Next Quarterly Project Apr May Jun 2018
Brian Prangle
Public
Seen by 38
I think this should be Post Offices
Rationale:
Robert Whitaker has an up to date data reference and also has a fabulous set of tools to update the data in OSM and for measuring progress.
The Post Office estate has been subject to a lot of churn with closures and moves so it's a good time to get out and about verifying our data which probably doesn't reflect today's estate
Post Offices are seen by communities as vital resources so we might get a response similar to the schools project.
We don't have much to do to get a complete dataset represented in OSM (about 4,000 Post Offices in the PO dataset aren't matched to an OSM object)
The dataset icludes addresses with postcodes so we'd be improving our address dataset at the same tme
Dennis Bauszus Mon 12 Mar 2018 4:18PM
We are doing the consultancy work in regard to the recent and proposed closures. So we have the most up to date list of all locations.
Robert Whittaker Tue 13 Mar 2018 12:32AM
It would be great if there's support for improving the Post Office coverage. Given the trouble I had to go to to get the Branch list under the OGL, I'd be surprised if Dennis is able to release what he has as Open Data -- but then stranger things have happened! Assuming it's from the same underlying systems as the list I have, I'm not convinced the location and address data is good enough for a direct import. (~10% of locations are out by >100m -- see http://robert.mathmos.net/osm/postoffice/distant-matches.html , and the addresses are hard to parse and usually don't contain the business name for branches inside shops.) I also think that somewhere around 5% of the claimed matches in my tool are actually incorrect because of branches moving a short distance down a road. However, the data does have a primary key, so if we can verify matches and add the ID numbers to OSM, it will help with any future automated updates / checking.
Dennis Bauszus Tue 13 Mar 2018 11:52AM
tl;dr: https://geolytix.xyz/open/?country=UK&layers=base,label,post_office&lat=53.46843072001161&lng=-3.2464599609375004&z=7&select=A!post_office!post_office!5266!-0.067753259329427;51.5845704632359
Disclosure. We don't work with rooftop matches but match the postcodes of a branch to the nearest code point. You get a list of all the current branches here http://www.corporate.postoffice.co.uk/modernising-post-office. I just downloaded this morning the current code point dataset from the Ordnance Survey. You get this here: https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-and-government/products/code-point.html. I matched the the postcode of a post office to the code point postcode. I don't have the codepoints for the Northern Ireland branches. Anyhow, I just loaded the data as a cluster layer into my open source framework which I am developing. I was actually about to write about clustering this weekend and the dataset is perfect for a demo. The link is above, my local post office selected and the location is spot on. Clustering isn't perfect yet as I am currently working on this. Different layers will be highlighted if you don't copy the complete link which has some hooks for layers and selection.
Dennis Bauszus Tue 13 Mar 2018 11:55AM
While you are looking at the application... Please have a look at the Retail Points layer. This is maintained by us and is also a completely open dataset. We would love to get this into OSM at some point. The retail points are rooftop geocoded for 95+ %.
https://geolytix.xyz/open/?country=UK&layers=base,label,retail_points&lat=53.08742621937263&lng=-3.2464599609375004&z=7&select=A!retail_points!gb_retailpoint!304!-0.071367007945872;51.5847917734019
RobJN Tue 13 Mar 2018 10:33PM
Post Offices sound ideal :+1:
The issue is as so often that OSM doesn't allow batch edits / uploads.
Hi @dennisbauszus.
A clarification: It's not a case of "doesn't allow" but rather is suspicious of batch edits / uploads. With a bit of work then there is no reason why a batch edit / upload cannot go ahead. Much of this upfront work relates to understanding the data. I hadn't realised that you work for Geolytix and therefore have all of this knowledge about the data. Have you considered using the OSM Conflate tool to see if it is possible to add this data in to OSM?
Dennis Bauszus Wed 14 Mar 2018 11:01AM
I am not aware of the conflate tool as I am not really working on the data side but more on the web development interface. A colleague has recently setup a OSM Overpass server in our cloud which I hope to make public soon. I will forward the information in regard to the conflate tool to him.
Robert Whittaker Tue 13 Mar 2018 11:17PM
The branch list that Post Office Ltd post at http://www.corporate.postoffice.co.uk/modernising-post-office is always between 6 and 18 months out of date, and post-code centroids won't be accurate enough for automatically locating new points in OSM. The data I got at http://robert.mathmos.net/osm/postoffice/data/ is more recent and has individual locations. (But around 10% may be off by more than 100m, so still not that good.)
I think it would be great to make use of the Retail Points data from Geolytix. The last time I looked at this though, the licence was based on the (now defunct) Ordnance Survey OpenData Licence / OGL v1.0, which is incompatible with OSM because of the sub-licence attribution clause, and IIRC some other technical restrictions on re-use. Has/can the licence be updated to the OGL v3?
Dennis Bauszus Wed 14 Mar 2018 11:02AM
I will ask the account manager for the post office project whether they are willing to release more accurate locations for use in OSM. I don't think this will be a problem. The problem is often lack of awareness rather than trying to block the inclusion of data.
Dennis Bauszus Wed 14 Mar 2018 11:06AM
In regard to the licence. I never looked at this until now and I have a bad understanding of data licences. The zipped retail points dataset on our website includes a licence pdf which links to this licence. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/
You can get the data and licence here. http://geolytix.co.uk/?retail_points
We will need advise on licencing if this is a problem for inclusion in OSM.
Dennis Bauszus · Mon 12 Mar 2018 4:17PM
The Post Office is actually our client and we have a list of all current post offices. This is open data. The issue is as so often that OSM doesn't allow batch edits / uploads.