[Strategic] Featured routing services

[Chris Fleming]

On 04/03/2011 15:10, Kai Krueger wrote:
>>
>> So to summarize: my opinion is to choose MapQuest for website and
>> implement some automatic road intersection checker for database.
>
> Imho, we should aim for a system equivalent to the tile switcher, I.e. 
> have the possibility to easily switch between routing engines, in the 
> form of a drop down box to select the engine one wants to use.
>
> One of the key advantages of OSM is that it can be used in many 
> different ways by many different people. By showing a reasonable 
> (large) number of tile layers on the homepage, this message gets 
> reinforced, that OSM is not the one tile layer, but a project to 
> create a diverse set of services on top of the data. The same would be 
> true for routing. By having easily selected a large number of 
> different routing engines, it shows that OSM is not about the one 
> routing engine or the software, but the data, and that can be used in 
> many ways.
>

I generally agree that it is desirable to have routing on OpenStreetMap; 
I believe this is a consensus from various discussions.

I think that in the same way that we offer a default tile layer that is 
fully under OSM Control; I believe that if we offer routing as a core 
service then the default should be hosted by us.

If I remember correctly; TWG have stated that providing the hardware 
required to run a routing service isn't an issue. However the constraint 
here is finding an open source routing service that will do the job is 
what is at question? (and possibly trusted man power to maintain it)  So 
although mapquest is a good API, I think we want to think very carefully 
before we were to make it the default option.

Cheers
Chris





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