[OSM-dev] GPX Traces

[Graham Jones]

Hi,
I am wondering about the possibility of using the collected GPX traces in
the database to calculate the average travel time down sections of road (I
am thinking that this would be a useful thing from a routing point of
view?).   Two questions:

   - Has this already been done?  I can't find any discussion of it.
   - If not, is there an API method of getting the GPX *traces* within a
   given bounding box (I can only find a way of getting points, and
   unfortunately they do not include the trace ID).  [If it is not possible,
   what is the process I would need to follow to get a change to the API agreed
   and implemented?]

My idea is that for a given segment of road you do a query to get the GPX
traces that are near to the road segment, filter them to decide which ones
are on the road, then work out the velocity for each trace along the road.
There will be some statistics involved to separate bicycle from car travel,
then use the average as a best estimate of the travel time for that section
of road (if we had enough traces you could even work it out by time of
day).   This will be of no use in towns where many of the traces will have
been collected on foot or by bike, but on main roads I think it might give
useful results, as there are likely to be multiple traces for the various
sections of road.

Any thoughts would be appreciated - I am thinking this may be a nice little
student project if I do not get around to doing it.

Regards

Graham.

-- 
Dr. Graham Jones
Hartlepool, UK
email: grahamjones139 at gmail.com
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