Are you seriously suggesting that emergency services will trust a satnav in preference to their own eyes and brains? Especially a satnav driven by data with no proactive quality control and no-one you can sue/complain to? And seriously incomplete data? I think you are looking at a multi-year project to get all this information into OSM (read: "review and correct the tagging and topology of every road in the database") while all the time thousands of people are adding new "bad" data? A popular dutch saying "mopping up with the tap still running" comes to mind.

Let's not have a purely hypothetical debate, let's keep it practical. Assuming that emergency services currently use satnavs (consumer or special-purpose) based on commercial data, what would they say if we asked them "what would you need from OSM data to make it a better choice than your current supplier?" I can imagine that the time delay between changes on the ground and their availability in a map update might be one concern; inappropriate road classifications might be another. I would like to hear it from them, though. Then we can look at the requirements and assess whether it is a viable project.

Colin

On 16/10/2012 10:37, Simone Saviolo wrote:
2012/10/15 Colin Smale <colin.sm...@xs4all.nl <mailto:colin.sm...@xs4all.nl>>

    I don't understand why emergency vehicles are so important in this
discussion.

Because OSM publicly advertises the fact that its maps are being used in the Gaza's strip by emergency vehicles that would otherwise have no map? Just to name one. Also because emergency vehicles may happen to operate in unknown territory. Don't limit yourself to the ambulance that runs around its home town.

    In the first place they have wide-ranging exemptions from traffic
rules, which (let's be honest) we are never going to tag in OSM.

This is meaningless. We will map all restrictions; consumers will have an "emergency vehicle" flag that will route ignoring those restrictions. Also, while an ambulance is allowed to go the wrong way in a one-way street (when its siren is on, of course), it is usually advised against doing so, as in a narrow road it may find regular traffic, which would be dangerous or at least slow down the ambulance. So, restrictions may be ignored, but drivers should be informed about them.

    Secondly they are never going to be relying on OSM data (or indeed
    any normal sat-nav) for lane-precise routing. They are trained to
    use their eyes and brains to make split-second decisions on what
    is safe and an acceptable risk under the circumstances of that
moment.

Sure. Let's make an example. There's a long primary road between towns, with solid double lines all the way from town A to town B. Let's say it runs North-South from town A to town B. A farmyard east of the road is burning. It can be accessed by a road that reaches the large road; under normal circumstances, someone coming from town A couldn't reach the crossroad and go to the farmyard, but would be legally forced to go to town B, turn back, reach the crossroad and go the farm.

The firemen turn on their GPS navigator, because they're being called in from a far away city and they've never heard the name of that farmyard. The router lawfully sends them to town A, then to town B. They go past the crossroad and can't notice the farmyard, because it's far away and there's a wood in between that covers it. Also they can't see on the screen that ten kilometres ahead they would have to turn back and go back to the crossroad they're approaching. The firemen get there fifteen minutes late and the farmyard is a bunch of ashes. Great work dividing the way on a legal restriction! :-)

    Thirdly, they will be about 0.0000000001% of the potential users
    of OSM data - why should we compromise "service" to the vast
    majority of real users for the hypothetical benefit of the very few.


I know who makes this consideration: commercial map providers. It's just not worth the cost, right?

Cheers,

Simone


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