Quite often I have been ‘spotted’ while out mapping and have got into conversations with local business owners. I want to allay their suspicions when they see me wandering along service alleys and taking photos of their premises. I explain what I am doing and tell them a bit about OSM mentioning that I will be adding their business details to the map.

Once I have done the editing and seen the results show up on the map I usually email the business and send them a link to the appropriate part of the map. I also mention that their details will appear on “Osmand – the associated Android app”

Does anyone else do this?

In my email should I be saying something like “OpenStreetMap -the free, open source, alternative to Google Maps” or is that perhaps being too pointed?

What about referring to embedding OSM on their website if they have one? I’ve generally avoided this as I’m not tech savvy enough to answer any questions which may arise.

Suggestions, comments welcome!

How about reading the local newspaper – especially the business pages – for information useful for updating existing OSM data or preparing a ‘To Do’ list for when the weather improves.

Examples are:- 1. New shops/businesses opening up or old ones closing down. 2. Perhaps a new building project has just got underway. 3. Who has just moved to new premises? 4. What is happening to that vacant site I noticed the other day? 5. New section of highway opened. 6. Developers advertising sections for sale on new housing subdivisions.

For building sites (tag ‘landuse=construction’) here are a couple of useful pages from the wiki
osm.wiki/Tag:landuse%3Dconstruction osm.wiki/Key:start_date – a future date can be entered to indicate when construction is due to finish. Might be a good idea to make a diary note around that date to check on progress so that a further update can be made.

Another ‘wet day’ project could be to select a local area and, if you have decent Bing imagery, add building outlines to the map. Select just a block or so and use a bit of caution combined with your local knowledge in case things have changed since the area was photographed. You are then all set to go out on a fine day and gather ‘on the ground’ details for all these buildings.

Finally, if you use JOSM as your editor, I highly recommend installing the ‘Opening Hours’ plugin. Once you have checked businesses opening hours on the web you can use this plugin to add the info to the OSM data. It makes a seemingly tedious task so simple.

How about looking at KeepRight and correcting anomalies in your area?

Open KeepRight http://keepright.ipax.at/report_map.php and zoom in to your local area (or further away if you need a reason to visit somewhere different). See all those little coloured lightning flashes? They need to be checked and the map updated. Click on any flash to get detailed information about the problem.

You can select specific types of ‘errors’ by checking/unchecking the boxes to the left of the map. Some particularly useful corrections are:- 1. “Highway=road” Can you update the classification of this highway? 2. “Almost junctions” Do they actually connect? 3. “Floating islands/ways not connected to the rest of the map” Are there connections or do the ways really exist in isolation?

The points you are interested in can be exported as GPX waypoints for loading to your GPS unit by clicking on the ‘blue GPX’ at the very bottom left of the screen.

When you return after checking the sites do any required editing on OSM. A useful description of the editing could be something like “Correcting KeepRight alerts” with source shown as “Surveyed today” One final step (helpful though not essential) is to update the KeepRight page. Click on the flashes you have resolved and check the “ignore temporarily (error corrected)” box. That will place a smiley face on the flash and save other mappers from unnecessary work. KeepRight is updated roughly weekly so, even if you don’t mark an error as having been resolved, the site will remove the error on the next scheduled update.

Have fun!