OSM consumers with pathing - lit paths

General talk
1

Since we can map street lamps in OSM, I think it would be nice to have some option of searching for on-foot (and also on-bike?) paths between points that are lit by them.

This is useful if you are not sure if you:

  • have to return after dark from a place you went to for the first time and you may get lost without GPS and just map
  • may have eyesight problems, so the light can help you to not trip into random objects (I think it is true for older folk, who may also have problems with mobility/standing up)
  • may have to pass through “shady” parts of town (for this some kind of route only close to cameras might be useful)
  • are tasked with maintaining the street lamps
  • ensuring if you drop something on your way, you might be able to find it without wandering about with your phone flashlight
  • are walking/talking with someone else and want to be able to have eye contact
  • are walking in a shared area for pedestrians and bicycles (you can see each other more easily before a possible collision)
  • (uncertain) want to check an area for some nocturnal animals (I don’t know if they will be repelled by the light)
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Well, If I read this right, I genuinely don’t know how would that look like. I am not a big fan of mapping each lamp one-by-one, in my opinion it is better to just tag a way if it is lit or not. But to be honest, I have a problem with lit tag too, as it doesn’t tell you how lit something is and it can vary between people how they perceive litness. Like there is this controversial thing which is: Key:lit:perceived – OpenStreetMap Wiki

I think we would need some kind of version of that, but then how would maps render this? Would this affect routing? And there is as I said above the thing is about how people perceive it.

I think this is a topic which needs further discussion and I genuinely have no idea how could this be solved properly, but I like your idea in general.

3

I proposed it some time ago for Organic Maps Add option to avoid unlit ways during night · Issue #5327 · organicmaps/organicmaps · GitHub and someone else was faster than me for Comaps with #2682 - Create an option to avoid un lit roads - comaps/comaps - Codeberg.org

But both wait for implementation (idea part is really easy)

2 Likes
4

cycle.travel already has a night-time routing option in UK and Ireland, although the lit tag is only one of the things it looks at.

3 Likes