OpenStreetMap
Some people have asked me about the work I have been doing about the reference numbers for roads around the Hampshire area.
My main aim was to attempt to fill in some of the empty road names that are not only missing on OSM but other maps out there. As Hampshire County Council has a policy of naming all roads there are names for them. You can search for them from the council's website http://www3.hants.gov.uk/adoptedroadsearch/.
In the process I have been trying to insert the internal reference numbers. These are non-unique numbers. The reason why I think it is useful to have them in OSM is because when planning requests, road alterations, traffic enforcement orders are published, they nearly always list the road number. It is extremely difficult to marry this up without a reasonable map.
I've mostly been focusing on the 'C' roads, as these are the connecting roads considered to be more important to get to outlying communities by the council.
The roads I have yet to fill in on the map in the Winchester District are as follows:
C105
C110
C117
C118
C161
C169
C174
C175
C177
C178
C181
C184
C188
C19
C196
C20
C201
C205
C207
C208
C217
C218
C223
C230
C234
C238
C244
C246
C26
C28
C29
C30
C330
C460
C464
C463
C465
C467
C471
C50
C51
C55
C61
C83
C88
C95
Anything missing from that list has already been added or doesn't exist.
It should also be noted that there is a C2 in Harts council however you'll need to use a pretty inventive google search to get that data, as querying for C2 will do a search for anything begining with C2, which times out. There doesn't appear to be a C1 at this time.
Discussion
Comment from Vclaw on 6 December 2011 at 17:26
Have you checked whether that council roads list is copyright?
Comment from chillly on 6 December 2011 at 18:46
The web page (once the missing '.uk' of the url is added) is copyright. In the UK, government and council web pages all carry copyright and you should only use the data on them if you get written permission to use the data. You can add the permission to a wiki page so people know you have it. Is any of this verifiable on the ground, such as with a sign?
Comment from essjayhch on 6 December 2011 at 18:55
I will double check where we stand on this, however the data itself on there will be a matter of public record and hence shouldn't be subject to copyright. They don't provide it in a "copyable" form anyway - it is a list of end-points. The mapping has to be derived from that.
Comment from chriscf on 6 December 2011 at 22:58
"the data itself on there will be a matter of public record and hence shouldn't be subject to copyright"
Unfortunately, the law in the UK doesn't work that way. Unless you've got an explicit grant of permission, then you're extracting substantial amounts from their database, which potentiatlly infringes a separate right in and of itself.
Comment from essjayhch on 6 December 2011 at 23:35
A license for this should be forthcoming. The usage here fall within the scope of what they will issue one for.
Comment from chillly on 7 December 2011 at 17:00
I like your optimism. If such a licence is forthcoming please tell everyone else the secret to getting it. :-)