Hi, we are TomTom - let's exchange ideas

MapMetrics has issues we’ve been working on. Mainly this is trainlines and water, as I said in the blog post about it. However it is a moving target, later months are better and we’ve been going back and rerunning prior months.

The existential issue is we can’t share the GPS data with you. In rural areas, it’s usually very obvious what’s wrong even without GPS. In denser areas it’s not so obvious (but can be with GPS). Sometimes it’s more hidden things like turn restrictions, or lots of people breaking the law (going down one way streets the wrong way for examples). But in any case, we’re usually pretty confident about “red” cells. If you have a particular case I can look at it, send a MM link…

Can’t → won’t. You own that data don’t you?

I had a look using OSM202107 and found on the A13 in Rotterdam a tile that is (dark) red according to the .pdf, the Median Count is larger than 50000:

Would be good if you can do a deep dive on this so it is clear why according to MapMetrics there are so many problems in this tile because I would be really surprised if you can find a real problem in the OSM data.

Could you show us the GPS tracks backing the cell emvee shared above?

I would also like to see these:

At first glance there seem to be rather a lot of false positives.

Also look at what happens on aerodromes; something is going wrong there too.

Earlier I mentioned the situation on the Markerwaarddijk.

http://mijndev.openstreetmap.nl/~allroads/NLOSMOK/OSMOKNL.html#map=18.20/52.6693/5.3682/0

What about a cyclist and a tomtom app on his smarpthone? Are the Markerwaarddijk false positive come from this use?

Ride with a car, stop on a parking, cycle further, still the application active. Are the cyclist traces filtered?

I know people riding with their smartphone in their pocket and use a headset.

If Tomtom is going to map and tag, how to correct problems, survey, data made and used bij Tomtom is like as our own survey and images taken of the situation. Their streetview imagery.

Can we use the survey of Tomtom, their streetview imagery to solve problems?

When is the moment that the licence should be checked when used for Openstreetmap?

Ok so for this one

https://mapmetrics-world.innovation.tomtom-global.com/#?mapSource=OSM&metric=median_count&z=18&lat=51.939092&lon=4.429593&ds=OSM202107&ds2=None&mapSource2=OSM

Here’s what I found in no particular order:

  • There are mopeds (I think) using Kleinpolderkade but not super many of them. We do filter cyclists with some success. Mopeds are harder :-/
  • The car park in Piet Cottarstraat has many GPS traces going through the middle of it, right down the middle of where satellite shows the car park recently. It looks like either some GPS is snapped to a map with a road through the middle (which is possible but unlikely from looking at the maps), or, there was road work and it was redirected.
  • The one way streets in OSM on the West side of the A13 don’t agree with multiple other map providers. No idea who is right without being on the ground.
  • There’s a chance that the two living streets from the car park to Ludolf de Jonghstraat aren’t being routed against correctly, we will check.

Zooming around one of the links provided:

For here:

https://mapmetrics-world.innovation.tomtom-global.com/#?mapSource=OSM&metric=median_count&z=18&lat=53.182382&lon=5.758265&ds=OSM202107&ds2=None&mapSource2=OSM

That building(?) at the SE corner of the roundabout is full of vehicle traces. On the satellite I looked at it looks like a rough grass square. From the GPS it looks like a car park or loading docks.

Here’s another

https://mapmetrics-world.innovation.tomtom-global.com/#?mapSource=OSM&metric=median_count&z=18&lat=53.169840&lon=5.724118&ds=OSM202107&ds2=None&mapSource2=OSM

OSM has a cyclepath with a access gate to the east of what looks like a house. From GPS, this looks like a lot of cars with no gate and should “really” be a road. It could be moped riders but looks like cars. It doesn’t look like anyone stops for the gate, if it’s there.

From another link, looking at the red areas here:

https://mapmetrics-world.innovation.tomtom-global.com/#?mapSource=OSM&metric=median_count&z=18&lat=53.222452&lon=5.766744&ds=OSM202107&ds2=None&mapSource2=OSM

If you look at satellite there’s lots of access roads missing around the buildings and connecting to what looks like a taxiway (which I can see a lot of vehicles use).

Similarly:

https://mapmetrics-world.innovation.tomtom-global.com/#?mapSource=OSM&metric=median_count&z=18&lat=53.223758&lon=5.696361&ds=OSM202107&ds2=None&mapSource2=OSM

has roads to the northern buildings, (road or highway:track, or something but there’s no road there in OSM)

For this one:

https://mapmetrics-world.innovation.tomtom-global.com/#?mapSource=OSM&metric=median_count&z=18&lat=53.191607&lon=5.633461&ds=OSM202107&ds2=None&mapSource2=OSM

the “space” in that tile at the top right that runs roughly NW/SE is a heavily trafficed “road” from the GPS.

On the other hand, this one is a complete puzzle to me:

https://mapmetrics-world.innovation.tomtom-global.com/#?mapSource=SAT&metric=median_count&z=17&lat=53.190842&lon=5.632614&ds=OSM202107&ds2=None&mapSource2=OSM

This is also another slightly puzzling one:

https://mapmetrics-world.innovation.tomtom-global.com/#?mapSource=SAT&metric=median_count&z=18&lat=53.171228&lon=5.60574&ds=OSM202109&ds2=None&mapSource2=OSM

It looks to me like a lot of people take mopeds (or something) past that building in this red tile. Filtering out high speed cyclists vs. low speed mopeds is not trivial.

Hope this was useful we will discuss these more internally and see if we can figure out solutions. More feedback is welcome!

I’m not sure which gate you are referring to, but you are right that there is a tagging flaw there. The cycleway doesn’t start until just south of that farm. I’ve fixed it.

Your notes are interesting, thanks for taking the time to look into these. However, without seeing the (compound) GPS traces for cells ourselves we simply can’t provide any meaningful feedback on why some cells are red and some are fine except in a very limited piece-meal fashion.

As an analytical tool I find it, in its current state, just not very useful for the average mapper.

Could you explain why you are holding out on showing us the traces backing these in a form that is amenable to your apparent need for secrecy? Even discussing this selection of cells you’re not showing your source data leaving us to just imagine them. I’m sure the raw GPS traces themselves are an asset you are forbidden to share with competitors by your superiors, but surely you can generate a sort of heat map to complement your MapMetrics cells?

As I provided this tile I did have a look.

  • The Kleinpolderkade was not part of the tile but reviewing it I saw it was mapped as highway=pedestrian but that is not correct, there is no G11 and cars can drive there provided the bollard at the begin/end are removed. For sure mopeds can drive there, but it is not a logical through route.

  • The buildings of the Piet Cottarstraat were finished 2019 so road work looks unlikely to me

  • I reviewed the one way streets in OSM on the West side of the A13 (als not part of the tile) using the verkeersbordenkaart and they were all correct apart from one piece of the Julianastreet that I corrected. What are your “multiple other map providers”?

  • The two living streets between the car park to Ludolf de Jonghstraat and the Ludolf de Jonghstraat are not living streets but pedestrian area’s that can also be used by bicycles/moped’s. Clearly visible on PDOK/BGT/Obligue so corrected that. I do not expect any car traffic on these ways.

A few more things:

  • Please look at the latest dates. On the layer panel on the right you should see 07 (july), 08, 09. 10 is coming. We had some issues with 09 tiles we’re fixing now. You should notice that the detection gets better over time, especially with railways.
  • We may actually just remove old months if you folks find the old ones confusing or not useful, and just always show the latest data
  • Any feedback on the comparison (month-to-month) layers?
  • We’re working on figuring out cyclists but it will take time

Generally speaking I think the “red tiles” are pretty good with the caveats about cyclists and (in the past) trains. It’s unfortunate we can’t open up GPS but there it is. Red tiles with one road in them are generally trivial to see what the problem is (as you can see in some of my prior examples). Red tiles with 20 roads need some sleuthing but generally are still pretty good. We can make smaller tiles to give a higher resolution grid, we’ll investigate this.

  • “multiple other map providers” - I also looked at google and tomtom I think, purely to see if they agreed or not.
  • cycle lanes - we route right now for cars. So if mopeds or cyclists get in the data, and use cycle paths, which they do a lot in NL, then we have problems. As I mentioned, we are working on a variety of solutions for this.
  • GPS - it’s primarily privacy reasons and unfortunately a heatmap is not a sufficient obfuscator.

Maybe you can show part of the GPS trace in the red tiles used to indicate the error and leave all traces without issue away and remove GPS trace as soon as the issue is resolved?
Or at least indicate with a pin with some text (like osmose or keepright) what’s wrong. Makes it more useful and likely that someone will fix it and less like looking for a needle in the haystack…

I can’t say that I see how a low resolution heat map of GPS traces — i.e., all GPS traffic from your data source compounded into a single image corresponding to your cells, similar to what Strava had — is a privacy concern for anyone as long as you exclude conflict zones (of which we obviously have none within our national borders). Could you explain this? Perhaps you need to talk to your privacy officer about this to obtain permission? You can reach them via privacy@tomtom.com.

We’re not asking for raw data linked to user accounts, we want to see the compound data to compare it with the mapped ways in order to help you pinpoint the issues with your analytical algorithm. As it stands we see a bunch of red cells, but no obvious clues as to what exactly is causing its error rating.

For reference, an example of what I mean by compound GPS heat map:

It matters how the data were collected, i.e. its legal conditions.

You basically sign away any and all rights to the positional data you generate to TomTom, so not much of a problem there. There’s a provision in their privacy policy that explicitly enables the above use. The data generated by TomTom users is a huge asset for TomTom, so they’ll make sure they own it.

If TomTom doesn’t want to show their source data, then Steve is either lying about this being about privacy (I don’t think he would do that though), or he’s just not up to speed with the exact legal conditions (i.e., someone erroneously told him that this was not possible due to privacy issues).

In either case, I would prefer a straight answer. If TomTom is not willing to share their data for the betterment of OpenStreetMap where TomTom benefits from the resulting free high quality map data, then that is fine, but please be upfront about your motives and limitations.

Still on Overschie Rotterdam, https://mapmetrics-world.innovation.tomtom-global.com/#?mapSource=OSM&metric=median_count&z=18&lat=51.939092&lon=4.429593&ds=OSM202107&ds2=None&mapSource2=OSM

On the possible mopeds on the Kleinpolderkade: Did you see the tracks going from the A13 to the Lagebrug and vice-versa? I think the would not make sense because it is not really a through route (especially in the middle) and taking a parallel route via de Lugt will be faster.

On the one way streets in OSM on the West side of the A13 don’t agree with google and tomtom, I do not see a mismatch, can you give one? Is the problem not that people drive against the allow direction?

For Leeuwarden, Nobelweg, https://mapmetrics-world.innovation.tomtom-global.com/#?mapSource=OSM&metric=median_count&z=18&lat=53.182382&lon=5.758265&ds=OSM202107&ds2=None&mapSource2=OSM

That building(?) at the SE corner of the roundabout, is not a building (yet), it was grass and is now a construction area for a geothermal plant. It being full of vehicle traces does not make sense apart from construction traffic, but the you should see the track stop/start here. If that is not the case, where do these tracks typically start.stop?

For the G13 Hylaerderpaed, https://mapmetrics-world.innovation.tomtom-global.com/#?mapSource=OSM&metric=median_count&z=18&lat=53.169840&lon=5.724118&ds=OSM202107&ds2=None&mapSource2=OSM

I am not sure where you got the access gate from, but I see a cattle gird, see also barrier=cattle_grid. Cars are not possible on this G13 “optional bicycle path”, the cycle-way is on 1,5 meters wide and the bridge, apart from not being wide enough can very likely not carry the weight of car. Notice that mopeds are not allowed on a G13 so whatever you see on the cycle-path is there illegal. Question: What type of speeds do you see there?

For the military vliegbasis Leeuwarden, https://mapmetrics-world.innovation.tomtom-global.com/#?mapSource=OSM&metric=median_count&z=18&lat=53.222452&lon=5.766744&ds=OSM202107&ds2=None&mapSource2=OSM

The PDOK Luchtfoto Actueel Ortho HR (7,5 cm) Beeldmateriaal.nl shows there is a construction area here, so like for Leeuwarden, Nobelweg, is this just construction traffic?

I added that piece of road, it is 118 meters, is that the reason for a big error?

That is good feedback, I see the road has been meanwhile added.

Construction traffic once more?

Nothing puzzling, this is a 0.6 meter wide G13 cycle path, moped’s and mofa’s not allowed. So what you see is once more illegal traffic.
I think that for filtering out moped’s you better check if the traces go over OSM cycleways and if so it are very likely bicycles/mofa’s or mopeds.

Yes, good discussion. I hope you see that for the moment MapMetrics is not useful to update OSM.

Hi everyone,

We’re excited about your interest in MapMetrics. If you have any further related questions but cannot reach Steve through this forum, you can send your inquiries directly to his team at innovationteam@groups.tomtom.com.

Coming back to the projects that we originally proposed, I see that your community has already solved many of the issues in the non-closed polygon and charging station tag challenges. Thank you for that! We are happy to be working on the map together with you, and look forward to possible future collaborations.

Kind regards,

Marjan

Without giving my opinion on some alternatives mentioned, and without wanting to start a discussion on this either, I do understand why sharing the private GPS traces publicly is avoided. Imagine seeing a GPS trace starting at your married neighbors house and ending at the parking lot of a brothel ;). Sharing with(in) a company vs. the big public is a big difference.

Oh it goes without saying that we don’t want those. All data should be anonymized and stripped of identifying attributes. With heat maps it’s still possible that in areas with not quite as much traffic you can see that there is exactly one line repeatedly going from the house of a well-known vegan influencer to the butcher shop a block over, but it doesn’t tell you more than that, and as a user of TomTom’s services you’ve already opted in to agreeing to exactly that level of disclosure — i.e., you’ve signed away your expectation of privacy via their terms of use and the privacy policy.

TomTom pretending that this is about privacy is a bit of a red flag for me, because they explicitly tell their users upfront not to expect that level of privacy. This is more likely than not about preventing competitors from gaining access to such data. I’d love to be proven wrong though.

Besides, there are all sorts of tricks that could be employed by Steve’s team; like limiting the traces exposed to areas that lack ways on OSM, or only showing traces for red tiles. Both would enable mappers to improve those areas while limiting the exposure of TomTom’s corporate assets.

If I write anything close to that it is immediately removed from this forum. :smiley:

If you look on the “DKK Kadastralegrens V2” (enable layer OSM OK)
Then you see yellow “DKK Kadastralegrens” lines, these are recently changed ownership.
The railway levelcrossing is going to be changed. New path to the left then under the raillwaybridge.
http://mijndev.openstreetmap.nl/~allroads/NLOSMOK/OSMOKNL.html#map=18.60/53.1732/5.6001/0
yellow: wfs tag “typeGrensWaarde = Voorlopig” (provisory) after measured in “definitief” definitive.
This tag is a indication for changes.
Probably, likely, planning people or builders investigate this situation are going to that spot.

wfs https://data.overheid.nl/en/dataset/6593-kadastrale-kaart-v4
A map with these location is a indication, where data is changing. It is obvious that there is a new path to be created.

But this is only one red tile, speeding moped on cycleway past the building then across railwaycrossing? There are no red tiles futher on, the traces should be ongoing. Then I thought that is not the case.
Are these planning/construction people taking the farmers track left of the ditch to be more close the railway to do there job?
Or a planning/construction quad to some point.

The people who live in the house can use a moped, daily and likely they have a permit to use the cycleway G13, for them “not illegal”, then not past the building.

A partly trace would be handsome to make more reliable assumption.
Is the trace ongoing or a turn around at some point?

It is only one red tile.
Looks like it is not a ongoing activity on the cycleway.
Not ongoing speeding mopeds, speed pedelecs.

Good research, so again construction traffic and/or mopeds.

cyclists are likely not the problem, as MapMetrics is filtering on speed it are mopeds that are the problem.

I know some numbers for a straight solitary cyclepath and there the average speed of mopeds is ~45 km/h with 63 km/h being the V85, speed is not the way to filter out two-wheelers.

I had a look at OSM202110 and apart from mopeds, also water is a problem:

What is the problem here? The only road in this tile is a private service road

Summarizing, based on what I see, there are problems with:

  1. Cyclepaths

  2. Construction traffic

  3. Water

  4. People driving routes that are not allowed