[OSM-talk] Another argument for Open Street Data ?

OJW streetmap at blibbleblobble.co.uk
Mon Nov 12 18:23:40 GMT 2007


That raises an interesting point: the future of signage

Currently if the council want to enforce some limit ("No HGVs", "Nothing over 
12' tall") then they do so using a physical road sign.  But that won't have 
any effect on the routes chosen by computers (and people won't learn about 
the limits until they're part-way along an unsuitable route)

So logically, in the future we might expect some sort of online signage.  If 
the councils want to block HGVs from a road, maybe the best way would be for 
them to issue an RSS with "node 443839 now has a maximum weight of x"




On Monday 12 November 2007 13:21:59 D Tucny wrote:
> On 12/11/2007, Patrick Weber <p.weber at ucl.ac.uk> wrote:
> > Maybe with OSM data this would have been fixed long ago? I wonder how it
> > takes for changes in TeleAtlas/Navteq Data to travel down to the end user
> > ?
> >
> > Village crashes blamed on sat nav
> > * Villagers in Carmarthenshire say they fear restoration work is being
> > damaged by drivers using satellite navigation. *
> > "There has been a tremendous increase in traffic and there's no reason
> > for it to come over the Black Mountain unless they have been directed
> > that way," he said.
> >
> > "I think the thing is to stop them coming over the mountain by telling
> > them not to use the route from a sat-nav point of view."
>
> What I noticed in that story, different to other 'satnav ruined my life'
> type stories, is that there is no claim that anyone is doing anything
> wrong... No mention of signs being ignored because the satnav told them
> to... no mention of people doing overtly stupid things (well, except for
> hitting buildings trying to get big trucks through gaps that are too
> small)... So, through deduction, it would seem that there is a valid,
> shorter route through these villages, it may not be suitable for
> wide/long/heavy vehicles, but, it's not been signposted as such and the
> councils responsible for such signage are blaming satnav for people
> choosing a shorter route that they haven't bothered to sign as being
> unsuitable... You can't blame the lorry drivers for getting stuck if there
> was no signage to tell them they'd be unable to pass, you can't blame the
> satnav for not pointing out problems that the councils haven't pointed out
> themselves, so the blame again solely lands on the councils... Of course,
> if there really is sufficient signage that's being ignored, then it's
> entirely driver stupidity, again, and I apologise to the councils...
>
> This isn't going to be something we can really easily fix either, OK, we
> could record the road widths everywhere that way software using OSM data
> could do some clever stuff to work out if the user's vehicle can fit
> through if they input the width, height, length and turning capabilities of
> their vehicle... But... that would be a hell of a lot of effort when any
> limits should be signposted, we can (reasonable) easily add those to the
> data and any software using the data can pass this info on to the users by
> whatever means it offers, such as the requesting the user to input their
> vehicle dimensions if they choose the 'By lorry' routing option...
>
> So, in short, I'd hope victims of issues such as this, rather than blaming
> the satnav as a device that can't answer its case, instead point the finger
> at the real cause of such problems, be it incorrect/missing signage or
> driver stupidity... Maybe then, the real problems can be solved or at least
> improvements made and all navigation aids can be updated to reflect these
> changes...
>
> d






More information about the talk mailing list