How about a truck stop locating program?

Hello all, new to the forum. I come with an idea I’d like to implement.

I really like the program KDE Marble. I think it would be really useful to have ticker boxes on the left hand side of the program that give the user various controls, depending on what they’re looking for, to help them find truck stops around the US. It could easily be modified in a minor way for other countries as well, but my focus is the US for now.

This could be a very useful program for over the road truckers. And from what I’ve seen so far, it would only require a minimal amount of work on my end to make it work.

I already have a modified .dgml file that I’ve been messing around with. How would I set some tags in place so that I can get some blips to show up on the Marble map?

It looks as if there is already a truck_stop tag in the system. This is a good place to start, but it may not be specific enough for what I want to do.

Thanks.

Alright, so I’ve been researching information on the OSM website, and it seems that the best place for me to start and see if this will even work, is with rest areas.

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:highway%3Drest_area

The tag highway=rest_area already exists.

I’ve taken some time to look at the Potlatch map editor, and I have found a few sample rest area locations here or there, but in the options on the left I don’t see anything for highway. At best, I see ‘transport’. If I click on the map it gives me additional options for ‘transport’ and ‘roads’, but not what I’m looking for.

Could someone point me in the right direction?

Edit: I found what I need. At the bottom left of the screen there’s a tiny little ‘advanced’ option, which allows for manipulation of the keys and tags.

Whilst being useful for your testing, “highway=rest_area” will only match a subset of what you’re looking for. If you have a look at the wiki page:

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Rest_area

you’ll see that areas that sell fuel will be labelled “highway=services”. You’d also want to find those that have been mapped as areas rather then just nodes.

Incidentally, I notices that some US truck stops have “highway=rest_area” added to an “amenity=toilets” node. If you browse the data here:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=31.50555&lon=-106.11821&zoom=17

you can see an example. Ideally there should be “one item one OSM object” - if it was me, I’d draw a way around the whole rest area and label that "highway=rest_area"instead of adding a new node and remove the rest_area tag on the toilets.

Here’s one that’s been imported on I5:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=36.86348&lon=-120.78289&zoom=17&layers=M

Well, trying to go that route was taking way too long.

I was able to do what I wanted much more quickly by manipulating some .kml files and implementing it in Marble.

It’d be nice if there was a way to do a batch install of a bunch of truck stops, rest areas, and weigh stations as well.

In any case, what I’ve built can be found here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/truckstoplinux/

Looks very nice!

I’m participating in the development of a car (+ truck/bike/pedestrian…) routing program named Navit which has similar features, and I think it might even already have what you are looking for. At least it displays those objects as POIs on the map and allows to search for them. I’d be very happy if you could check it out and let me know if this is what you’re looking for, or what exactly needs to be improved.

Thanks, I’m glad you approve.

How does Navit do routing a vehicle with a 53 foot long, 13.6 foot high trailer?

Your program is way better. It’s a full blown navigational system. In one of your two videos, it’s hard to hear the voice coming from the laptop, but that is definitely very sweet.

I released an update for TSL, version .9. This has come a long way from where I was when I started this.

All of the source files are still on Sourceforge, that has not changed. I put together a video to help make installation easier, until Marble gains third party installation support through opendesktop.org.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/truckstoplinux/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dI9YLd48bRs

If you are an over the road driver, I would like your input. If there are any missing points or data, I would like to increase GPS integration, I do need some information about Canadian locations.(probably more than I realize)