The State of the Map Scotland 2019 - Part 1 Highways It's been a while, but I though it would be interesting to have a look at how the map in Scotland is looking at the start of 2019. Hopefully this will be a series of posts over the next few weeks looking at different aspects of the map. I've been organised enough to download the Scotland extract on the 1st January. I also have a set of data up to the 30th September 2015, so I can look at progress over the last 2 and quarter years. First up is Highways: And listed by length: highway 2019 km Oct 2015 % change track 36439.04 25883.02 40.8 unclassified 17577.05 19022.80 -7.6% service 15228.94 10134.13 50.27% residential 14795.73 14311.34 3.38% path 10078.21 7350.05 37.12 % tertiary 9635.97 8564.57 12.51 % footway 9393.48 7888.44 19.08 % primary 7632.37 7557.44 0.99% secondary 7423.45 7416.27 0.10 % trunk 3609.15 3553.73 1.56% cycleway 2079.69 1810.81 14.85% motorway 863.83 827.14 4.44 % motorway_link 241.17 219.95 9.65 % trunk_link 155.97 145.52 7.18 % road 131.84 316.48 -58.34% steps 118.65 88.80 33.61% proposed 114.39 122.88 -6.91% pedestrian 103.90 70.01 48.41% construction 97.87 253.78 -61.44% bridleway 73.26 77.59 -5.58% primary_link 46.28 37.13 24.65% bus_stop 29.57 living_street 27.96 15.95 15.95% raceway 16.61 13.75 20.80% secondary_link 10.28 8.92 15.25% tertiary_link 5.84 8.50 -31.29% abandoned 4.15 3.30 25.76% no 2.63 2.20 19.55% corridor 0.78 disused 0.44 escape 0.10 0.10 0.00% services 0.05 0.57 -91.23% layby 0.04 0.34 -88.24% crossing 0.02 dismantled 0.02 TOTAL 135 938 115 707 17% To start with, lets look at the roads. As has been the case for a number of years mapping the main road network in Scotland was completed a number of years ago, and the recent changes have been related to some big construction projects such as the Queensferry Crossing, M8 Upgrades and the Queensferry Crossing All motorways in Scotland, red shows the new Motorways The only road type showing a drop in length is unclassified. This is largely down to improvements in the classifications of roads, in particular to tertiary Service Roads in Scotland We've also seen a big increase in Service roads, it's worth noting that a number of these have been added by Amazon Logistics - they seem to be adding just the last little bit connecting roads to buildings, the service road from road to the house or the office. These edits definitly have been rocky at times, such as the removal of a car park, just mapped based on out of imagery. In general I've very happy to see commerical edits, but as this shows new mappers need to be properly trained on how to asses the general state of the map especially before removing things. Paths Tracks and Cycleways - New highways are shown in red I've very pleased to see big increases, in the mapping of tracks and paths as well as the increase in cycleways although I think these are largely fine tuning of tagging of paths. Hopefully it won't be long until we have full coverage of all paths and tracks and these will be much more stable. Finally we have the long tail of tags, of these highway=road, which is really a placeholder and shouldn't be used still has far too many entries so for the moment, I've made a list of these to work through - https://github.com/osm-scotland/scotland-issues/issues/4) if anyone wants to help then jump in, let me know if you need permission for the github link. The same thing applies to highway=no; These have mostly been used where a highway has been removed. This is useful as it signals to remote mappers (such as the amazon logistics folks above) that the road has been removed. However once the imagery updates having these no longer makes sense. In case any one wants to look at these, I've made a list at: https://github.com/osm-scotland/scotland-issues/issues/5 Hopefully I'll be getting a part 2 out in the next few weeks.

John Muir Way So the John Muir Way has been open since the 21st of April, this long distance route is a Coast to Coast route between Helensburgh in the West from where John Muir setoff to the United States where he inspired the conservation movement and the creation of it's national parks. To Dunbar on the East Coast where he was born and grew uo. We've covered most of the route in OpenStreetMap for while. But until recently we've had a tiny, gap missing. I was trying to figure out getting over to do it when I saw: @chrisfl @fozy81 to map that gap took 2 trains 1 to Helensburgh a 9 miles walk then train from Balloch. Great day pic.twitter.com/5GcJ2jp5At — Martin McMahon (@mazscot) May 22, 2014 So with some not insignificant effort, we now have the complete route mapped, these can easily be seen by looking at a raw view of either the walking route http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/49215 or the cycling route http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/3619145 on OpenStreetMap, but where OSM comes into it's own is the ability to actually do things with the data, so to kick things off I've created a set of GPX files of the route. These contain the full walking or cycling route and are suitable to be loaded into your GPS or phone app as aids to navigating the route. cycling.gpx

walking.gpx Map wise, as always I'm disapointed to see the otherwise very nice John Muir Way website using google maps rather than an OpenStreetMap based map: There are also tools such as Relation Analyser - http://ra.osmsurround.org/analyzeRelation?relationId=3619145 Interestingly this shows cycling distance as 206km and the walking distance as 213km while the route is offically 215 km (I guess they rounded up)

Android apps for mapping So with a mapping party coming at the weekend. I thought that it was about time that I start this series of posts that I've been planning for a while, so hopefully here is part 1 Android applications for collecting data. ## Tracking, OSM Tracker # One of the key apps, is something that can track where you are, providing a record of where you've been and allowing you to upload it to the OpenStreetMap website. OSM's heritage is built around collecting data using a GPS, and it still remains a powerfull way of mapping an area without requiring other sources. And we actually are all carrying a GPS device around with us in our pocket it is very easy to do. I use OSM Tracker it's a simple app, and does it well, as well as recording a GPS trail, it also allows you to take pictures, and display the track on a map. Use is really simple, start a new track: Once it is running, it displays the currently GPS Position, shortcuts for taking a picture, and noting various features: It is also possible to view the track on a map, this is really useful for checking the current area mapped, and seeing where you've been: Finally, it's possible to tag save and upload the track: Editing, Vespucci Editing is generally done as after mapping on a computer, but it can be really helpful to be able to make some changes from your phone, especially once you're more experienced, I would recommend using Vespucci, Vespucci is getting better and better all the time, and does a really good job editing using the touch interface. This isn't necessary a beginners tool, but a good tool that continues to improve that's definitly worth looking at. When you click on the map, it allows you to choose what item you wish to edit, which is a good solution to the problem of never being able to select accurately enough with your finger. Geometries can then we tweaked as neccessary. Although I tend to use it to make small changes such as editing tags rather than big edits, it's a powerfull tool that only gets better. Data Gathering Accessibilty, Wheelmap Wheelmap is a great example of a simple data gathering app. The wheelchair app collects accessibilty information as well as some simple addressing information to be displayed on the Wheelmap Site Addressing, Keypadmapper As we have mapped a significant proportion of the road network, there is now a big push to collect addressing data Keypadmapper is a simple app to collect addressing data as you move down the road simply enter the numbers as you pass them. Later the address points can be loaded into JOSM for adding into OpenStreetMap. So a quick summary of the apps: Tracking: OSM Tracker

Editing: Vespucci

Accessibilty: Wheelmap

Addressing: Keypadmapper Please let me know what I've missed in the comments below!

Android Apps for mapping parties So with a mapping party coming up next weekend. I thought that it was about time that I start this series of posts that I've been planning for a while, so hopefully here is part Android Apps ## Tracking # One of the key apps, is something that can track where you are, providing a record of where you've been and allowing you to upload it to the OpenStreetMap website. I use OSM Tracker it's a simple app, and does it well, as well as recording a GPS trail, it also allows you to take pictures, and display the track on a map. Use is really simple, start a new track: Once it is running, it displays the currently GPS Position, shortcuts for taking a picture, and noting various features: It is also possible to view the track on a map, this is really useful for checking the current area mapped, and seeing where you've been: Finally, it's possible to tag save and upload the track: Editing Editing is generally done as after mapping on a computer, but it can be really helpful to be able to make some changes from your phone, especially once you're more experiences, I would recommend using Vespucci, Vespucci is getting better and better all the time, and does a really good job editing using the touch interface. When you click on the map, it allows you to choose what item you wish to edit, which is a good solution to the problem of never being able to select accuratly enough with your finger. Geometries can then we tweaked as neccessary. Although I tend to use it to make small changes sich as tags rather than big edits. Data Gathering Accessibility https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.wheelmap.android.online Addressing https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.enaikoon.android.keypadmapper3

Switch to Octopress So almost as often as I post, I rewrite the site. This time I have switched it to Octopress. This is the 3rd blogging engine, I've used I don't get enough hits to justify the performance need of a static site, but it has the advantage of being one less wordpress site to maintain, and for me writting posts using markdown in vim is a definite win. I have also taken the oportunity to switch to a small cluster I've setup using ByteMark's BigV Also a change, the code for this site is all on github. The commit history provides a nice history of the work and changes I've made to the standard Octopress site. This is largely in area's of the category handling, and removing the banner. I may base some future posts on this.

State of the Map Scotland 2013 - The State of Scotland Once again, this year, I had the pleasure of presenting the opening at our now, not so little State of the Map Scotland Conference, which was held at Inspace on the 19th and 20th October 2012. When I started to write this talk, I wasn't sure where it was going to end up, I found it interesting and I hope that you do to. For me one of the most exciting trends, over the last year is seeing OpenStreetMap appearing invarious places: (photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/xerones/131963343/) the switch2osm, 2012 started with an announcement by nestoria that they were moving over OSM. Triggered by the ever improving quality of OSM, as well as google looking at charging, it was great to see this long term support switch to using our map. Another example is is foursquare. I was amazed when I opened the site at the prominence given to the map on the foursquare homepage. This shouldn't be a surprise, given the nature of the site but I don't think a google map would have made the landing page here. It was also interesting to watch the foursquare community, I think overall OSM has gained visibility and exposure from this change (citation needed) Flickr has continued to have some OSM maps and improve those maps, despite a new deal yahoo has to switch to Nokia maps, has continued to have some OSM maps. I would love to see OSM as a layer across flickr's maps, the Nokia maps are a big improvement but are still aimed at car drivers and so still miss lots of places where photo's might be taken. Hopefully we will see more OSM on flickr in the future. Finally as a more personal example of a switch2osm. I switched my parents B&B in Kent over to use OSM. This change was a little overdue, but for me is a milestone on my journey with OSM, I first discovered OpenStreetMap when I was trying to locate local attractions when I first added a google map to this site, back around 2006. I wasn't surprised by the detail on the Sissinghurst page, as I mapped this myself. but in fact zoomed in, almost every page such as this one for Bodiam Castle has lots of the little bits of detail, such as the moat, ticket office and car park (not shown here). A lot of this is now possible, because more and more companies are starting to provide services around OSM. As I said last year: Rightly or wrongly OSM is currently setup largely as a data provider - so it's really great to see these other "consumer" facing options and websites appear as the more people see OSM the better our data becomes even if only a ting percentage of these can be converted into mappers. Obviously better information and simpler tools may help to lower the entry barrier in the future. The biggest recent impact has been from mapbox: Also a big shout out to the Stamen map styles and tiles: such as the toner style above or the acclaimed watercolour style that I used on the first slide. While we're on styles, we can't ignore the continuous improvement's to the OSM "house" style: The cycle map style: ] public transport style: ] and mapquest style ] again mapquest open provides a great example of a complete web mapping site, with search and routing. So provides a potential OSM powered google maps replacement. So last year we did a comparison between the OS Locator dataset and OSM using the ITO Analysis tool, by region. I've added this years data into the table. Place 2012 OS Locator 2012 “Missing” 2012 Roads 11 to 12 change position Edinburgh 4 4,760 4784 0 9 100 -> 99.81 Midlothian 6 1,180 1193 0 9 100 -> 99.25 Clackmannanshire 1 817 819 5 0 99.27 -> 100 South Lanarkshire 5 5432 5491 73 34 98.55 -> 99.38 West Dunbartonshire 9 1,233 1236 18 15 98.54 -> 98.79 Shetland Islands 8 309 311 6 3 98.06 -> 99.04 Stirling 12 1,361 1370 29 37 97.58 -> 97.30 East Ayrshire 16 2039 2052 50 64 97.50 -> 96.83 Glasgow City 1 6758 6761 171 0 97.44 -> 100% West Lothian 15 2030 2038 48 59 97.44 -> 96.96% Inverclyde 13 1239 1240 32 34 97.42 -> 97.26% Na H Eileanan An Iar 10 298 297 5 4 97.32 -> 98.98% East Lothian 11 1343 1353 33 32 97.10 -> 97.19% North Ayrshire 14 2180 2189 63 63 97.06 -> 98.08% Dundee City 20 2223 2229 65 76 97.03 -> 96.55% Angus 18 1877 1878 57 59 96.91 -> 96.81 South Ayrshire 22 1803 1809 61 69 96.45 -> 96.08 Argyll And Bute 21 1400 1403 50 48 96.43 -> 96.58 Monmouthshire 17 1529 1538 52 48 96.34 -> 96.81 Fife 23 5607 5627 217 228 95.93 -> 95.75 Scottish Borders 24 1890 1902 78 79 95.77 -> 95.74 East Renfrewshire 27 1323 1328 57 60 95.62 -> 95.41 Aberdeen City 1 2772 2774 125 0 95.27 -> 100 Highland 28 3443 3483 535 388 84.05 -> 88.46 Aberdeenshire 25 3886 3936 626 167 83.63 -> 95.73 Renfrewshire 26 2447 1378 430 60 82.18 -> 95.41 Perth and Kinross 19 2409 2424 478 79 79.91 -> 96.45 Dumfries And Galloway 7 2556 2580 586 22 76.53 -> 99.15 Moray 29 1545 1581 366 226 75.92 -> 85.45 The first thing that struck me as that in both Edinburgh and Midlothian the total number of roads has increased, but we've missed some so we're not longer at 100%. There have been some fantastic, improvements Glasgow was missing 171 roads last year and these have been accounted for. Dumfries And Galloway was bottom of the list last year and it's now in 7th, as has Aberdeen City. There are also some places such as Na H Eileanan An Iar; also known as the Outer Hebredies which are looking quite static. So what does that all add up to? In 2011, we were shown as having 4316 Roads that hadn't been accounted for, so 93% match. When I looked a few days ago, we only don't align on 1972 missing roads, or a 95% match. So what are these missing streets? I started by looking at the 9 roads highlighted in Edinburgh. The first stop are these Roads in Kirkliston, we seem to have one of these roads, but are missing the name, the other two roads are shown in OSM as under construction as below. So the conclusion is probably a draw on this one, it looks like neither OS Locator or OSM have the full picture, but a visit is needed. The next example is around Edinburgh Airport OSM Shows Almond Avenue, but OS Locator Almond drive. A visit here will need to take place to confirm who is right. Again it looks like some new houses here have led to some new developments that we don't yet have. This one was quite simple the Lane and the footpath should be joined, so I fixed this myself. I think that this one is a new development, that needs visiting. Again this one in Newhaven is probably a new development, that needs visiting. Interestingly in the few days since I gave this presentation, some of these have been fixed, by changes such as this one: "Added missing street names from ITO in Kirkliston" and this "Added initial layout of new housing development in Newburgh, Edinburgh.". I really hope that these were done with local knowledge especially as adding the through road through Kirkliston doesn't looks like the kind of road layout that would be permitted as it would allow a rat run through a residential area. Anyway, we have evidence that OS Locator data can't always be relied upon. Already in Edinburgh 2.2% of roads in Edinburgh do not match what OS Locator shows. Glasgow, 1.4 % and looking at one of the other places at 100%, Kings's Lynn shows 7.4% out. This is really a warning, we should be using this as a datasource to help us know where to map, but this data cannot be relied upon. Something else was causing me concern, and that was in the Outer Hebrides. It also helps that I've holidayed and mapped here (or should it be the other way round) and so have lots of photos :) There weren't many changes in 2011 of 298 roads we were missing 5 and in 2012 the total roads is 297 and we're missing 4. So first thing, I thought that I would look at the last modification data of a selection of the objects: This wasn't quite what I expected, so far this year there has been a lot of activity. And so I thought I would break down into months: So the basic level is quite small, but with a big peak in June and July. Looking in detail at June I saw, most of the changes: we're made by a single user, brianboru. I was very happy to see that he had been there and and some of the information is surveyed on the ground with lots of detailed tracing of terrain, helping to fill in the map, so I thought I would see what else this user was up to? So he's from Birmingham, and by the looks of things he like I holidayed and did a ton of mapping and tracing whilse on holiday. But once I ignored the holiday based tracing binges, there is a steady background work by seumas, and looking at his page, I was again very pleased to see that he does live on the Island. and busy doing some mapping of shops, pubs, chippies and some paths: This was really for me the Golden Road, to be honest I didn't expect to find a local mapper living on the edge of the country, but here he is. So how much data do we have: Overall the breakdown over Scotland is: ]he uncompressed XML weighs in at 1.2G on disk, consisting of nearly 6 million nodes, nearly 500 000 ways and 5000 relations. I also ran this against a dump from before the licence change, and we have grown significantly since then, by over 600 000 nodes, and 30 000 ways. So we are well above the numbers from before the change, and thanks to the hard work of the community in Scotland to get local mappers on board and also to mitigate against loss I don't think we had any big problems. What's in a name? We have 36 660 named nodes and 134 724 named ways. Place? 6807 of these are places, from Cities down to Hamlets and localities. So how long are the ways: The table above lists the top 20 way types by length. The total, motorway length in OSM shows as 827km compares well with the total motorway length in wikipedia (once I remembered that OSM will have ways for both directions) We have 4 226km of paths, I suspefct there are a lot more in Scotland. We're up to 1 645 km of cycleway, and additionally cycling is permitted on a further 1000km of footways and paths. We have 53 km of steps, I wouldn't want to climb those all at once. There is also the longtail of the list: Somewhere we have 30m of broken bridge (not the one pictured), 10 km of racing track and 1 099m of train platforms. all made possible by OSM's flexable tagging system: and the 1776 users who have contributed! Last year I asked the question. I still don't think we have a really good answer to that question, but whatever we do, we must Tell People. It's the only way of improving the map.

State of the Map Scotland 2012 - The State of Scotland Once again, this year, I had the pleasure of presenting the opening at our now, not so little State of the Map Scotland Conference, which was held at Inspace on the 19th and 20th October 2012. When I started to write this talk, I wasn't sure where it was going to end up, I found it interesting and I hope that you do to. For me one of the most exciting trends, over the last year is seeing OpenStreetMap appearing invarious places: (photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/xerones/131963343/) the switch2osm, 2012 started with an announcement by nestoria that they were moving over OSM. Triggered by the ever improving quality of OSM, as well as google looking at charging, it was great to see this long term support switch to using our map. Another example is is foursquare. I was amazed when I opened the site at the prominence given to the map on the foursquare homepage. This shouldn't be a surprise, given the nature of the site but I don't think a google map would have made the landing page here. It was also interesting to watch the foursquare community, I think overall OSM has gained visibility and exposure from this change (citation needed) Flickr has continued to have some OSM maps and improve those maps, despite a new deal yahoo has to switch to Nokia maps, has continued to have some OSM maps. I would love to see OSM as a layer across flickr's maps, the Nokia maps are a big improvement but are still aimed at car drivers and so still miss lots of places where photo's might be taken. Hopefully we will see more OSM on flickr in the future. Finally as a more personal example of a switch2osm. I switched my parents B&B in Kent over to use OSM. This change was a little overdue, but for me is a milestone on my journey with OSM, I first discovered OpenStreetMap when I was trying to locate local attractions when I first added a google map to this site, back around 2006. I wasn't surprised by the detail on the Sissinghurst page, as I mapped this myself. but in fact zoomed in, almost every page such as this one for Bodiam Castle has lots of the little bits of detail, such as the moat, ticket office and car park (not shown here). A lot of this is now possible, because more and more companies are starting to provide services around OSM. As I said last year: Rightly or wrongly OSM is currently setup largely as a data provider - so it's really great to see these other "consumer" facing options and websites appear as the more people see OSM the better our data becomes even if only a ting percentage of these can be converted into mappers. Obviously better information and simpler tools may help to lower the entry barrier in the future. The biggest recent impact has been from mapbox: Also a big shout out to the Stamen map styles and tiles: such as the toner style above or the acclaimed watercolour style that I used on the first slide. While we're on styles, we can't ignore the continuous improvement's to the OSM "house" style: The cycle map style: ] public transport style: ] and mapquest style ] again mapquest open provides a great example of a complete web mapping site, with search and routing. So provides a potential OSM powered google maps replacement. So last year we did a comparison between the OS Locator dataset and OSM using the ITO Analysis tool, by region. I've added this years data into the table. Place 2012 OS Locator 2012 “Missing” 2012 Roads 11 to 12 change position Edinburgh 4 4,760 4784 0 9 100 -> 99.81 Midlothian 6 1,180 1193 0 9 100 -> 99.25 Clackmannanshire 1 817 819 5 0 99.27 -> 100 South Lanarkshire 5 5432 5491 73 34 98.55 -> 99.38 West Dunbartonshire 9 1,233 1236 18 15 98.54 -> 98.79 Shetland Islands 8 309 311 6 3 98.06 -> 99.04 Stirling 12 1,361 1370 29 37 97.58 -> 97.30 East Ayrshire 16 2039 2052 50 64 97.50 -> 96.83 Glasgow City 1 6758 6761 171 0 97.44 -> 100% West Lothian 15 2030 2038 48 59 97.44 -> 96.96% Inverclyde 13 1239 1240 32 34 97.42 -> 97.26% Na H Eileanan An Iar 10 298 297 5 4 97.32 -> 98.98% East Lothian 11 1343 1353 33 32 97.10 -> 97.19% North Ayrshire 14 2180 2189 63 63 97.06 -> 98.08% Dundee City 20 2223 2229 65 76 97.03 -> 96.55% Angus 18 1877 1878 57 59 96.91 -> 96.81 South Ayrshire 22 1803 1809 61 69 96.45 -> 96.08 Argyll And Bute 21 1400 1403 50 48 96.43 -> 96.58 Monmouthshire 17 1529 1538 52 48 96.34 -> 96.81 Fife 23 5607 5627 217 228 95.93 -> 95.75 Scottish Borders 24 1890 1902 78 79 95.77 -> 95.74 East Renfrewshire 27 1323 1328 57 60 95.62 -> 95.41 Aberdeen City 1 2772 2774 125 0 95.27 -> 100 Highland 28 3443 3483 535 388 84.05 -> 88.46 Aberdeenshire 25 3886 3936 626 167 83.63 -> 95.73 Renfrewshire 26 2447 1378 430 60 82.18 -> 95.41 Perth and Kinross 19 2409 2424 478 79 79.91 -> 96.45 Dumfries And Galloway 7 2556 2580 586 22 76.53 -> 99.15 Moray 29 1545 1581 366 226 75.92 -> 85.45 The first thing that struck me as that in both Edinburgh and Midlothian the total number of roads has increased, but we've missed some so we're not longer at 100%. There have been some fantastic, improvements Glasgow was missing 171 roads last year and these have been accounted for. Dumfries And Galloway was bottom of the list last year and it's now in 7th, as has Aberdeen City. There are also some places such as Na H Eileanan An Iar; also known as the Outer Hebredies which are looking quite static. So what does that all add up to? In 2011, we were shown as having 4316 Roads that hadn't been accounted for, so 93% match. When I looked a few days ago, we only don't align on 1972 missing roads, or a 95% match. So what are these missing streets? I started by looking at the 9 roads highlighted in Edinburgh. The first stop are these Roads in Kirkliston, we seem to have one of these roads, but are missing the name, the other two roads are shown in OSM as under construction as below. So the conclusion is probably a draw on this one, it looks like neither OS Locator or OSM have the full picture, but a visit is needed. The next example is around Edinburgh Airport OSM Shows Almond Avenue, but OS Locator Almond drive. A visit here will need to take place to confirm who is right. Again it looks like some new houses here have led to some new developments that we don't yet have. This one was quite simple the Lane and the footpath should be joined, so I fixed this myself. I think that this one is a new development, that needs visiting. Again this one in Newhaven is probably a new development, that needs visiting. Interestingly in the few days since I gave this presentation, some of these have been fixed, by changes such as this one: "Added missing street names from ITO in Kirkliston" and this "Added initial layout of new housing development in Newburgh, Edinburgh.". I really hope that these were done with local knowledge especially as adding the through road through Kirkliston doesn't looks like the kind of road layout that would be permitted as it would allow a rat run through a residential area. Anyway, we have evidence that OS Locator data can't always be relied upon. Already in Edinburgh 2.2% of roads in Edinburgh do not match what OS Locator shows. Glasgow, 1.4 % and looking at one of the other places at 100%, Kings's Lynn shows 7.4% out. This is really a warning, we should be using this as a datasource to help us know where to map, but this data cannot be relied upon. Something else was causing me concern, and that was in the Outer Hebrides. It also helps that I've holidayed and mapped here (or should it be the other way round) and so have lots of photos :) There weren't many changes in 2011 of 298 roads we were missing 5 and in 2012 the total roads is 297 and we're missing 4. So first thing, I thought that I would look at the last modification data of a selection of the objects: This wasn't quite what I expected, so far this year there has been a lot of activity. And so I thought I would break down into months: So the basic level is quite small, but with a big peak in June and July. Looking in detail at June I saw, most of the changes: we're made by a single user, brianboru. I was very happy to see that he had been there and and some of the information is surveyed on the ground with lots of detailed tracing of terrain, helping to fill in the map, so I thought I would see what else this user was up to? So he's from Birmingham, and by the looks of things he like I holidayed and did a ton of mapping and tracing whilse on holiday. But once I ignored the holiday based tracing binges, there is a steady background work by seumas, and looking at his page, I was again very pleased to see that he does live on the Island. and busy doing some mapping of shops, pubs, chippies and some paths: This was really for me the Golden Road, to be honest I didn't expect to find a local mapper living on the edge of the country, but here he is. So how much data do we have: Overall the breakdown over Scotland is: ]he uncompressed XML weighs in at 1.2G on disk, consisting of nearly 6 million nodes, nearly 500 000 ways and 5000 relations. I also ran this against a dump from before the licence change, and we have grown significantly since then, by over 600 000 nodes, and 30 000 ways. So we are well above the numbers from before the change, and thanks to the hard work of the community in Scotland to get local mappers on board and also to mitigate against loss I don't think we had any big problems. What's in a name? We have 36 660 named nodes and 134 724 named ways. Place? 6807 of these are places, from Cities down to Hamlets and localities. So how long are the ways: The table above lists the top 20 way types by length. The total, motorway length in OSM shows as 827km compares well with the total motorway length in wikipedia (once I remembered that OSM will have ways for both directions) We have 4 226km of paths, I suspefct there are a lot more in Scotland. We're up to 1 645 km of cycleway, and additionally cycling is permitted on a further 1000km of footways and paths. We have 53 km of steps, I wouldn't want to climb those all at once. There is also the longtail of the list: Somewhere we have 30m of broken bridge (not the one pictured), 10 km of racing track and 1 099m of train platforms. all made possible by OSM's flexable tagging system: and the 1776 users who have contributed! Last year I asked the question. I still don't think we have a really good answer to that question, but whatever we do, we must Tell People. It's the only way of improving the map.