Abstract
ABSTRACTNowadays, several research projects show interest in employing volunteered geographic information (VGI) to improve their systems through using up-to-date and detailed data. The European project CAP4Access is one of the successful examples of such international-wide research projects that aims to improve the accessibility of people with restricted mobility using crowdsourced data. In this project, OpenStreetMap (OSM) is used to extend OpenRouteService, a well-known routing platform. However, a basic challenge that this project tackled was the incompleteness of OSM data with regards to certain information that is required for wheelchair accessibility (e.g. sidewalk information, kerb data, etc.). In this article, we present the results of initial assessment of sidewalk data in OSM at the beginning of the project as well as our approach in awareness raising and using tools for tagging accessibility data into OSM database for enriching the sidewalk data completeness. Several experiments have been carried out in different European cities, and discussion on the results of the experiments as well as the lessons learned are provided. The lessons learned provide recommendations that help in organizing better mapping party events in the future. We conclude by reporting on how and to what extent the OSM sidewalk data completeness in these study areas have benefited from the mapping parties by the end of the project.
Highlights
The collective awareness platforms for improving accessibility (CAP4Access) in European cities and regions, was a European project (Institute of Geography, Heidelberg University 2017) aiming to develop and pilot-test methods and tools for collectively gathering and sharing spatial information for improving accessibility (Zipf et al 2016)
Data sources used in the project included humans as sensors, sensors in smartphones, and public sector information such as data held by local administrations which are of relevance to accessibility
Since the aim of our tasks was to enrich the sidewalk data quality in OSM, we have evaluated our practices by assessing how much the completeness of sidewalk information in the pilot cities have changed by the end of the project
Summary
The collective awareness platforms for improving accessibility (CAP4Access) in European cities and regions, was a European project (runtime: January 2014–January 2017) (Institute of Geography, Heidelberg University 2017) aiming to develop and pilot-test methods and tools for collectively gathering and sharing spatial information for improving accessibility (Zipf et al 2016). Data sources used in the project included humans as sensors, sensors in smartphones, and public sector information such as data held by local administrations which are of relevance to accessibility (e.g. road surface and width, traffic volumes and speed, elevation, etc.). Employing tools targeting local initiatives for supporting awareness raising and collective action was necessary. The aim of this task was to enable local activities for creating awareness and initiating concrete measures for eliminating barriers for people with limited mobility
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