2025-11-15 –, Area
A look at what goes on behind the scenes to power my UK "Survey Me" tool, with advice for anyone looking to run similar tools elsewhere. Sources the tool compares with OSM include AllThePlaces and datasets for schools, healthcare, defibrillators and postboxes.
The "Survey Me" tool combines the output of a number of other tools to indicate local issues in the UK that would benefit from an on-the-ground check to resolve. The other tools either check OSM data for consistency, or compare OSM data with different external datasets (including branches of chains from AllThePlaces, and official lists of UK schools, healthcare facilities, defibrillators and postboxes). Errors, omissions and unexpected objects in OSM are flagged for review.
I will talk about some of the work that goes on behind the scenes in obtaining the data and running these tools, along with how I deal with various issues in the external datasets. This talk should be of interest to a general OSM audience, anyone working with external datasets, and anyone thinking of setting up similar tools in other countries.
open-data, mapping tools, data comparison, external datasets
Robert Whittaker has been involved with with OpenStreetMap since signing up as a volunteer mapper in December 2008. He particularly likes mapping countryside features and rights of way, along with high street shops and street furniture. He has written a number of data comparison tools to help flag missing or outdated features to mappers, which are available at https://osm.mathmos.net/ . He was one of the founding directors of OpenStreetMap UK, but left the Board soon after because of other commitments. He was re-elected as a Director in September 2023. In his day job, Robert works as Lecturer in Applied Mathematics at the University of East Anglia. He also has a more general interest in Open Data and government transparency.