Data Improvements in Greece

[awisemanapple]

Task Description

This task outlines work to improve map data in Greece. We plan to work on improving the road network, such as adding missing roads, fixing network issues such as missing connections or crossing roads, and other related issues. After that we plan to update and correct coastline and water features as we find them, and correct and improve land use and land cover polygons where needed, such as airports, national parks, forests, colleges and universities, and so on -- remove duplicates, correct the boundaries, fix incorrect tags and other similar things. We also plan to update and correct major issues or vandalism of roads.

We will message the local community and get feedback and suggestions for this project.

We plan to do some improvements such as the following:

• Correcting road connectivity issues and network issues such as missing roads and alignment according to local and OSM guidelines
• Correcting coastline and water features
• Correcting buildings and land use
• Other one-off fixes

Mapping Guidelines

For roads, the team will follow OSM and local highway policy, along with any other guidelines as appropriate.

For water and coastlines, the team will follow OSM coastline guidelines, waterways policy such as water and natural=water and local policy along with any other policy as appropriate.

Some coastlines are connected to lower level subnational administrative boundaries. In that case we will adjust the boundary with the coastline. These are not country boundaries, but things like place, district and county.

Where we see them, we will remove the source=PGS tag, which was from an earlier coastline import that needs to be cleaned up. We received a message on the India coastlines project requesting this, and it is commonly done in other coastline improvement edits.

The team will use imagery and data sources below as needed. When in doubt, the team will use the existing tags and data which are used locally. The history in JOSM (ctrl-H) identifies what previous mappers added and their notes and/or explanations regarding changes made. This history can also show if a previous mapper has visited that area or has expert knowledge or sources.

We have also messaged OSM Forum for Greece to get feedback and suggestions about the project.

Area of Focus

Throughout the country.

Tools

The team will use JOSM for completing the task. JOSM has validation warnings for road networks and other possible issues that are important to prevent improper changes.

Sources

• DigitalGlobe/Maxar Standard and Premium imagery
• Bing imagery
• Mapbox imagery
• ESRI imagery
• Mapillary
• OpenStreetCam
• Pic4Carto
• HOT Task Imagery, if available
• Telenav's MissingRoads plugin and ImproveOSM
• Strava and OSM GPS traces
• OpenAerialMap

The team will apply image offsets as needed.

Ferry data

Apple is releasing data on ferry terminal and line information missing from OSM in Greece. This contribution is made available for use under the OpenStreetMap ODbL license. The data includes ferry terminals with names of ferry lines and ferry operators, whether the ferry is for cars, and the direction of the ferry, if applicable. We will be confirm that the ferry exists and the terminal location is correct, and if so we will add those to OSM, and estimate the ferry route. When we use the data we will cite it in the OSM changeset source tag. The ferry routes themselves are not included as they are not visible from imagery.

Changeset Comments

The team will provide changeset comments that are in compliance with OSM changeset guidelines.

Where needed, the team will tag corrections with review_requested=yes so the local community can double check them.

Error Detection

The team will check for errors visually and using JOSM validation warnings prior to committing the changeset.

In addition, the team will review its work in accordance with validation guidelines such as the OSM Wiki and LearnOSM.

Contributors

• Data Team

MapRoulette

We have also posted MapRoulette challenges related to the road network: https://maproulette.org/browse/projects/38853

For more information

Our community lead is Teddy Ahlvin and our editing leads are Jon Westlake and Erica Olson.
To get in touch with Teddy, you can email or contact him via OSM.

All of our leads can be reached via email.

OSM Wiki

[ghost]

Thank you for your effort in improving OpenStreetMap in my country Greece. I've noticed that you have been adding buildings lately, specifically in the city of Thessaloniki in Greece. Thank you for your hard work.
One question I'd like to ask is: are you also planning on adding address information (address name, number, zip code) to buildings the Apple team is adding? Or is this something that the local OSM community will have to do on its own?
Moreover, are you planning on adding buildings (and making improvements in general) in the entire country or are you focusing only on the major Greek cities?
Finally, something that crossed my mind is that PERHAPS your team should avoid mapping (buildings, roads etc.) restricted areas such as military bases, airports and so on. Such areas are already redacted-censored in Google Maps in satellite view and don't have buildings mapped and I suppose OSM should also have them redacted-censored to avoid legal issues and in order to NOT compromise national security, so that is something you should keep in mind in future contributions on OSM and perhaps should revert such contributions that are related to this issue that I pointed out. I know that other satellite imagery providers might not have these areas redacted but that doesn't justify mapping such high-security areas in OSM.
Thank you.

[awisemanapple]

@starwatcher11 Thanks for the comment! We don't have any plans to add addresses, as we are just adding the buildings using imagery. We are only planning to add buildings in Thessaloniki, I posted about it previously on the forum here https://forum.openstreetmap.org/viewtopic.php?id=70598. If you have any feedback or comments feel free to comment on a changeset, reply on the Forum, or email me.

And thanks for the suggestion about military areas, we generally don’t do much with them and we defer to OSM policies on that, but may add barriers and other access tags as appropriate to prevent routing into them. For airports we may adjust the aerodrome border, roads, taxiways and runways, etc., as needed from aerial imagery. Similar to military areas we will follow the OSM policies there too.

In addition, we built a setting into our JOSM ApplePaintStyle which flags sensitive features across OSM, including military areas. This setting visually represents military areas (and other features) with warning labels so our team is aware of their risk before making any edits. Anyone else can use the paint style too.

Here is a link to the paint style documentation. The setting is titled “Sensitive features”: https://github.com/osmlab/applepaintstyles/wiki/JOSM-MapCSS-Paint-Style-Wiki

[gangelop]

Hello,

First of all, thanks for your continuous contribution to Open Street Map. I only recently learned about Apple's involvement and I think it's pretty cool.

I'm writing here to point out an issue I spotted today where people from Apple had, in two instances, changed highway:track roads to highway:unclassified when in fact the highway:track classification was given with source:survey whereas the highway:unclassified was given with source:Esri World Imagery. This essentially is a regression.

Please see my changeset comments for the two different ways here:

https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/109846534
https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/109737214

It seems to me this is the result of some kind of process and not an isolated issue which is why I'm pointing it out here. Please review whatever process causes these regressions.

I also want to emphasize that in the case of changeset/109846534, the affected way is an extremely dangerous road. Anyone making the mistake to start ascending this road from Κεφαλόβρυσο towards Κάτω Μούσουρα with a conventional vehicle might find themselves stuck, unable to turn around, and having to descend in reverse, running the risk of losing traction and going down the adjacent cliff.

My overall proposal is to give some higher priority to changesets with source:survey and some way of double-checking any new changes to the associated data. Maybe reach out to whoever did the source:survey changeset before overwriting it. Actually surveying these rural roads is a time consuming process primarily done by local volunteers and it is this local knowledge, especially in less traveled areas, that's one of the competitive advantages of OSM.

[awisemanapple]

@gangelop Thanks for the comment, and the kind words. I saw the two changeset comments and we are looking into them to respond soon with our reasoning to see what you think.

[ghost]

Your team has done a great work adding buildings in the city of Thessaloniki, the city is now ALMOST completely mapped with buildings.
I don't want to sound ungrateful but there are some areas in the city that your contributors still haven't added buildings. Specifically, there are still not buildings in the following areas that are part of Thessaloniki:

• Πανόραμα https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/130167120
• Χορτιάτης https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/303652752
• Εξοχή https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/303652955
• Ασβεστοχώρι https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/303652903

Could you please add buildings to the above areas as well? So that Thessaloniki can be considered fully mapped.
Thank you.

[awisemanapple]

@starwatcher11 Thanks for the suggestion! We had initially just stopped at the urban areas of the main city, but I see what you mean for these outlying towns. We are currently working on this and will finish up the additions soon. Thank you!

[ghost]

Thank you very much Apple Data Team for your OSM contributions, they have been very helpful because it makes adding addresses easier for non-experienced users like me.
I have noticed that your work in Greece has stopped for a while. There is still a lot of improvement that your team can do that we'd be greatly appreciate.
Could you please continue adding buildings around Thessaloniki? There are still many areas (small towns, suburbs) that belong to the Prefecture of Thessaloniki in Greece that don't have buildings mapped. For example:

• Φίλυρο: https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/251627950
• Λαγυνά: https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/146288583
• Ωραιόκαστρο: https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/135561388
• Σίνδος: https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/146293188
• Άγιος Βασίλειος: https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/146286200
• Αγγελοχώρι: https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/296372622
• Νέα Κερασιά: https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/240468363
• Νέα Μηχανιώνα: https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/130167158
• Πλαγιάρι: https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/146303534
• Τρίλοφος: https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/146304012
• Καρδία: https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/303651594
• Επανομή: https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/146494736
• Ταγαράδες: https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/303652187
• Αγία Παρασκευή: https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/146253307

Thank you!

[awisemanapple]

@starwatcher11 thanks for the suggestion! We are getting started on mapping the buildings in those places soon.

[awisemanapple]

@starwatcher11 and we have finished it! Thanks again for the suggestion.

[ghost]

@starwatcher11 and we have finished it! Thanks again for the suggestion.

We must thank you (your adt team) for your invaluable hard work towards improving OSM data in Thessaloniki, Greece. It is greatly appreciated. Let's hope your work will encourage new people to make improvements as well and help improve OSM data all over Greece.

[awisemanapple]

@starwatcher11 you're welcome, and I hope so too! And thanks to you again for the suggestions and feedback!

[Snapmatics]

Hey @awisemanapple, are there any plans to add very detailed information in Athens regarding lanes, trees, lanes etc just like in the UK?