Comparative Spatial Analysis of Positional Accuracy of OpenStreetMap and Proprietary Geodata

摘要

The emergence and ubiquitary availability of geotechnologies yield a rapid increase of user generated geographical data, utilized for mapping, modeling etc. On the example of a well mapped German city this paper analyzes the positional accuracy of OpenStreetMap and TomTom data by means of a statistical comparative approach using official survey data as the reference dataset. The results show that OpenStreetMap and TomTom data feature similar spatial deviations while both do not coincide with the survey data. Furthermore, OpenStreetMap data show spatial heterogeneity in the positional error distribution, leading to significant clusters of high and low positional accuracy.