I agree, Organic Maps is often better than Google Maps for walkable trails, bicycle and hiking paths. I found there are some paths mapped on OSM that are not mapped at all on GMaps.
On the other hand, GMaps is better for up-to-date commercial data like stores and their opening hours. Its navigation system is better too. As much as I'd like to drop all Google services from my life, Maps is too useful to let go.
You can download one of the dozens of OSM-editing apps like:
- streetcomplete
- vespucci
- everydoor
and either add that information yourself or leave a note for other people
For relatively static info, sure. For real time bus/rail status you need integrations to countless public transit systems. For stuff like store times, etc, you need sufficient market power so that business owners are incentived to provide that info.
> business owners are incentived to provide that info.
Business owners usually provide it on their door. I added opening hours to many places, and importantly I didn't have to add opening hours to many other because they already had them.
> For real time bus/rail status you need integrations to countless public transit systems.
For public transportation, I personally usually need to buy a ticket, which Google Maps doesn't provide. So I use the public transportation app of the country in question. For countries where public transportation are public, which usually implies an app, of course. Countries that have broken public transportation won't work the same, but anyway the public transportation is broken there :-).
Maybe this is a cultural difference, but in my city opening hours are pretty stable. Sometimes they're even engraved in the store sign. There are exceptions though.
I seem to remember they have a history of incorrect tags or tag combinations being applied by their software though. Not sure what the current state is but may be something to look into before using OrganicMaps as a mapping application when there's other good options
How do you think google maps got such a good database of these things? When I last used it, Google maps used to actively ask you for this sort of information.
The shop owners also put their hours onto Google Maps, or paid somebody to do it. You shouldn't labour for free for Google either.
Even if you managed to help a shop get hundreds or thousands of new customers by updating their online information, they wouldn't even give you a cup of coffee if you asked. More likely they'd spit in your face.
For most physical businesses that are open to the public, correct information on map services are by far their most important advertising. Yet, they neglect this and spend thousands on billboards, social media, radio spots, etc. If they are failing as business owners, that's their own problem.
I think they even robocall stores with something similar to Assistant to check if they're open on holidays, which is definitely something that would be difficult for a smaller or community-run database to accomplish at scale
This largly depends on the location you are referring to. In many german places / cities, OSM data is often more accurate than Google Maps, even for commercial infos like opening hours. In the end it is up to people to ensure data is up-to-date. Apps like StreetComplete can help with that. Organic Maps also allows for some editing.
> GMaps is better for up-to-date commercial data like stores and their opening hours
Not in my country. They don't even keep track of national holidays, and very often keep listing establishments that closed down years ago.
Also, you might be standing in front of a restaurant and when asking google maps for nearby restaurants, if that one isn't blessed, you'll get directions to a 3km restaurant instead.
this is a cognitive bias. it's really interesting.
google used to be good, because if the hours were there, someone had put effort in. they were 95% accurate for CONUS. but over the last 6~ years the quality has degraded. Only about 65% accurate now. And to me, that's worse than unuseful, because i can't plan, i need to verify, so i might as well have gone to the store website anyways.
also who the heck needs open and close times? if you need that level of precision you need a personal assistant.
Not all restaurants are open for both lunch and dinners, and in every country there's different ideas on what's the appropriate time for having a meal.
I would argue on the "navigation system" being better in gmaps, though. It used to be the navigation. Nowadays in many places it just shows bullshit. Two scooter ubereats drivers will go through a park, or a tractor through a literal field, and it will guide you through there like it's route 66. Not to mention google changes my route multiple times in a 3 hour drive, even without notifying me - I just avoid it at all cost, as it requires too much attention while driving.
So many places have better OSM-based coverage nowadays.
If you want to make OSM data better (like that business hours you mentioned) I find Street Complete [0] app fun and absolutely friction less way to do that.
gmaps used to be nice for traffic too but these days it shows delays and suggests to reroute at every traffic light as if the whole city was at a standstill sometimes even when roads are not busy at all...
No. Even though I navigate with Osmand regularly, I must use Gmaps to find stores' existence, address, hours, phone number, url. Gmaps is the yellow pages. Osmand is a map.
> OSM can have those details it just takes a local community on top of keeping things updated. Even Google often relies on users for that stuff.
Google has an infinitely-larger community; a local community is not sufficient in dense areas where businesses are opening and closing every day. France has the third largest OSM community and yet some neighborhoods of its largest cities are full of outdated businesses.
Interestingly, in Atlanta I've had the opposite experience. In town OSM always seems to be better (Google has a lot of outdated open hours and the like). Outside of town in the cheaper burbs which is the only place I can afford to live though few people are editing OSM and it's pretty out of date.
That being said, I switched to Organic maps years ago. For 90% of places I go, it turns out I go to them repeatedly day-to-day, so I added them to the map the first time and update them when I go there and the hours have changed. Then they're on the map the rest of the time when I need to look up hours or what not so I rarely have anywhere around here that I go to that's not on the map anymore. When I do, I add it and next time it's on there and it works well enough 99% of the time.
You highlight a function of OSM that is hard to get across to people: I can fix the map!
For example, bicycle routing in my area was unreliable, because it would try to route me over rough trails. Just adding a few tags improved the experience dramatically. And then it was fixed not only for me, but everybody else too.
Meanwhile, other people fixed other annoyances, and the map works better across many areas. Google instead decides to hide things that interest me, and shows sponsored places I don't care for. I have zero recourse.
> Just adding a few tags improved the experience dramatically.
This works for routing, but doesn’t apply to businesses: for the bare minimum you have to add one or two tags (type + name), to make that more useful you have to add the opening hours and ideally the website. Now multiply this by 60,000 (the number of businesses in Paris, France). By the time you’ve finished your neighborhood some businesses you checked last month are already closed and some new ones already opened. Go on holidays? Too bad, you have to start over again when you come back. Trust me, I’m contributing almost every day and I can’t keep the pace.
Don't do all the businesses in Paris, just do the ones you frequent the most. Google doesn't have all the businesses in Paris either (or at least, in Atlanta I run into ones that they don't have too or that they have but it's completely wrong, at an old location, etc. fairly frequently).
Yeah the idea that I should keep up with all the shops in the larger area is scary. Luckily, I'm not alone. All I can say is you're doing a good thing by adding regular updates.
And I think even partially complete OSM is helpful. If I add just one ATM, that can already help somebody looking for one. That might even be me, when I know it's there somewhere, but not exactly where.
> a local active community of 2 active persons for every 260 residents is sufficient
That would be huge. For a city with 2M inhabitants, that would mean 8k active contributors. Remember that there are ~40-50k active OSM contributors in the whole world.
In Paris we have ~100 contributors with >100 edits for a population of 2M and 60.8k businesses. Most notes are fixed under a day, infrastructure changes are quick as well, but businesses are often out of date because they change so often that some people don’t take the time to update them.
On the other hand, GMaps is better for up-to-date commercial data like stores and their opening hours. Its navigation system is better too. As much as I'd like to drop all Google services from my life, Maps is too useful to let go.