Microgrants/Microgrants 2020/Proposal/Maputo 1000km Challenge
About your Mapping Community
We are #MapeandoMeuBairro. Our mission is to popularize mapping so that one day it will be a simple act of citizenship - just like one would keep his/her front step clean, one would also “map your own neighbourhood” (translates into “Mapeando Meu Bairro”).
We are Mozambique’s OSM community, started mapping in late 2016 and are now legally registered. For 3 years we have worked mostly in Maputo across a variety of mapping subjects in response to the needs for data of different partners. See some of our projects on our website (please be patient, it's under construction).
Our team is composed of 5 core organizers/co-founders/community leaders. We have trained and involved more than 40 mappers in the various activities. We all know how it is to field map our low-income urban settlements, and most of us know how to use JOSM to upload them to our shared worldwide database. Gender parity still needs improvement, but we are working on it.
What do you need the grant money for?
Project background
We have held two previous “Mapathon Seasons” to map Maputo’s public transport. Check the wikis for Mapathon Season 2017 and Mapathon Season 2019. The database now has over 1050 bus stops and over 130 bus routes depicting the semi-formal public transport of the metropolitan area.
Importantly, this project has been hosted by the government’s transport agency (AMT), who have demonstrated exceptional progressive thinking and are in transition to fully integrating open data in their daily workflows and activities. AMT is also endorsing this application (see two of their staff in the Endorsement section below).
But not everything are roses. AMT are also influenced by private proprietary endeavours, which in the end are more expensive to the Mozambican citizen. We hope that by advancing this project we can prove that a complex public transport system in a booming African city can be managed using the OSM database and its surrounding services.
Project proposed activities
We will run 4 main activities:
1. Institutional engagement and collection of existing data
Upgrading the road network data on OSM was not our idea, it was suggested by Maputo’s Metropolitan Transport Agency (AMT) and their partner Observatório da Mobilidade e dos Transportes de Moçambique (OMT). They want to engage other government institutions that deal with the road network (like ANE) to once and for all solve the classification ‘mess’ that the road system is in. For instance, what is a primary vs a trunk road? What classification does a national “N1” road get once it enters the city? These and many other questions will be answered together between AMT, other government institutions and our OSM community (proudly). After that standardization, we’ll collect GIS datasets that the institutions have, and translate the agreed classification into OSM tag structure and determine the data model for the following steps of the project.
2. The 1000km Challenge
We will coordinate collection of street-view imagery using OpenStreetCam and a 360º camera or other suitable and compatible camera setup.
OSM currently has 781km of roads (trunk to tertiary) on the database. But classification is very inconsistent (and so are most tags, and sometimes even connection nodes, jeopardizing routing).
We will capture imagery for 1000km of roads, by inviting our community members and friends who have a car to take a 10-20km trip each, with a 360º camera mounted on the car. The 1000 kilometers will allow us to cover ALL ways currently present on the database for Maputo with tags highway=trunk, primary, secondary or tertiary, and leave an additional +200km for new roads to be added.
3. Transport Mapathon Season 03
This activity will combine data gathered from the institutions in Activity-1 and imagery from Activity-2 and map it on OSM. The end product will be a neatly mapped road network, to go under the bus stops and bus routes from the aforementioned Mapathon Seasons. This will complete the package that AMT will use as reference database for their future activities.
We want to scale-up slightly on the previous Seasons. This time we’ll invite 15 university students, of which at least 10 will be women (non-negotiably). This is important not only because of the mapping, but also because we will follow-up the students’ involvement by inviting them to be the test-users of the app from Activity-4. Also, working with students will help our local YouthMappers chapter, they are already registered but have no on-going activities.
The Mapathon will be a 3 day event and participants will work from home on their own computers. Unfortunately no pizzas this time!
4. African Transport Hackathon
As part of #MapeandoMeuBairro’s Strategic Plan (see Project Background above), we are brainstorming about a possible mapping app adapted to the complex informality of Maputo, and maybe other African cities. This last activity of the Microgrant (if awarded) will lay the groundwork of that future app. We plan to finalize conceptualizing the app, build some mock-ups of the interface, and develop the first lines of code.
This will be done by inviting 5 small teams of local or African programers to a 1-day remote Hackaton, in which we hope to develop the beta version of the app.
Obviously the app will be open source, and this ties back in with the agenda of AMT, who currently use a private proprietary app to track bus positions. We dream of offering a more crowdsourced alternative to AMT and to Maputo citizens.
Budget breakdown
Workplan
| # | Activities ↓ Months → | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Institutional engagement and collection of existing data | ||||||
| 2 | The Maputo 1000km Challenge | ||||||
| 3 | Transport Mapathon Season 03 | ||||||
| 4 | African Transport Hackathon |
Budget
| Activity | What do you plan to spend the money on? | Expected cost per unit (in Euros) | Quantity you plan to buy / subscription length | Expected total cost (in Euros) | Why is it needed? (Please give as much detail as possible.) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Institutional engagement and collection of existing data | 180 | ||||
| Stipend for project organizers | 45 | 4 | 180 | 4 project organisers will receive a stipend of €45/day for 1 day of work each. | ||
| 2 | The Maputo 1000km Challenge | 2335 | ||||
| Fuel for car trips around the metropolitan area | 10 | 50 | 500 | We are planning to cover at least 1000km of roads. We plan to do at least 50 trips of 20km each, for which we will provide the driver with €10 subsidies for fuel. This will allow us to cover ALL ways currently mapped with tag values trunk/primary/secondary/tertiary (781km) and leave room for an additional +200km new roads to be added. | ||
| 360º camera | 450 | 3 | 1350 | We will buy 3 360º cameras or other ideal for street-view imagery capture and compatible with OpenStreetCam. The cameras will be lend to the participants of the 1000km Challenge. | ||
| Camera accessories and car mounting gear | 95 | 3 | 285 | The cameras will be mounted inside or on top of participants' cars. | ||
| Internet | 10 | 20 | 200 | We will need data plans to upload the pictures from OpenStreetCam to their servers. | ||
| Stipend for project organizers | 0 | Participants of the 1000km Challenge will be volunteers, members or friends of the mapping community who own or have access to a car. In these times of confinment having the oportunity to do a safe lone car trip around the city will be welcomed, specially while contributing for a valid cause. | ||||
| 3 | Transport Mapathon Season 03 | 1545 | ||||
| Subsidies for participants | 45 | 15 | 675 | We want to scale-up slightly on the mapathons we did in 2017 and 2019. This time we wil invite 15 university students. This is important not only because of the mapping, but also because we will follow-up the students involvement by inviting them to be the test-users of the app from Activity-4. Also, working with students will help setup our local YouthMappers chapter, that is currently registered but has no on-going activities. The Mapathon will be a 3 day event and participants will work from home on their own computers and receive a stipend of €15/day. | ||
| Internet | 10 | 15 | 150 | Participants will also receive a €10 internet bundle for the 3 days of mapping. | ||
| Stipend for project organizers | 45 | 16 | 720 | 4 project organisers will receive a stipend of €45/day for 4 days of work. | ||
| 4 | African Transport Hackathon | 1020 | ||||
| Subsidies for participants | 50 | 5 | 250 | We will organize a hackaton involving a maximum of 5 teams of volunteer programmers (no more than 3 people/team). Each team will receive a €50 stipend to support their creative work. | ||
| Internet | 10 | 5 | 50 | Participants will also receive a €10 internet bundle for the 1 day of programming. | ||
| Stipend for project organizers | 45 | 16 | 720 | 4 project organisers will receive a stipend of €45/day for 4 days of work. | ||
| TOTAL | 4990 |
If you receive a grant, what do you aim to achieve?
The project will be a success if we manage to:
- Edit 1000km of OSM ways for Maputo, including clean-up of 781km existing ways, and addition of +200km new ways. Edits will include updating attributes like highway=*, surface=*, oneway=*, smoothness=*, name=*, among others.
- Capture street-view imagery of 1000 km of the Maputo road network, in successive iterations starting from main roads down to tertiary roads.
- Create a beta version of a transport mapping app adapted to the complex informality of Maputo, and maybe other African cities.
- Acquire government information about the road network of the Maputo Metropolitan Area, this includes: geographic datasets of the network, legal framework of urban road governance, road classification criterias, among others.
- Materialize a meeting with government institutions: AMT, OMT, ANE and our own OSM community. (meeting will be virtual, or if in-person will follow strict social distancing protocols currently applied in Mozambique).
Do you receive funding from any other sources at the moment?
We currently receive no funding from other organisations. We have received funds 6 times over the past 4 years since #MapeandoMeuBairro was founded in 2017. Of these 6 occasions, 2 were from an international organisation (HOT and NETHOPE microgrants) and 4 were from partners in Maputo (funds not larger than the usual scale of microgrants). We have used these funds to carry out the diverse range of mapping projects that are displayed on our website (https://mapeandomeubairro.org), in coordination with the specific needs of our different partners.
Apart from the mapping itself, small portions of past funds have been used to legally register the community, and other cross cutting costs.
#MapeandoMeuBairro has also been financially supported whenever urgently necessary by the personal contributions of the 5 community organizers and co-founders, all of whom have other professional occupations.
We are currently not receiving any funds. But we did apply for the HOT Rapid Response Microgrant for COVID-19, proposing to map 1656 Health Facilities across Mozambique. Results for that application are not out yet.
We have produced a “Strategic Plan” to guide our activities into the future (1-2 years), and we are currently looking for funding for them in parts or as a whole. This Microgrant application and the proposal of mapping Maputo’s road network and developing a beta mapping app is part of that broader Strategic Plan. In other words, if approved the microgrant would fund part of our Strategic Plan.
Is there anything you would like OSMF to support you with?
Transport mapping is a very common interest in the OSM world, any references to on-going similar projects would be useful. For instance we saw a presentation about something like “Road Tagging in Africa” in one of the recent SoTM events. It would be invaluable to incorporate those previous reflections and experiences when we tackle Maputo’s road network.
Another topic that is new to us and would be useful to know good references about, is the creation of apps based on OSM. Something like StreetComplete but for transit mapping is a good example of what we are considering creating.
Declaration
By submitting this form to the OpenStreetMap Foundation, you certify the information contained in this application is correct, and that if you are awarded a grant, you will use it only for the purposes described above. You will provide written documentation and receipts for all of your expenses to the OSM Foundation to demonstrate this. You understand that the decisions made by the OSM Foundation Microgrants committee are final.
We hereby certify that the information contained in this application is correct, and that if we are awarded a grant, we will use it only for the purposes described above. We will provide written documentation and receipts for all of our expenses to the OSM Foundation to demonstrate this. We understand that the decisions made by the OSM Foundation Microgrants committee are final.
#MapeandoMeuBairro [[1]]
Endorsements
Community members are encouraged to endorse your project request here!