The One and Many Maps: Participatory and Temporal Diversities in OpenStreetMap

The One and Many Maps:
Participatory and Temporal
Diversities in OpenStreetMap
Tyng-Ruey Chuang1, Dong-Po Deng1,3, Chun–Chen Hsu1,2,
Rob Lemmens3
1Institute

of Information Science, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
2Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, National Taiwan University
3Faculty of Geo–Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), University of Twente,
Netherlands

Second ACM SIGSPATIAL International Workshop on Crowdsourced and Volunteered Geographic
Information (GEOCROWD) 2013 In conjunction with ACM SIGSPATIAL 2013
Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Background
•

OSM is a wiki-style online mapping
platform in which tens of thousands of
people voluntarily contribute geospatial
data into the making of a global map
(Haklay & Weber, 2008).

•

Its peer production model demonstrates
that more and more mapping activities
are done by the citizens.

•

It represents the success of a collective
form of geospatial content creation.


Collaborative Geospatial Content
Creation
•

OSM is a type of PPGIS, as well as
the characteristics of data
collaboration in OSM as the subjects
of VGI research.

•

The current state of OSM actually is
an assembly of many edits and
updates over a period of time.

•

Every edit or update should be a
meaningful unit in the understanding
of data collaboration activities in
OSM.


Aims
•

We intend to look for ways to systematically and efficiently
discover data collaboration patterns and diversities in OSM

•

It is an initial study of the OSM dataset (at least about the
part of Taiwan) by developing a set of metrics to
summarize

•
•
•

user participation, and
spatiotemporal variations of updates in defined areas of
OSM

We hope to see the OSM not as one collective map but as
many overlapping maps concurrently in the making with
each in its own characteristics

OSM Data Model
Node
Way
Open polyline
Closed polyline
Area
Relation
Tag


OSM Data
An example of a Node
<node id='1762782473'
timestamp='2012-12-12T03:49:16Z'
uid='1048' user='dongpo' visible='true'
version='2' changeset='14245247'
lat='23.864527' lon='121.5217101'>
<tag k='name' v='立川漁場' />
<tag k='tourism' v='attraction' />
<tag k='source' v='survey' />
<tag k='addr: housenumber' v='45' />
<tag k='addr:district' v='魚池' />
<tag k='addr:town' v='壽豐鄉' />
<tag k='addr:county' v='花蓮縣' />
</node>

OSM Data
An example of a Way
<way id='118416207'
timestamp='2012-05-23T17:43:06Z'
version='4' changeset='14246301'>
<nd ref='1088092959' />
<nd ref='1088092953' />
....
<nd ref='1600948228' />
<tag k='highway' v='primary' />
<tag k='lanes' v='2' />
<tag k='oneway' v='yes' />
<tag k='ref' v='Hwy 11C' />
<tag k='ref:zh' v='台11丙線' />
</way>

OSM Data
An example of a Relation
<relation id='2498406'
timestamp='2012-10-14T19:01:55Z'
version='1' changeset='13497007'>
<member type='way' ref='185846446' role='outer'
<tag k='admin_level' v='8' />
<tag k='boundary' v='administrative' />
<tag k='name' v='草屯鎮 (Caotun)' />
<tag k='name:en' v='Caotun' />
<tag k='name:zh' v='草屯鎮' />
<tag k='type' v='boundary' />
</relation>

/>
/>
/>
/>
/>

The definitions for the metrics
To measure participatory and temporal differences among cells
in OSM, we define the following functions on Dc. The c in Dc
means in a cell. When the context is clear, we omit the
subscript c and simply write:

where di, 0 < i < n -1 , is a node in the cell, and n
is the total number of nodes.


The definitions for the metrics
For a node di, we write:

where ki is the node id of di,
ti the age,
ui the user id of its contributor, and
pi the position (i.e., the pair of its lat and
lon values).
Note that, by definition, geographically pi is
within the boundary of c for all
.


Node and Mapper Density
In general, we use areac to denote the area covered by a cell
c, and we use popc for the people population in region c.
When it is clear in context, we omit the subscript and
simply write area and pop.
The following measures the densities of nodes, as well as
those of their contributors, i.e., the mappers.


Node age and temporality
Recall the following auxiliary functions for a sequence s

where min s is the minimum of s, max s the maximum of s, s
the average of s, and cv(s) the coefficient of variation for
elements in s.

Node age and temporality(cont.)
The 4-tuple <min t, max t, t, cv(t)> measures the age
characteristics of the nodes in a cell. That is,


We define a sequence g = (g0, g1, g2,..., gn-2) to measure the gaps
between any two consecutive elements in t. That is,

which is the gap in days between the dates when the two nodes
di+1 and di were added into the cell.


The 4-tuple <min g, max g, g, cv(g)> measures the


Graphing cells by two metrics
•

As multiple metrics are in use, a cell can be measured in
two metrics and the two results compared.

•

Often we will compare the two sets of measurement over
all cells to see if there are patterns.


Number of mappers and number of
nodes

Figure 1: Distribution of the cells by both mapper
count and node count.

Figure 2: Mapping the cells in Taiwan by their
types. (c.f. Figure 1)

Locations and Cities in Taiwan

Figure 3: Cities in Taiwan


Distributions of Mappers

Figure 4: Spatial distribution of mappers over
area.


Figure 5: Spatial distribution of mappers over
population.

Distributions of Nodes

Figure 6: Spatial distribution of nodes over area.


Figure 7: Spatial distribution of nodes over
population

Node Age Average and Variance

Figure 8: Spatial distribution of average node age.


Figure 9: Spatial distribution of the variance of
node age.

Number of Mappers and Update
Interval

count and average time gap between two additions.


Figure 11: Spatial distribution of the cells by their

The 80/20 Hypothesis

count and ratio of mappers needed for combined
80% node contribution.


Figure 13: Spatial distribution of the cells by their

Related work
•

Previous investigations into the data quality issues of OSM have shown
that the OSM dataset can be fairly accurate, and is mostly comparable
to commercial/gov. datasets at least in urban areas [3, 8, 6, 9].

•

Researchers had also developed visual analytics to gain insights into
the spatial diversity of OSM datasets, e. g. to see whether users in
different countries would exhibit distinct mapping activities and habits
[13].

•

These visualization tools can provide valuable information when
improving the data quality of OSM. Neis and Zipf identified active
mappers and casual mappers by examining quantitatively their
contributions in OSM [12].

•

Mooney and Corcoran examined directly the characteristics of “heavily
edited” objects in OpenStreetMap of UK, and they considered these
characteristics might be developed as data quality indicators for
OpenStreetMap in the future [10].


Conclusion and future work
•

This paper is a preliminary study in two sense. We only analyze

•
•

the Taiwan part of OpenStreetMap, and
the cells independently (though spatial distribution is
visualized and discussed).

•

Because of the time constraint, we have not looked into other
geographical areas in OSM.

•

Also, as a mapper may contribute to multiple cells, we ought to
look into mapping activities across the cells. We intend to
pursue these directions in the future.

•

The programs we use to analyze the data are in their early stage
of development, and the way we prepare the data for analysis is
rather ad hoc.


Conclusion and future work
•

We are currently consider how better to structure the
programs so that they can be easily ported and reused.

•

Metrics-based analysis tools like these can be very useful
in improving the data quality in OpenStreetMap as it
helps discover areas where there is participatory or
temporal unevenness in the map making process itself.


Thank for your
attention!
Question?
dongpo@iis.sinica.edu.tw
d.-.p.deng@utwente.nl

To the extent possible under law, the authors have waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this paper. For the avoidance of doubt, this work is
released under the CC0 Public Domain Dedication (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). Anyone can copy, modify, distribute and perform this
work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.

The One and Many Maps: Participatory and Temporal Diversities in OpenStreetMap

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