Turn OpenStreetMap data into routing insights with openrouteservice and QGIS, no servers, no sign-ups, no code.

In this 90-minute hands-on session for newcomers and intermediates, you’ll:
- See how OSM tags become a routable network and why popular routing engines offer directions, isochrones & matrices per default and what they do.
- Connect the ORS-Tools QGIS-plugin with the public openrouteservice API with API-keys we hand out on the spot.
- Build multiprofile routes around the SotM venue, calculate hospital service areas in Manila, and solve a medicine delivery to every of those hospitals with the help of easy to access vehicle optimisation.

You’ll walk away with a reusable QGIS project, a tutorial, and the confidence and knowledge to repeat the workflow anywhere, anytime.

How does OpenStreetMap data as a collection of nodes, ways, and relations with tags like highway=*, access=* become the fast, turn-by-turn navigation and routing you see and use every day, including on openstreetmap.org?

And what else can you build and do with such a Routing Network?

This beginner-friendly deep-dive unpacks the tag-to-routing network process* and compares today’s most prominent open-source routing engines (OSRM, GraphHopper, Valhalla, openrouteservice).
On the example of openrouteservice we will show how currently 180,000 users, from governments to humanitarian responders, turn raw OSM data into meaningful mobility analysis** using directions, isochrones and vehicle-route optimisation and how your contribution helps them do this.

To round up the talk, we will focus on current trends for routing engines and look at two forthcoming and noteworthy developments in the openrouteservice ecosystem, that aim to mitigate climate and humanitarian related challenges.