TomTom Maps Platform

Maybe @courtiney as TomTom employee could tell us a bit more about the details of the planned collaboration and what data TomTom wants to contribute to the OSM database and how.

I would be happy to! I was thinking that we could host a Q&A? Or maybe just use this thread? What’s the best way?

The mapping team in Pune that is referred to in this clip are TomTom employees who edit the TomTom base map and have done so for many years. They are subject matter experts in GIS and they use TomTom’s own editor to do it. There are not 1000 of them, though perhaps in the early years there were that many.

Some of them are now learning OSM and will use their GIS expertise, in the future, to quality check OSM data and quality check TT editing in OSM. But they aren’t doing that right now. TomTom still has its own base map and will continue to have its own base map.

We do, now, have some Global Logic editors who edit in OSM, but it’s more like 50 editors and the team that manages them have spent the whole year working really hard to learn OSM rules and logic and do a good job. They’ve made some mistakes, but they are learning from them. There has never been a time when they didn’t care about being good citizens to the community. I think others on this thread can corroborate this.

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Thank you! I think answering to some of the questions and concerns from this thread is better than a Q&A, as it will reach more members of the community.

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I pulled some questions from the thread into this reply, to make it easier:

*I’m not sure what is behind all this marketing talk. What will TomTom’s collaboration with the OSM community look like?

Here’s the top level answer:

The TomTom Maps Platform is TomTom’s new location technology suite, which extends TomTom’s proprietary location data with an array of ‘super’ sources including the open source-based OpenStreetMap (OSM), probe data, and other Sensor Derived Observations (SDO) from millions of vehicles and devices. It also allows partners and customers to contribute data to the platform themselves by direct editing. All data is in turn validated, integrated, and published in a highly automated manner, resulting in TomTom Maps which reflect changes in reality in the map database and in the application as quickly as needed.

I would also add this:

TomTom will follow guidelines re: attribution and share-back. Note that the company is not yet using OSM, so some of the details of how that will look are still being worked on. The plan is to go live with the new map in early to mid 2023. The TomTom community team (some of you know @MarjanVan @HajarElOuafi David Salmon, Syed Nasrulla, and Salim Baidoun in addition to myself) are happy to be points of contact.

Has any communication with OSM(F) taken place?

Yep. Mikel M. reached out to me, and we talked a bit, and he is going to set up a bigger meeting with OSM(F), myself, and others from TomTom who can answer questions.

Also if you look at his slides all the “current map” slides include no copyright statement whole all the “new maps” slides include an © OpenStreetMap text. Looks like OSM is a major source of data being folded in to their maps, following the path of others (e.g. Bing maps).

This is legitimately confusing, and I’m sorry about that. Those are designer mock-ups in the presentation. The new map is not yet out. There was even even an OSM attribution in the mock-up, but it got cropped out in the livestream! :cry:

Now that our new strategy is public, we will be blogging regularly about the new TomTom map, our collaborations with OSM chapters (including with Brasil (Brazil) Norge (Norway) Italia (Italy) Tanzania België / Belgique / Belgien (Belgium) and others, too), our sponsorships of OSM groups and chapters, our corporate partners, and etc.

Oh! And, don’t forget about the two tools that we shared last year: RoadRunner and MapMetrics. These were worked on by Steve Coast during his time at TomTom–you might remember this blog post. Steve’s SotM demo of MapMetrics is here and he did another one here.

I am actively making the case for TT to invest in improving RoadRunner and MapMetrics. If anyone is interested in giving me feedback or helping define new use cases, please let us know - easiest way is to email OSM@tomtom.com

I linked to this blog post above, but putting it here for convenience, as well.

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Ich weiß nicht, ob das hier das richtige Thema \ die richtige Plattform fĂŒr die folgende Nachricht ist, die ich vorhin bei meinem tĂ€glichen Überblick auf Golem . de gefunden habe.

PLATINMITGLIED | Tomtom unterstĂŒtzt Open Street Map

“Der Navigationanbieter Tomtom ist der Open Street Map Foundation als Platin-Mitgilied beigetreten und fördert kĂŒnftig die Entwicklung auch mit Geld.”

Wenn nötig, bitte an die richtige Stelle verschieben.

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I just discovered that TomTom AmiGO is now using OpenStreetMap data, with attribution. At least in Germany and Luxembourg. Looks like they’re using it for everything (roads, POIs, buildings
) and adding their own traffic data. OSM map + TomTom traffic for free without ads sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

Screenshot_20240125_085312_AmiGO

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They posted an update on the Orbis platform which is in early access now

OSM will be a new data source, among many, used by TomTom. We will identify the best content in the OSM map by assessing its data accuracy, completeness, and consistency level, to name a few. Our intention is to create the most complete and robust map. TomTom will use the most accurate data source for each region, country or even feature which could be OSM data in select countries, while in other countries it could be TomTom data including third-party sources.

Now that I’ve used AmiGO for a while, it seems that at least sometimes the server-based route calculation uses TomTom’s own map data but the app then displays the route on top of an OSM-based map. Yesterday the app tried to route me through a track that is mapped correctly as access=no in OSM, but TomTom’s map incorrectly shows it as a public road.