Tracks4Africa is a project which asks for users to submit GPS data regarding African roads and places. They then sell ‘pro’ versions of generated maps (providing contributors with a free ‘pro’ version) but you can also get a lite version are now featured content on Google Earth!
I’m not an African so I have very little use for this software but I think it really is an interesting example of successful crowd sourcing. In the UK, we have OpenStreetMap which is quite similar but its coverage isn’t that good – it doesn’t have my street for example. I’m sure Tracks4Africa doesn’t have that great coverage but Africa is such a vast, and in many ways undeveloped place, where commercial GPS software such as TomTom I’m sure is even worse!
As well as maps of the roads for Africa, Tracks4Africa has notes at certain points such as ‘Police control point’ or perhaps more essentially ‘landmines on the road north’!
Just as an example of how effective Tracks4Africa is against Google Maps, see the below screenshot of Google Earth displaying the Tanzanian traditional capital, Dar es Salaam:
Without T4A:
With T4A:
Whilst you can see from the satellite imagery alone that many roads are missing I still think the amount which are present is amazing.
The main roads, or at least some, in places such as the Western Saraha are marked. Places like South Africa and Morocco seem to be pretty well covered (I’m sure Sir Mark Thatcher wished he had a laptop running Google Earth w/GPS!).
Tracks4Africa is an interesting use of crowd sourcing which has generated real results!
Tags: geocaching, gps, tracks4africa, crowd sourcing, africa
In the UK, we have OpenStreetMap which is quite similar but its coverage isn’t that good – it doesn’t have my street for example.
Then add it!
We’ll even lend you a GPS to do so.
Tracks4Africa started some 8 years ago and the result you see only matured over the last couple of years.
There are similarities between OpenStreetMap and Tracks4Africa, however our approach is vastly different. We have strict quality standards (see http://www.tracks4africa.com.
One of the major differentiators are the fact that quality is ensured by only accepting GPS recorded data and then verifying these. Then there normally follows a discussion on the road conditions etc to ensure we get the real picture of what goes on.
Our aim is not so much free maps, rather a quality map of Africa that would serve as a platform for rich content that would have to educate travellers in order to have a positive impact on Africa. Conservation = Information
The term “crowd sourcing” is new to us, but I guess “community mapping” does the same. We indeed believe that the only way to map the remote areas of Africa is by this method.
Dar is not a good example – see Windhoek and Gaborone. Our niche market is not the cities though, we specialize in remote areas, parks etc. We call it a Traveller’s Africa since we believe we only cover about 5% of the roads in Africa, however more than 95% of those travelled by tourists.
‘There are similarities between OpenStreetMap and Tracks4Africa, however our approach is vastly different. We have strict quality standards (see http://www.tracks4africa.com.’
From reading this PDF – http://www.tracks4africa.co.za/misc/t4a_standards.pdf – it seems that the main difference between tracks4africa and OSM’s quality assurance is that T4A have a PDF whereas OSM have a wiki. All of the advice that is contained within the PDF is also available on the OSM wiki. Unless the T4A server is enforcing the advice, I can’t see much difference in the two data collection processes.
This is the most helpfull GPS software for southern Africa I#ll could find. Thanks folks for the big effort!