[Talk-GB] Quarterly Projects Update

[Robert Whittaker (OSM lists)]

On 3 April 2015 at 16:49, ael <law_ence.dev at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 03, 2015 at 01:43:35PM +0100, Robert Whittaker (OSM lists) wrote:
>>
>> For anyone interested in mapping Royal Mail Post Boxes, or Post Office
>> Ltd Post Office branches, you may find the tools I run at
>> http://robert.mathmos.net/osm/postboxes/ useful. Amongst other things,
>
> This seems to be quite misleading because it requires ref keys.
> I looked at my local area, and found OSM had "0%" coverage.

You're right to some extent -- the progress maps at
http://robert.mathmos.net/osm/postboxes/progress/ do only count boxes
with a ref=* key containing the right box number. (This is made clear
in the text below the map on each page.) In theory you could try
matching boxes based on geographic proximity as well. The other post
box maps I have at http://robert.mathmos.net/osm/postboxes/2/map.html
attempt to do this. However, it's a bit more difficult and prone to
errors because some of the Royal Mail locations are not very accurate
(and some are missing altogether) and there are also difficulties when
two or more boxes are located near to each other.

In any case, I think it's a good thing to record the box numbers in
OSM. As well as making progress tracking easier, it will also help OSM
data to be linked more easily to third-party datasets. For instance,
the Royal Mail list probably contains better collection times
information than we have in OSM. So e.g. someone wanting to create an
app to show post box information would have an easier time of
combining the two sources.

Robert.

-- 
Robert Whittaker