[OSM-dev] "IQ Routes"-style averages from actual users driving the road

[lists at whitehouse.org.nz]

 Hello all,

 I have recently been given a TomTom and have been really impressed by 
 IQ Routes:
 https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/TomTom#IQ_Routes :
 "IQ Routes, developed by TomTom and available since spring 2008 on the 
 TomTom GO 730 & 930, uses anonymous travel time data accumulated by 
 users of TomTom satnav devices. Newer TomTom devices use this data to 
 take into account the time and day when determining the fastest 
 route.[63]
 Travel time data is stored in Historical Speed Profiles, one for each 
 road segment, covering large motorways, main roads and also small local 
 roads. Historic Speed Profiles are part of the digital map and are 
 updated with every new map release. They give insight into real-world 
 traffic patterns. This is a fact-based routing system based on measured 
 travel times, compared to most other methods which use speed limits or 
 ‘assumed’ speeds."

 We used the TomTom on a recent road trip and were amazed that it was 
 within minutes of the actual travel time, even where that estimate was 
 up to an hour different from the theoretical speed based on speed limits 
 (the roads in the area were low quality).

 It occurred to me that OSM has a very passionate user base that is very 
 keen to do what it can to improve the map. Most OSM tools that I have 
 used (OSMAnd, AndNav2, OpenSatNav etc) have options to help OSM by 
 submitting data back to the map (GPS traces, corrections etc). I would 
 guess that a large proportion of map users would happily submit 
 statistical data on how long it took to drive the road segment between 
 intersection 1 and intersection 2 (or from speed sign to intersection, 
 if the speed changes), or how long they had to wait at an intersection 
 before they were able to turn etc. I would also expect that the tools 
 using OSM would quickly implement the collection of such information if 
 it were able to be submitted.

 I am a mere user, so will not attempt to go into how this could be 
 implemented. I would expect, however, that a separate server would need 
 to collect data and process it (removing outliers, creating averages 
 etc). These averages could then be associated to the main map, or 
 available by query. Ideally, it would be connected enough to the map for 
 offline tools to download and use the information. IQ Routes says that 
 it has different values for different times of the day and different 
 times of the year. This makes a lot of sense in some cases, such as peak 
 traffic times in cities, or holiday hotspots over holidays. While this 
 feature is probably a future goal, it would be worth thinking about in 
 the design of the system. Perhaps the server could analyse the data to 
 see if any half-hour block (say 8:30-9am Monday to Friday), or day of 
 the year (Boxing Day), was different from the average by a 
 statistically-significant amount (sounds like a good job to give to a 
 university statistics department!). If so, a second value could be 
 stored against that road segment and given in any query/download. For 
 now, it would probably be worth accepting any data that could be 
 relevant, so that year-on-year data is available when someone comes to 
 do something more clever with it.

 Two big advantages that OSM has over commercial maps are the passion of 
 its user base and that most tools to use the map are interested in 
 feeding data back to the map (I understand that TomTom licenses the NZ 
 maps, but keeps the uploaded IQ data to itself, though I have no basis 
 for this and it could well be wrong). It would be great to make the most 
 of these advantages by making it easy to contribute to OSM passively.

 Thanks to all for your work to date.

 Regards,

 Aaron