Road network improvements

Hello,

My name is Andrew Wiseman, I work for Apple on the maps team. My team is interested in doing some work on the road network in Bulgaria on OpenStreetMap, things like adding missing roads, making sure roads connect properly, fixing incorrect alignments with GPS traces, ensuring road classifications are consistent, and other similar issues.

Are there places you know of that need improvement or types of problems you see frequently? And are there any imagery sources you’d recommend, any specific highway classification guidelines you recommend, or anything else that might help? I’ve seen https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Bg:WikiProject_Bulgaria and https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Bg:WikiProject_Bulgaria/Пътна_мрежа

We have a Github page here about the project: https://github.com/osmlab/appledata/issues/136

Automatic translation version below.

Thank you,

Andrew

Apple, Inc.


Здравейте,

Казвам се Андрю Уайзман, работя за Apple в екипа за карти. Моят екип се интересува от работата по пътната мрежа в България на OpenStreetMap, неща като добавяне на липсващи пътища, осигуряване на правилното свързване на пътищата, коригиране на неправилни подреждания с GPS следи, осигуряване на последователност на класификациите по пътищата и други подобни проблеми.

Има ли места, за които знаете, че се нуждаете от подобрение или видове проблеми, които виждате често? Имате ли някакви източници на изображения, които бихте препоръчали, някои специфични насоки за класифициране на магистрали, които препоръчвате, или нещо друго, което може да помогне? Виждал съм https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Bg:WikiProject_Bulgaria и https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Bg:WikiProject_Bulgaria/Пътна_мрежа

Тук имаме Github страница за проекта: https://github.com/osmlab/appledata/issues/136

Благодаря ти,

Andrew

Apple, Inc.

Hi Andrew,

That’s great news! Personally I don’t know of a specific region that’s more in need of attention than the rest – all I can say is the bigger towns and cities tend to be better mapped, and so roads in their immediate vicinity are probably better mapped overall.

In know that in Sofia, in recent months, ESRI World Imagery is probably the best, though it’s shifted by a few meters. Bing is better aligned but older. All 3 of Bing, Mapbox and ESRI are useful.

OpenAerialMap has some drone imagery, though I guess that’s realyl useful for urban areas.

Let us know how it goes!
Cheers

Thanks saintam1, that’s god to know! We’ll use the OSM and Strava GPS traces where available to help align things.

Andrew

Thank you, Andrew, nice initiative. I was not aware that Apple is actively mapping in OSM.

I agree with everything said by saintam1.

Better alignment with the actual position could be helpful, but as already stated all images are somehow off here and there. Tracks cannot be of help everywhere, especially where there are just a few of them.

One pet project of mine is the street naming convention in Bulgarian. I kindly ask you to follow it, too.

Hi Andrew,

One more vote for the street naming, I spend a lot of time arguing with people and fixing already broken names, so if you can please keep with the convention when adding/editing it will be great.

Thanks!

Thanks BollWeevil and IDKS, that’s good to know!

Actually can you add surface=asphalt to motorways, tertiary/secondary roads and residential roads if they don’t have such tag? All of them are asphalt but a lot does not have that tag, some residential might be actually dirt or cobblestone, but that will get fixed eventually.