I’ve been looking at the addresses in OSM for Queensland that some are missing, even some addresses that have been around for many years aren’t displaying in OSM as house numbers at all.
An example would be “5 Bonython St, Rochedale South QLD 4123” which is showing in Google Maps (see image below), but only showing as a street in OSM (see image below). This house address appears to be have around for some time, Google Street view shows as far back as 2008.
How do house and street addresses generally get updated in OSM?
Is there a way to bulk update addresses in OSM from an open data source like " Geoscape Geocoded National Address File (G-NAF)" which was updated 9 days ago and contains these addresses (Search), or from council data (Logan Council, Brisbane City Council etc.)?
For the bulk update, there’s processes around importing, however I believe G-NAF isn’t license compatible due to restrictions on commercial use, which we can’t guarantee against.
If you’ve got open data from local councils and other sources, it’s definitely something worth looking into seeing if it’s under a compatible license (or one we can at least work with the source on getting a waiver signed) and then look at importing.
People walk around look at the numbers on letter boxes / facades, write these down and then upload them back at a computer, more common now is they come in through mobile mapping apps eg. Comparison of Android applications - OpenStreetMap Wiki.
Sometimes where we have open address data that meets licensing conditions the community may propose and conduct a bulk import.
The GNAF license does allow commercial use
The EULA terms are based on the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). However, an important restriction relating to the use of the open G-NAF for the sending of mail has been added.
The open G-NAF data must not be used form the generation of an address or a compilation or address for the sending of mail unless the user has verified that each address to be used for the sending of mail is capable of receiving mail by reference to a secondary source of information.
I have been considering the use of my non uploaded Mapillary frames for private address entry. I have a side facing camera that is often good enough to read actual street/house numbers, but so far I just discard these from the upload without even a close look. If a private (looking) house has a business sign though I include them plus any sign data. I think it worthwhile to at least add a house number every 10 or 20 if I could. If nothing else it makes GPS navigation based on OSM data better.
Would re-using my old geotagged backups for this be a privacy concern? I am thinking it would be the same as me walking a street and taking written notes.
Having just started doing this for a few towns, there are some large differences. Augathella Qld has more than 95% of addresses visible on kerbs, fences, letterboxes and the occasional building fascia. Sometimes duplicated along with (painted) numbered rubbish bins. Quilpie Qld however has no letterboxes, I have seen no numbered bins and the less than 10% visible are mostly on fascias. It would even be difficult to count houses trying to find a specific one.
Augathella has a slightly lower population than Quilpie.
So an import project still seems a good idea. If I get a chance I’ll wander into the council here at Quilpie and ask about address data. Might yield a better result than state data/waiver.
