Brilliant! Speed limit anomaly on Kilkenny road is ‘solved’ by mapper

A local expert in mapping has come to the aid of motorists in Bennettsbridge who recently spotted a strange anomaly with local speed limits.

Local councillor Deirdre Cullen was first to bring the curiosity to the attention of this newspaper, when she told the recent meeting of Callan Thomastown Municipal District representatives that the speed limit reading on car ‘sat nav’ displays was not in agreement with speed limit signs in the area.

The Kilkenny People carried that original report and is now glad to report another local woman could have solved the problem!
Anne-Karoline Distel is a volunteer mapper with OpenStreetMap, a community of mappers that contribute and maintain data about roads, trails, cafés, railway stations, and much more, all over the world.
The information can be used by anyone, under an open data licence, and some of the bigger users are TomTom, Bing and AppleMaps.

Concerned citizen
Although not a driver, Anne-Karoline describes herself as a ‘concerned citizen’ and so she ‘sprang into action’ on reading that first report.

Data about speed limits gets into our sat navs three ways - data import either from an open data source or under a paid licence; satellite imagery; and on-the-ground mapping.

“On the ground mapping is absolutely essential to keep map data up-to-date,” Anne-Karoline explains.
“When a new road or bridge is built, we (as OSM mappers) usually walk or cycle it before its official opening or are amongst the first after the opening to assure up-to-date map data. This is only possible, because we are locals and decentralized (and highly motivated).”

The open data alternative to Google StreetView is Mapillary.
People collecting data for that (including OSM mappers) drive, cycle, walk the roads and capture images with their phones or more specialized cameras.
Anne Karoline uses a GoPro Max, which she sometimes puts on friends’ cars. Armchair mappers add more detail to OSM - which is how Anne-Karoline has solved the Bennettsbridge issue.

“I sat down and went into my mapillary imagery of Bennettsbridge and added all the speed limit signs as well as the maxspeed (OSM term) to the highways on the map. Where there weren’t speed limit signs, at the spot described in the article, the town limit sign is the indicator for the speed limit, so I added that accordingly.

Updated Sat Nav
“If the sat nav in your car is based on OSM, it should take effect with the next update,” Anne-Karoline says.
Even though the satnavs should now be corrected, Anne-Karoline makes the important point: “sat navs are only an auxiliary tool and should not be relied blindly upon.”
She encourages people to spread the word about OpenStreetMap and also to become a member of OpenStreetMap Ireland on: www.openstreetmap.ie