motivating ContributorsMotivating Contributors
More contributionsMore contributions
● Current rely on small core
of address 'addicts'
● Steady drip of one-of
contributions
● Germany has broader
coverage
– 10-times more OSMers
– More activity in small towns
– Local pride
– More manageable task
Imports of dataImports of data
● Imported data gets stale
● Quality rarely as good
as surveyed data
● British community
generally sceptical of
value of imports
● Believed to have limited
OSM in US

18. Project initiated by
OpenStreetMap France
BANO content :
- OSM : 2.2 M addresses
- opendata : 1.2M
- cadastre : 14.9M
As of August 2014
Green : OSM data
Yellow : opendata
Blue : cadastre + OSM*
Red : cadastre only
* matching roads/streets
found in OSM data.
80 % of municipalities have
a vector based cadastre
http://openstreetmap.fr/bano
BANOBANO

19. addresses.ioaddresses.io
● Initiative of OSM-US Chapter (Ian Dees &c.)
● Repository on Github of metadata for address
open data
– Potentially thousands of available data sets at local
level in US & Canada
● Most information for US & Canda
– Also some France (BANO), Netherlands & South
Africa

20. SummarySummary
OSM UK AddressesOSM UK Addresses
●
Biggest geolocated open
dataset for UK
● Crowd-sourced
– if 2's a crowd
● Mainly ground truth surveys
● Patchy & Partial
● Not yet at critical mass
● Viral Share-alike licence
(OdbL)
–
OSM as an EnablerOSM as an Enabler
● Large test dataset
● Knowledge & skills
● Wide range of tools
covering address data
management
● Community committed to
Open Address data w/w

21. Acknowledgements
● Christian Quest, OSM-FR (BANO)
● Ian Dees, OSM-US (addresses.io)
● Simon Poole, OSM-CH (Address QA)
● Geofabrik, Karlsruhe (OSM Inspector)
● Will Phillips, Nottingham (OSM-Nottingham)
● Matt Williams (OpenPostcodeFinder)
● Harry Wood, London (discussions)

22. Acknowledgements
● Christian Quest, OSM-FR (BANO)
● Ian Dees, OSM-US (addresses.io)
● Simon Poole, OSM-CH (Address QA)
● Geofabrik, Karlsruhe (OSM Inspector)
● Will Phillips, Nottingham (OSM-Nottingham)
● Matt Williams (OpenPostcodeFinder)
● Harry Wood, London (discussions)