How frequently highway is updated in OSM?

Help and support
,
1

Hi Everyone.
I am starting to explore OSM highways for filtering purpose.
I am using OSMnx python library to get the highway networks.
Just wanted to understand how latest is the highway network data from OSM.
How frequently it is updated.

2

If you’re reading from the OSM API, then you’re reading the original data, most up-to-date.
If you’re using Overpass API, then there might be a delay of 1-2 minutes.
Both APIs can deliver XML and JSON format.

1 Like
3

… depending on which instance of that you’re addressing.

1 Like
4

… which includes a part telling you the exact date and time

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<osm version="0.6" generator="Overpass API 0.7.62.1 084b4234">
<note>The data included in this document is from www.openstreetmap.org. The data is made available under ODbL.</note>
<meta osm_base="2024-11-04T09:01:01Z" areas="2024-11-04T03:18:14Z"/>
1 Like
5

It’s not 100% clear to me if the question is about:

  1. The delay their query will have compared to what’s in OSM’s main database.
  2. Or how outdated OSM’s data is compared to the real world.
6 Likes
6

The first point was answered by @ToniE. OSM is a live database, i.e. all changes are immediately visible with only a very short time delay.

If you @PSR_GEO ask for the timelines of the data, nobody can answer because there is no fixed update cycle. The timeliness of the data depends on the local mapping intensity, which in turn depends on the mappers density.

8 Likes
7

I wanted to check if I am accessing the highway network it should not be very outdated with respect to real world. like not more than 3-6 months.

8

This is all just statistics. Busy roads are updated faster than small roads. But there are no guarantees.

1 Like
9

it heavily depends on part of the world

say, rural China has many roads not mapped at all and in Poland main problem is that people map roads as passable before they are actually open

you need to look into data of interest for you - or at least be very detailed what you are interested in

note that you can also edit if any data problem is blocker for you! Or just want to help.

2 Likes
10

You could try asking with more specific details in the country forum you’re interested in.
By the way, my own experience is it’s better to describe your use case on these forums in some detail, rather than just asking the question you want the answer to, because you don’t always know the questions you should really be asking.

4 Likes