Data Improvements in the Philippines

[awisemanapple]

Task Description

This task outlines work to improve map data in the Philippines. We first plan to work on improving the road network, such as adding missing roads, fixing network issues such as missing connections or crossing roads, and other related issues. After that we plan to update and correct coastline and water features as we find them, and correct and improve land use and land cover polygons where needed, such as airports, national parks, forests, colleges and universities, and so on -- remove duplicates, correct the boundaries, fix incorrect tags and other similar things. We also plan to update and correct major issues or vandalism of roads.

We will message the local community and get feedback and suggestions for this project.

We plan to do some improvements such as the following:

• Correcting road connectivity issues and network issues such as missing roads and alignment according to local and OSM guidelines
• Correcting coastline and water features
• Correcting buildings and land use
• Other one-off fixes

Mapping Guidelines

For roads, the team will follow OSM and local highway policy, along with any other guidelines as appropriate.

For water and coastlines, the team will follow OSM coastline guidelines, waterways policy such as water and natural=water and local policy along with any other policy as appropriate.

Some coastlines are connected to lower level subnational administrative boundaries. In that case we will adjust the boundary with the coastline. These are not country boundaries, but things like place, district and county.

Where we see them, we will remove the source=PGS tag, which was from an earlier coastline import that needs to be cleaned up. We received a message on the India coastlines project requesting this, and it is commonly done in other coastline improvement edits.

The team will use imagery and data sources below as needed. When in doubt, the team will use the existing tags and data which are used locally. The history in JOSM (ctrl-H) identifies what previous mappers added and their notes and/or explanations regarding changes made. This history can also show if a previous mapper has visited that area or has expert knowledge or sources.

We have also messaged talk-ph and the Local OSM Telegram to get feedback and suggestions about the project.

Our team uses the hashtag #adt (for Apple Data Team) for our edits.

Area of Focus

Throughout the country.

Tools

The team will use JOSM for completing the task. JOSM has validation warnings for road networks and other possible issues that are important to prevent improper changes.

Sources

• DigitalGlobe/Maxar Standard and Premium imagery
• Bing imagery
• Mapbox imagery
• ESRI imagery
• Mapillary
• OpenStreetCam
• Pic4Carto
• HOT Task Imagery, if available
• Telenav's MissingRoads plugin and ImproveOSM
• Strava and OSM GPS traces
• OpenAerialMap

The team will apply image offsets as needed.

Ferry data

Apple is releasing data on ferry terminal and line information in the Philippines. This contribution is made available for use under the OpenStreetMap ODbL license. The data includes ferry terminals with names of ferry lines, whether the ferry is for cars, and the direction of the ferry, if applicable. We will confirm that the ferry exists and the terminal location is correct, and if missing we will add those to OSM and estimate the ferry route. The data includes starting and ending points at ferry terminals but not the specific routes between them. If the ferry route is already in OSM we will investigate and determine what is correct. When we use the data we will cite it in the OSM changeset source tag.

Street name data

Apple is also sharing street names in the Philippines. You can find out more information here.

Changeset Comments

The team will provide changeset comments that are in compliance with OSM changeset guidelines.

Where needed, the team will tag corrections with review_requested=yes so the local community can double check them.

Error Detection

The team will check for errors visually and using JOSM validation warnings prior to committing the changeset.

In addition, the team will review its work in accordance with validation guidelines such as the OSM Wiki and LearnOSM.

Contributors

• Data Team

MapRoulette

We have also posted MapRoulette challenges related to the road network: https://maproulette.org/browse/projects/39286

For more information

Our community lead is Teddy Ahlvin and our editing leads are Jon Westlake and Erica Olson. To get in touch with Teddy, you can email or contact him via OSM.

All of our leads can be reached via email.

OSM Wiki

[maning]

@awisemanapple a couple of edits around my mapping area are wrong. I posted comments in the changeset. Please revisit your workflow to make sure edits are correct, please leave them if your team is not 100% sure. Thank you.

• wrong road connection - 97531648
• wrong highway class - 97729695

[awisemanapple]

@maning Hi Maning, thanks for the comment, and I saw your two changeset comments and the messages on Telegram as well. We will take a look and respond soon.

[maning]

This road gave me a very bad route from a ride hailing app that uses OSM data. It was originally marked as footway by me because it was primarily used as such although small vehicles can pass.

Your team change the class to residential but it is not actually connected to the service road to the north, which your team also changed to from service to residential .

The correct fix here is to add a steps to connect Tambuli to the service road, which I did just now.

@awisemanapple I commented on this ticket about such issues, but its seems like your team continues to edit with the same flawed workflow.

In both instances I reported, it appear routing experience gets worse rather than improve it.

[awisemanapple]

@maning Thank you for the comment, and we saw and have responded to your changeset comment as well. Thanks for the suggestion, we will make sure to make note these situations in the future.

[maning]

@awisemanapple Can you explain what were the basis for re-classifiying and connecting existing roads? In the above cases I reported (1, 2), the routing became worse.

Decisions like this cannot be done purely on the basis of satellite imagery or other remote sources without ground survey. I think your team should avoid such edits unless you have ground-truth sources (streetlevel imagery, actual ground survey).

[awisemanapple]

Hi @maning, thank you for reaching out and I can help explain our reasoning here. For the most recent issue (near way 4243935), this residential neighborhood’s roads were previously all classified as footways. Since the OSM wiki (https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:highway%3Dfootway) says that footway "is used for mapping minor pathways which are used mainly or exclusively by pedestrians” and satellite imagery shows cars on these neighborhood roads, we felt highway=residential was a more accurate classification. That seems to fit the local guidelines too for residential at https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Philippines/Mapping_conventions/Roads/Classification. So the basis of these edits were to accurately follow the OSM Wiki’s highway classification guidelines and improve routing for this neighborhood’s residents, so they can route to and from their houses.

That being said, I do agree with your assessment and concern, as the northernmost connection you cited is less definitive and should have been left as a footway. We have reiterated this concern to the team and that ground-truth resources would be necessary for that type of edit in the future.