Talk:UK Quarterly Project
The is the "Talk" page for UK Quarterly Project (where the main list lives). Here we are discussing ideas for new UK quarterly projects and creating prototype descriptions. Please also discuss via the talk-gb mailing list
Main candidates for next quarter
Ideas (in alphabetical order)
Ideas and prototype descriptions for potential new UK Quarterly Projects. Please discuss via the talk-gb mailing list and update this with notes if and when there is some consensus. A section can stay in here even after it has been used for a quarterly project if a follow-up seems possible.
'A'-road corridor detail
By an 'A'-road corridor I mean the highway, adjacent land to property boundaries, buildings and landuse immediately beyond those property boundaries. The types of detail to be mapped would vary according to whether the highway is in an urban or rural area. Generic details of the road would include: maxspeed, lanes, lit, surface, minheight, sidewalk (and in rural areas verge). In towns it would be nice to ensure the main roads have all buildings with their addresses added. In rural areas hedges, fences etc. bounding the roads, and landuse where ascertainable. Further detail can be provided by lanes & direction tagging for lane navigation in satnavs.
If 'A'-roads are too much, then the focus should be on trunk first.
A decent proportion of these roads is now covered by Mapillary or (2011/12 vintage) Bing Streetside. In particular it would be nice to get speed limits coverage on 'A'-roads closer to 90-95%, but in areas where these things are well-mapped there's still plenty of potential. Therefore the task is both suitable for remote mapping and for additional survey work.
If the project works, it can be repeated for 'B'-roads.
Rationale: By generically improving 'A'-roads we can substantially improve OSM's usability for routing by goods vehicles. Also having the address structure along these roads likely makes it easier to guess the nature of addresses on side roads.
Beer
Pubs, bars & other licensed premises. Also breweries
Blue lights
Police, fire and ambulance stations, and associated infrastructure.
Possible link up with Blue Light Camp
Bridge Heights
Saw this and thought it might suit a small virtual project - to check/add bridge heights from Mapillary images or similar might be useful. -- Neil Matthews
And maybe network rail have a longer list / more info?
- User:Richard pointed out that one can use Geograph photos (albeit not precise geolocation) and his cycle.travel will find Geograph photos near a certain point. A few places have been done sporadically this way. One thing which tends to be constant is that low bridges seem to be part of how a given line was built. So once you find one, it makes sense to chug along the line checking as many as possible (the line parallel to A6 in Northern Ireland is one I've done). There's probably the need for a tag for bridges which aren't low to simplify cross-checking. SK53 (talk) 16:40, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
- StreetComplete maxheight quest will be soon asking also about maxheight under bridges Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 06:48, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
Buildings
Find the largest areas marked as "building" on OSM and split them into individual properties if they are terraces, or other blocks of houses, e.g. https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=18/51.49809/-3.17932
- Isn't it more important to map the (many) building areas that are currently completely un-mapped within OSM? --Danstowell (talk) 16:54, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
- Listed buildings can be interesting to map. Tags: Key:listed_status Key:HE_ref --Lakedistrict (talk) 21:25, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
- With the increased ease of housenumber survey given by StreetComplete, this could be worth a push? --InsertUser (talk) 22:07, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
Detailed mapping of railway and bus stations
There are excellent precedents for mapping public transport interchanges in a detail (e.g. OpenRailwayMap team in Germany & the Transilien In general the focus should be in adding information which helps with access. Adding access details may provide opportunities to engage with facility owners & promoting open data strategies for improving information about access for people with restricted mobility. Additionally these provide a special domain for mappers to learn about Simple 3D buildings & indoor tagging. 2016-December/019604
- I think this would be a great project, and could extend to various features, c.f. e.g. London public transport map challenge - station entrances (and have a look at wheelmap for station entrances as well). There's a lot that needs to be done! Also see [1] for some of my own detailed mapping of some London tube stations. This could also include part of the first suggestion, to count steps within public transport stations/interchanges. Bjohas (talk) 14:44, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
NaPTAN bus stops
We were discussing the bus stations idea last night but got waylaid onto talking about bus stops and NaPTAN data. There's definitely potential for quarterly projects around that, but maybe only after developing some tools. Ideally tools need to be doing some sort of intelligent 3-way diff between...
- Current NaPTAN data
- NaPTAN data as it would have originally been imported
- Current OSM bus stops data.
We need a clear view of what refinements contributors have been making in OSM since the imports, and what refinements the NaPTAN maintainers have been making. There have been widespread precision improvements to bus stop locations in NaPTAN, and also the data set can reflect major road layout re-designs which OSM may not know about (I remember seeing this when Grimsby town centre was re-arranged and nobody had re-mapped it in OSM. NaPTAN bus stops moved to new locations around a new shopping mall). So at one stage it was safe to say that corrections made within OSM were refining the accuracy of the original NaPTAN, it's much less certain nowadays. Original data modified within OSM may or may not be better than current NaPTAN data.
We also need a clearer view of what actually happened with the original imports to be honest. The list on NaPTAN/Request for Import is hopefully accurate and complete(?) A timeline animation showing UK bus stop import/editing activity would be great!
Some tricky challenges, but nonetheless it's something we should tackle, and potentially with good tools it might result in quite an easy project for people to chip in with.
-- Harry Wood (talk) 09:38, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
Disabled parking spaces
The current method, amenity=parking_space disabled=yes, is not entirely satisfactory, but this is current practise. Capacity tags can be used, but don't show where disabled spaces are located in larger facilities. There may be some open data on this for some cities, e.g. Nottingham Most spaces will be in town/city centres and public & customer car parks. 2016-December/019604
Drinking Water
Public water fountains/taps, and also availability of (free) water from pubs, restaurants, etc. Maybe some tie-in / collaboration with Refill . (Possibly could be combined with public toilets for a quarterly project.)
- I was planning to suggest this; we also have several overlapping tags for good reasons ('amenity=drinking_water', 'man_made=water_tap', 'amenity=water_point', probably more) but they're not consistently applied, as I've found when using query2map. So there's a surveying project and potentially some data-tidying too. --ChrisHodgesUK (talk) 10:14, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
Electric charging points
Is anyone doing this independently? This doesn't have to replicate existing work, we could convince a 3rd party to start using OSM as their primary store
This would pair well with the recycling suggestion below. (An eco-friendly quarter.)
Open Data available from the National Chargepoint Registry. An initial look shows this to not be very complete though: https://osm.mathmos.net/chargepoint/progress/ -- but it's probably still useful for getting our coverage up.
A useful thing for mappers would be a shorted "minimal tagging" guide for the UK market, which simplifies all the options in Tag:amenity=charging_station.
FixMe & notes
Done for UK 2019 Q4 Project: Fixmes and Notes
Notes *are* a way that, how can I say, 'less experienced' OSMers can communicate ideas/changes to us, and it is too easy to simply never see them. Jnicho02 (talk) 07:26, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
Is there an analysis tool showing number of notes per area? We could publish them regularly somewhere visible, like osmuk.org web site or the United Kingdom main page Jnicho02 (talk) 07:26, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
The iD Editor has a layer setting to display notes. I don't know how long the resolved notes hang around. Jnicho02 (talk) 07:26, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
Fixmes can be viewed in iD or with a QA tool, while notes can be viewed on osm.org and StreetComplete which is useful for actually going out and surveying them.
If you're a Garmin user you can use https://github.com/SomeoneElseOSM/Notes01 from the command line to get a list of fixmes in a certain area. I'm sure there are other options as well.
OSMand also shows them.
[Digest of talk-GB list posts] Eteb3 (talk) 21:35, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
GLAMs
Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums
GP surgeries
There is a gov data list of surgeries which could be cross-referenced
The Care and Quality Commission inspect and review every care-giving public entity in the UK e.g. Florence House Medical Practice, Manchester https://www.cqc.org.uk/location/1-550764239 which they currently have slightly to the west of its actual position 1131252256
1131252256 Jnicho02 (talk) 07:26, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
https://healthsites.io/ might be of interest Jnicho02 (talk) 15:36, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Heritage plaques
See Open Plaques? --Lakedistrict (talk) 21:25, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
Missing/wrong road names
Parkruns
A spur-of-the-moment comment whilst discussing Preston Park, Brighton led to a number of comments about Parkrun mapping https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-gb/2019-June/023008.html There are pros and cons to consider. But, it would be politic to get them off of Google Maps Jnicho02 (talk) 07:26, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/JI7
Public art
location, artist, material. Link up with Wikidata
Public toilets
Gail Ramster has done sterling work on the Great British Toilet Map. (Possibly could be combined with drinking water for a quarterly project.)
PRoWs
Public Rights of Way
Railway Level Crossings
Compare OSM data with [2], and potentially map any that are missing using aerial imagery.
Recycling, refill shops, waste disposal and repair shops
This would require a lot of local knowledge. Many councils publish informal lists of their recycling and waste disposal points, but the availability of facilities for recycling particular materials often differs on the ground.
This would pair well with the electric charging points suggestion above. (An eco-friendly quarter.)
- I like this one as it is a chance to partner with local councils. Someone at my Brighton & Hove City Council has kindly added notes to show where recycling points are https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/RunaBHCC/notes I don't see these points mapped on their own website, only Recycling Centres aka 'the dump'. We could encourage other Councils to do the same. Jnicho02 (talk) 17:21, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
- RecycleNow appears to have locations including shops https://www.recyclenow.com/local-recycling Jnicho02 (talk) 17:21, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
Shops
even where mapped, these soon fall out-of-date.
- The work with Food Hygiene Rating Service data has helped with cafes, restaurants, supermarkets, off-licences, etc. Jnicho02 (talk) 08:01, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
Steps
In particular step counts.
SK53 said, "For many of us (parents, people with COPD (e.g., me, but I know other OSM contributors too) , older people, etc., etc.) steps are OK in small quantities, but beyond a certain number which will vary with the person (and what they are carrying). it may well be desirable to avoid them." 2016-December/019604
- StreetComplete has quest detecting steps with missing step count what makes mapping this less frustrating. It also asks some other step-related questions (is there a handrail, ramp) Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 06:50, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
Street Furniture
With no cafes open at the moment, I've been glad of a nice bench on my bike rides. Sitting on one yesterday I wondered how many were mapped, and the answer is very few. I've just added a handful that I know about accurately enough. Litter bins would be handy too and of course are often co-located. This would be very amenable to local surveys. I doubt there's a data source. --ChrisHodgesUK (talk) 11:18, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
Universities
A major blitz on which University campuses have been mapped, and how well. Jnicho02 (talk) 08:13, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
- One issue I've raised before (and was discussed plenty) is that of "overusing" amenity=university. Ideally it should be once per university, or once per university-campus perhaps, though in some places it's once per university building (there's existing better tagging for uni buildings, such as building=university, or building=residential & residential=university). I don't know what the current balance of usage is. --Danstowell (talk) 16:52, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
Vets
maybe not enough to do on their own. Combine with shops?
Zoos
I love a tourism=zoo me....and a 2018 FOI request identified 330 Zoos in the United Kingdom I wonder if they are all mapped, and how well? Jnicho02 (talk) 08:13, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
Gantries
I would like to suggest gantries, most commonly used as motorway signholders: man_made=gantry.
Surprisingly they are nearly complete absent despite they facilitate navigation: Overpass.--Yonah Freemark (talk) 18:38, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
- I like this very much, but IMHO this would be too small as a topic.--Crunch (talk) 22:35, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
Organisation of Wiki Pages
I suggest the UK Quarterly Project pages are nested: UK Quarterly Project/2021/2021Q1 .... Would ease navigation (simple click to get pack to next level or top level SK53 (talk) 14:16, 3 January 2021 (UTC)