Proposal: creation of a working group for a more coherent integration of EuroVelo routes on OSM

In OSM, every user may update any data based on reliable information. Please keep this in mind when defining data structures and mapping processes. These should not be as complex that local mappers and bypassing cycle travellers who detect a deviation of the signposted route from the OSM route either damage data structures or refrain from mapping by fear of doing so.

Good example…

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Good idea, but I don’t manage to turn it in wiki mode ; I don’t know if I am not looking at the right place or if I am still too new on the forum and I don’t have the right permissions! I’ll see to add the list of topics myself - in any case at the moment they are also accessible with the eurovelo tag.

Thank you for replying to this thread and giving your point of view as a local mapper! Indeed, the point here is not to disconnect information on EuroVelo on OSM from the terrain reality. I agree with you that it is the strength of OSM, to be more up-to-date and reflect what’s really there, compared to the GPX tracks on the EuroVelo website for instance, which contain a lot of mistakes - we are well aware of this. But we cannot avoid it completely given that we receive data from intermediaries (only realistic way to work at transnational level). And as Stéphane indicated in your exchange, this type of discrepancies between the official tracks and the reality on the ground is an excellent case that we can raise with Vélo & Territoires.

I would like to clarify that the objective of this thread is not to conform OSM data to ECF data - it is to clarify a clear and coherent way of mapping EuroVelo routes across Europe, so that it would be easier to access OSM data on EuroVelo, as we know it is more complete than what is available on EuroVelo.com. NECCs decide on the itineraries of EuroVelo routes. But if the information they send us does not correspond to what’s signed on the ground, we wish to be aware of it so we can discuss it with them.

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You have to be a “regular” to be able to make an own post into wiki. Maybe a moderator could do that, @moderators ?

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Indeed, I can create this extra thread (I’ll do it when I have some more time - tonight or in coming days).

I think that we need to be very careful with this. As your discussion with @rainerU indicated, we cannot trust the GPX tracks received from NECCs to reflect perfectly the current reality on the ground. In France, indeed, Vélo & Territoires receives updates yearly from local authorities, and then sends all updated sections to us. In other countries, some NECCs don’t have this kind of system and data can be more outdated. In countries with no NECC, the GPX tracks have in some cases not been updated for years, as we didn’t have someone sending us updates. That’s why Knooppuntnet is such a good tool, to identify these issues…

And of course, routes with nothing on the ground should probably not be mapped at all, as we are discussing here. But NECCs are officially responsible for EuroVelo routes in their countries, and deciding where they go. They can decide to modify an itinerary or delete one. If this happens, and there are no signs on the ground, I think that OSM data needs to follow. That’s where the management question is more important.

I’ll think a bit about it and we’ll discuss it more in the new thread :slight_smile:

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Tell me what buttons to press in what order and I’ll do it.

Edit: Actually, no I won’t. Despite this having a “tagging” tag it’s not in the “tagging” category below “help and support”, so I’m not a moderator here. :slight_smile:
The documentation, (such as it is - it’s properly beware of the leopard hidden) is here, and the least hard way of finding that is from this link which is labelled “new user’s guide” in the sidebar that desktop users see.

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Here it’s first clicking the ... icon to get to the wrench:

First step: get the whole set of menu icons:
discourse-create-wiki-part1

Then hovering the wrench icon:
discourse-create-wiki-step2

I believe it’s more of “No I can’t” than “No, I won’t” :slight_smile:

Hello, I’m one of the two GIS specialists for Vélo & Territoires (V&T), the French NECC. Thank you @rainerU for your contributions and your report on this section of EV8 near Argelès-sur-Mer. I’m gonna report this problem to the Pyrénées-Orientales department.

I support Florence when she says that our goal is not to conform OSM to our data! It’s to organize data transfer and reutilization between our organisations (ECF and NECCs) and OSM database and community. Sometimes OSM has more up-to-date data than us, sometimes it’s the contrary. A tool like KPN and the amazing involvement in this working group from the OSM community can also help us to show the advantages of collaborative mapping to local authorities, and move towards more involvement from them in this process.

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They are well aware of the situation as one can see on the maps on their web site. Nevertheless, I informed them about the situation on site in a mail in June.

See [EuroVelo&OSM Working Group] EV8 for a dedicated topic on EV8.

This is indeed how we do it in USA for United States Bicycle Route System - OpenStreetMap Wiki. It is a process we carefully evolved in 2011-2013 via hundreds of emails among true stakeholders in OSM (important people and elements of what became OSM-US) and various elements of national bicycle network route planning, signing and implementation (state Departments of Transportation, the architect of the System as part of Adventure Cycling Association, a “helper” to state DOTs, AASHTO — the USA’s national-level highway/cycleway network numbering organization…). See the “Proposed” section of the wiki linked above.

We define a “high bar standard” before the state=proposed tag can be applied to a route, and call it a “very high bar standard” at the penultimate step as the route goes “on ballot” (to AASHTO from any DOT who might apply for a new route to be added to the System / network). After AASHTO’s ballot (the final step), Approved routes have their state=proposed tag removed, and (in OpenCycleMap, for example) dashed (red) lines become solid (red) lines. (Or purple in cyclosm, or medium-dark-blue on waymarkedtrails…).

This has been working well for over a decade in OSM, see .From Sandbox to Construction Zone to a Beautiful National Network of Bicycle Routes | OpenStreetMap US .

I don’t favor “eurovelo” as a tag in OSM, but it might be useful as a hashtag (or similar) to develop and/or communicate among “yourselves” (people concerned with well-mapping EuroVelo in OSM). There is no need for special casing or “asking Marc,” as all of this (the way the USA maps network=ncn, which can work for network=icn) in the USA “just simply already works.” Other linked threads / topics (here) seem like a good idea. I’m hoping this can help reduce re-inventing wheels.

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Hi @stevea and thanks a lot for your contribution. I had a look at the documentation you shared, and indeed this is great inspiration for us.

The process is not exactly the same for EuroVelo routes. Indeed, there is no clear moment when a “proposed” route becomes “approved”, except for new routes being added to the EuroVelo network - but about a third of the “old” routes, already mapped on www.EuroVelo.com (having been introduced at the very start of EuroVelo in 1997), are not fully developed at the moment, and we have no clarity when they will fully be. On the other hand, we have developed a methodology to assess cycle route quality (European Certification Standard), which is our way to determine if a route meets the minimal needs of cycle travellers. The distinction between “proposed” and “approved” (what we call “undeveloped” and “developed”) should ultimately be connected to this methodology, but this is still a work in progess.

In the meantime, this could be connected to the current map legend on EuroVelo.com, knowing that if OSM contributors find out that a route marked as “developed” is actually not rideable in the field, we would get back to our national coordinators and discuss the issue with them!

Thanks again and I’ll refer to this here.

:wave: I could maybe contribute and help facility further contacts in Norway. I am also in touch with the Norwegian Public Roads Administration (Statens vegvesen and Henrik D. there), and work with cycling infrastructure and OSM solutions with other public transport operators (Entur, etc.) and cities in Norway.
-Trond Solem, Buskerudbyen

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Hi @FennecusZerda and thanks a lot for your message! Sorry for replying late, this month is very busy at work and I don’t find a lot of time to come around here at the moment :slight_smile:

It would be great if you could double-check the Norwegian EuroVelo routes on OSM and see if there are any discrepancies with the official tracks. You could use the Knooppuntnet monitor tool that we have been discussing here and in other threads (see for instance this one): Knooppuntnet monitor - OpenStreetMap Wiki

Feel free to reach out to me if you find out some major discrepancies, and I could get in touch with Henrik to discuss it with your help!

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I agree, but what could this tag be? unsigned=yes?

In Nederland we usually have signage, just not a special Eurovelo sign. You could say that the national signage is declared (on a more or less official website) to count as Eurovelo signage. Then unsigned would give the wrong impression.

Yes, or if the name isn’t signed but the ref is, name:signed=no.

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If the signage is on the relation, wouldn’t you just say that one relation was signed and one not? That way, if people were looking for signage, they would know what to look for.

Conversely, if the ref is unsigned, regardless of the state of the name, there’s unsigned_ref.

Even on the same part there may be a mix of signed only with ref

and signed with name and ref

One difference: the first one is located in the departement Moselle (part of the former region Lorraine), the second one in the departement Bas-Rhin (part of the former region Alsace). Between Sarreguemines and Mittersheim the EV5 is crossing the border of these two departements six times on a distance of less than 50 km.