Fixing Bad Mapping Data

There are a few situations that make ABRP much less useful than it could be:

• Turns identified by sign content rather than by (or along with) the name of the road or the exit where you’ll make your next turn.

• Turns at intersections where the road name changes, and so is different on each side and the directions don’t match the signage – for example at an intersection where the road is called “North Road” on the left and “South Road” on the right. My route turns left onto North Road and the intersection is signed North Road, but for some reason ABRP tells me to turn left onto South Road (the name of the road coming into the intersection on the right).

• Inaccurate / confusing lane guidance (showing you the lane to be in at the next turn, but nothing to help you plan where to be on the section of road that you’re on now – this leads to, for example, being in an exit only lane too early and then having to scramble to get out if it at the last second).

These problems are, I suspect, due to bad/incomplete data in Open Street Map – so I can’t totally blame ABRP for the problem. But, ABRP could make it much, much easier for those of us who are inclined to contribute to OSM. For example if ABRP:

• Had a “Map Error” button that:

  • Made a report the event that included, at least, a screen capture of the map when the button was pressed (and maybe collected other relevant information about the route or even allowed you to record a description of the problem).

  • Saved the event for you to review (so you could edit OSM yourself).

  • Allowed you to “share” the report into a public searchable list of map problems, this would allow users (or even OSM “nerds” who weren’t even ABRP users) to find and fix map problems in their “neighborhood.”

• Provided a list of the OSM tags that ABRP used so that OSM editors could actually make changes that would work well with ABRP.

• Provided examples of how to enter data into OSM to get good directions.

• Allowed access to the drive simulator so that we could check to see if our changes worked the way we expected.

• At least provided a “map updated” timestamp so that you could tell when your map updates should be reflected in ABRP.