What is it about?

OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a free global map dataset that was created by volunteers around the world. This inevitably means that there are a number of quality issues with the final OSM product, however. Extensive research has therefore been carried out to assess the quality of this product by applying a range of measures versus reference datasets, but little effort to date has been focused on quantitative quality estimation without reference datasets. The aim of this study is therefore to quantitatively estimate the completeness of street blocks in an OSM dataset. This was accomplished by initially exploring the relationship between geometric indicators (i.e., area, perimeter, and density) and street block completeness in an OSM road dataset, before these relationships were applied to quantitatively estimate completeness in other datasets.

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Why is it important?

OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a free global map dataset that was created by volunteers around the world. This inevitably means that there are a number of quality issues with the final OSM product, however. Extensive research has therefore been carried out to assess the quality of this product by applying a range of measures versus reference datasets, but little effort to date has been focused on quantitative quality estimation without reference datasets. The aim of this study is therefore to quantitatively estimate the completeness of street blocks in an OSM dataset. This was accomplished by initially exploring the relationship between geometric indicators (i.e., area, perimeter, and density) and street block completeness in an OSM road dataset, before these relationships were applied to quantitatively estimate completeness in other datasets.

Perspectives

The results of this study show that: (1) street block completeness is positively correlated with density and negatively correlated with area and perimeter; and (2) in most cases, estimated completeness values for all street blocks within an OSM road dataset do not differ by more than 10% in absolute terms from actual completeness values. These results indicate that geometric indicators can be used as proxies to quantitatively estimate road completeness in OSM datasets.

Dr QI ZHOU
China University of Geosciences

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This page is a summary of: The use of geometric indicators to estimate the quantitative completeness of street blocks in OpenStreetMap, Transactions in GIS, October 2018, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/tgis.12486.
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