OpenStreetMap

[jmarchon]

This is a continuation of a discussion started in a PM. Here is what has been discussed up until now:

@jmarchon

Hello,
I’m a volunteer for the OpenStreetMap (OSM) project, which you are no doubt somewhat familiar with as you appear to be using it on your website supercharge.info. As an EV enthusiast, I was wondering if you’d be interested in partnering with me to get more accurate Tesla Supercharger information added to OSM?
I am not affiliated with the OpenStreetMap Foundation - I’m just a volunteer looking for opportunities to improve the map.
Have a nice day,
jmarchon

@paulkva

Hello - supercharge.info is not “my” site, there’s a community of maintainers here. Having said that, I am currently the most active developer and might be able to answer any questions you have. For example, if you’re just looking for supercharger details in a machine-readable format, I can likely help decipher our API endpoints if needed.

On the flip side, you’ve probably noticed that each supercharger has an OSM link now (in addition to the fact that supercharge.info uses OSM for its base maps). The links use a Node ID, so if you’re able to provide a Node ID for any supercharger with a gray OSM icon, we might be able to incorporate that information to improve our site and data as well.

If you have any other specific ideas or questions, I might be able to help and/or point you in the right direction.

Hope that helps!
–Paul

@jmarchon

Hi Paul,
I wasn’t sure who to message first since I couldn’t find an official contact method, so I just picked the what looked like the most recently active admin here on the forum (which happened to be you ).
For the OSM links on supercharge.info to work, do you manually have to add the node ID or is it automated in some way?
I’ve only now discovered your API. Thanks for letting me know about that, it will definitely come in handy. Are you able to give me written permission to use that data for OSM under the ODBL?
Thanks,
jmarchon

@paulkva

Right now yes, adding the OSM node ID to each supercharger is a manual process for admins/editors. I haven’t played around with OSM’s query language, but if we’re able to somehow extract a list of superchargers and their OSM node IDs, I expect we could figure out how to perform a bulk update of supercharge.info. One of the challenges I’ve seen when looking at individual supercharge locations on OSM is that some contributors add them as Nodes, and some add them as Ways. As a workaround, for any supercharger I find listed as a Way, I’ve just arbitrarily chosen one of the Nodes that belongs to the Way.

As for written permission, while it’s likely going to be fine, I don’t think that’s something I’m empowered to do unilaterally. You do raise a really good point that we should include a license of some sort in our repositories and on our About page, both for the code and the data. We should also include usage guidelines for the API (e.g. what’s a reasonable number / scope of requests per X time period).

I’ll talk to the other admins about all of this and keep you posted when I’m able.

@paulkva

@jmarchon

I couldn’t find an official contact method

Right – I think this forum site and our GitHub repos are the closest things we have to an official contact method. I could see the questions you’re asking potentially fitting well into the “Code & Technical Questions” or “Site Feedback” categories here on the forum. If you’d like to move this conversation to one of those, please feel free to do so, I’ll continue to respond when I’m able.

[jmarchon]

@paulkva

if we’re able to somehow extract a list of superchargers and their OSM node ID

One way to get a list is to use Overpass Turbo frontend for the Overpass API. This link should lead you to a query returning all superchargers mapped in OSM: http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/1N62. After zooming in on an area, you can click “run” in the top left and then “export” for some data format options. The Overpass API is extremely powerful - this query is only a small taste of what it can do. I highly recommend taking a look at this page, if you’re interested: Overpass API - OpenStreetMap Wiki

@paulkva

One of the challenges I’ve seen when looking at individual supercharge locations on OSM is that some contributors add them as Nodes, and some add them as Ways. As a workaround, for any supercharger I find listed as a Way, I’ve just arbitrarily chosen one of the Nodes that belongs to the Way.

In the OSM world, mapping charging stations as ways is considered superior in terms of detail, with nodes really only being used to reduce effort or if sufficiently detailed sources are not available. Currently, most stations (~97%) are mapped as nodes, but in the future I expect many to be changed to ways. So it would probably be a good idea to find a way to handle both.

It is probably also worth noting that the IDs of OSM ways and nodes don’t always stay the same. In theory they should, but in practice the nodes and ways sometimes get deleted and re-added. The ID also changes when the charging station info is moved from a node to a way or vise versa.

[Rovastar]

Hi @jmarchon
Welcome to the forums.

Many of the editors here are familiar with OSM. I’ve personally been involved from back in 2007, heavily involved before but a more casual editor there now.

We will discuss amongst ourselves here to have a more open license.
Our general intention is people can use our data freely.
Never sure what the super strict rules of compatible to OSM licenses are nowadays,

What do you intend to do with our data on OSM? Importing them worldwide (imports can be tricky with duplicates already in OSM)? Just adding some to your local area? (I see you added some recently)

Personally I find the implementation of EV charging a right mess in OSM (multiple implementations of the same thing, misleading, outdated or outright wrong guides in the wiki last I looked, etc) and I haven’t the energy or inclination to start adding these on mass.

However if you want to do the heavy lifting of dealing with the OSM import mailing list and getting consensus in the community to potential use our data then feel free. I would genuinely welcome that, it would be great for OSM.
(Most useful I think for OSM would be to for matching OSM ID where we could import/update site information with the stall counts and power once as we keep on top of this really well.)

We have been adding OSM IDs (getting ways added is already earmarked but as you say not many of those about) but over the past few months. We could overpass API to get more info but I think we are adding them at a steady pace. For areas like Europe where OSM is more mature we have added many, US doesn’t have that many, and I expect near zero in China.

[paulkva]

Thanks @jmarchon for posting this. Hope it leads to a robust discussion, and as both @Rovastar and I said, we’ll continue discussing our licensing approach internally.

[jmarchon]

@Rovastar

Many of the editors here are familiar with OSM. I’ve personally been involved from back in 2007, heavily involved before but a more casual editor there now.

My apologies, I wrongly assumed you weren’t familiar. Sorry for explaining things you already know.

@Rovastar

What do you intend to do with our data on OSM?

I was hoping to use your data as a reference for manually adding stations to OSM. I already have other sources, but your data seems to be one of the most accurate. You also provide a convenient feed for additions/removals to the supercharger network. For now, I don’t intend to perform an import. Maybe sometime in the future once the guidelines/tags for mapping chargers on OSM have improved and settled.