Skip to content
BC Government LogoBC Address Geocoder

OpenStreetMap Suitability

October 26, 2020

The BC Route Planner is based on the BC Digital Road Atlas (DRA) which is a product of GeoBC. To avoid user confusion, a route generated by the BC Route Planner needs to be displayed on a street map whose road geometry and street names are consistent with that of the BC DRA. We conducted a study to examine their alignment.

Conclusion

Section titled “Conclusion”

Out of one hundred random address waypoints around BC, only one OSM road segment had enough misalignment to cause confusion. Only three OSM road names were sufficiently different from the BC Digital Road Atlas (DRA) to cause confusion. The BC DRA is used by the Route Planner to generate routes and driving directions. Given that OSM is a free and open base map, any discrepencies in OSM can be easily fixed. Currently, such fixes are published globally within a few minutes.

To do the comparison, we selected a handful of random addresses in a given rural area or municipality and asked the Route Planner to find the best route using the addresses as waypoints. For each address in the route, we zoomed in and looked at how well the route line matched the road in the OSM basemap. Following that, we compared the spelling of the road in OSM to the spelling of our address. Detailed observations are available here

Methodology

Section titled “Methodology”

Here is our methodology if you would like to do the comparison yourself:

  1. Launch the Location Services in Action web application

  2. In the Address tab, enter a rural area or incorporated municipality name and press search icon. You may want to zoom out a bit to include the entire populated area.

image

  1. Select the Route tab and enter five to ten random waypoints using the jump at random icon (*).

image

  1. For each address in the route, zoom to the address in the map by selecting the zoom to waypoint icon then zoom to the lowest possible level.

image

  1. Observe and note the differences between the best route line (in mauve) and the road in the OSM base map.

  2. Observe and note the differences between the road name in the OSM base map and the road name in the address.