[HN Gopher] Transforming OpenStreetMap into thick roads and inte...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Transforming OpenStreetMap into thick roads and intersections
        
       Author : dabreegster
       Score  : 166 points
       Date   : 2021-09-17 17:18 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (a-b-street.github.io)
 (TXT) w3m dump (a-b-street.github.io)
        
       | dabreegster wrote:
       | A/B Street is an open-source traffic simulator that lets you edit
       | roads and intersections, based on OpenStreetMap data. But to even
       | do that, first we have to geometrically represent the
       | transportation network in great detail. This is a second deep-
       | dive into how things work.
        
         | dabreegster wrote:
         | And in case you're interested how the traffic simulation part
         | works in detail, but missed yesterday's post:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28553654
        
       | modeless wrote:
       | You can play right in your browser!
       | http://play.abstreet.org/0.2.58/abstreet.html What a cool
       | project!
        
       | takk309 wrote:
       | I am a professional traffic engineer and I build micro-simulation
       | models for most of the projects I am involved with. I can say
       | that compared to software that is used in industry (PTV Vissim,
       | PTV Vistro, and Trafficware Synchro) it looks like A/B is a
       | reasonable toy model that can get pretty close to the real thing.
       | I think it is great that software exists at a level for
       | individuals without huge budgets to be able to build and play
       | around with traffic networks. Automating the intersection setup
       | goes a long way toward this type of tool being accessible to the
       | lay person. All that being said, I think the limitations of any
       | model are important to understand when interpreting the outputs.
       | I can take any model and make traffic flow or decrease the delay
       | per vehicle, that doesn't mean my results are realistic.
       | 
       | Keep up the work, this is an awesome tool and I hope it can get
       | to the point where it can easily help inform people about traffic
       | design and simulation.
        
         | anigbrowl wrote:
         | What kinds of feedback does your profession care about? I am
         | constantly frustrated as a pedestrian with the traffic flow and
         | signal timing problems in my area but I feel like it's
         | pointless to submit a complaint to my local municipality
         | because my anecdotal data points will probably be disregarded.
         | 
         | I'm not very good at nor patient for trying to do neighborhood
         | people organization and go around in circles with City Hall for
         | 5 years (as has been the case with other neighborhood things
         | like park use etc. that I have previously been involved in).
         | But I am tried of losing about 5-6 hours a year to excess wait
         | times at intersections despite trying to avoid the slowest
         | crossings.
        
       | aresant wrote:
       | Years back as OSM was fading and the v1.0 of mapbox started
       | rolling out my pedestrian view of the space was that we were
       | seeing the endgame unfold
       | 
       | It's insane to see the levels of depth still to plunge - this is
       | incredible documentation and a very cool project
       | 
       | PS - I'd upvote twice if I could for incorporate of cthulhu
       | mythos!
        
         | dabreegster wrote:
         | Just this morning I came across new work from the Berlin OSM
         | community: https://supaplexosm.github.io/strassenraumkarte-
         | neukoelln/?m... The end-game isn't in sight. We (data consumers
         | of OSM) are just getting started.
        
           | Freak_NL wrote:
           | Supaplex did supplement their map with open data from the
           | municipality though for the street outlines as far as I
           | understand (I've asked), so it's not 100% OpenStreetMap data
           | used there.
           | 
           | Totally awesome and inspiring nonetheless though.
        
             | dabreegster wrote:
             | Right, from
             | https://supaplexosm.github.io/strassenraumkarte-
             | neukoelln/po... (translation https://translate.google.com/t
             | ranslate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...), there was an extra curb
             | data-set used. I've actually found a few of these
             | (https://a-b-
             | street.github.io/docs/tech/map/geometry/index.ht...), so
             | the approach is maybe repeatable.
             | 
             | Regardless, the design choices and color scheme are
             | something I would love to adapt.
        
             | RicoElectrico wrote:
             | You can definitely map curbs in OSM if you have high
             | resolution imagery:
             | https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:area:highway
             | 
             | Do not expect however mainstream data consumers to support
             | it ;)
        
         | Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
         | What to you mean, "OSM was fading"? When?
        
           | reportingsjr wrote:
           | I'm also curious about this. If you look at the number of
           | users, number of edits, etc then openstreetmap looks like it
           | is on a rocket trajectory.
           | 
           | More and more corporations are putting significant amounts of
           | energy towards improving openstreetmap as well, drastically
           | improving overall quality.
        
             | WilTimSon wrote:
             | It's scary to think such a great project could have
             | perished at some point in its infancy. It's not perfect yet
             | but it's an incredible resource and alternative to GMaps.
        
       | toomuchtodo wrote:
       | This is the coolest project I've seen in a long time. I cannot
       | wait to see how this evolves and scales up.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2021-09-17 23:00 UTC)