Research Project: Prediction of OpenStreetMap Data
How Good Can Agent-Based Modeling Predict OpenStreetMap Data?
The main objective of this research project is to monitor the spatio-temporal pattern of OpenStreetMap (OSM) dataset so far and also develop a new method for predicting its future states through Agent-Based Modeling (ABM). The project is intended to measure and monitor several data quality aspects over the OSM lifetime. Since OSM is growing fast and being employed in a broad range of applications, modeling the past, current, and future states of OSM contributions and contributors is a demanding research agenda. As individuals are the main actors in OSM project, ABM seems to be the most appropriate modeling technique to project the behaviors of actors (contributors) together with the contributions. Contributors are considered as agents and their contributions as their behaviors within the OSM environment.
The OSM contributions labeled by their contributors are examined and compared against the proprietary data in order to identify the data quality aspects and possibly indicate new quality indicators suitable for OSM datasets. Subsequently, the contributors’ mapping behaviors are recognized and possible correlations between the contributors mapping behaviors and socio-demographic data and land features are ascertained. Therefore, a simulation environment has to be designed in order to study the progress of OSM across time and space and also consequently to develop a novel technique based on ABM to figure out how the future status of OSM could be drawn.
The project helps to get to know the contributors in a better and computational way and accordingly predict their contributions automatically. The expected developed method can be applied for other VGI-based projects in order to obtain a better understanding of interactions between humans and collaborative mapping projects. The project is intended to address the following research questions:
- What are the characteristics and behaviors of OSM contributors that can be extracted from the OSM history file?
- Is it possible to model the characteristics and behaviors of contributors? If so, is agent-based modeling capable of simulation of forthcoming contributions based on users’ specifications?
- How reliable can we model the future states of OSM dataset using ABM?
- What factors associated to the volunteers influence the quality of OSM data? Which recommendations could be given to improve the quality of OSM contributions?
Further reading
- Helbich, M., Jokar Arsanjani, J., Leitner, M., (2015): Computational Approaches for Urban Environments. ISBN:978-3-319-11468-2, Springer Press.
- Jokar Arsanjani, J., Zipf, A., Mooney, P., Helbich, M., (2015): OpenStreetMap in GIScience: experiences, research, applications. ISBN:978-3-319-14279-1, Springer Press.
Book Chapters
- Jokar Arsanjani, J., Mooney, P., Zipf, A., Schauss, A., (2015): Quality assessment of the contributed land use information from OpenStreetMap versus authoritative datasets. In: Jokar Arsanjani, J., Zipf, A., Mooney, P., Helbich, M., OpenStreetMap in GIScience: experiences, research, applications. ISBN:978-3-319-14279-1, PP. 37-58, Springer Press.
- Jokar Arsanjani, J., Zipf, A., Mooney, P., Helbich, M., (2015): An introduction to OpenStreetMap in GIScience: Experiences, Research, Applications. In: Jokar Arsanjani, J., Zipf, A., Mooney, P., Helbich, M., OpenStreetMap in GIScience: experiences, research, applications. ISBN:978-3-319-14279-1, PP. 1-15, Springer Press.
- Helbich, M., Jokar Arsanjani, J., & Leitner, M. (2015). Computational Approaches for Urban Environments: An Editorial. In M. Helbich, J. Jokar Arsanjani, & M. Leitner (Eds.), Computational Approaches for Urban Environments SE – 1 (Vol. 13, pp. 1–9). Springer International Publishing. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-11469-9_1.
- Bakillah, M., Lauer, J., Liang, S., Zipf, A., Jokar Arsanjani, J., Loos, L., Mobasheri, A., (2014): Exploiting Big VGI to Improve Routing and Navigation Services, a book chapter in Karimi H, Big Data Techniques and Technologies in Geoinformatics.
- Sester, M., Jokar Arsanjani, J., Klammer, R., Burghardt, D., & Haunert, J.-H. (2014). Integrating and Generalising Volunteered Geographic Information. In D. Burghardt, C. Duchêne, & W. Mackaness (Eds.), Abstracting Geographic Information in a Data Rich World SE – 5 (pp. 119–155). Springer International Publishing. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-00203-3_5.
Journal Papers
- Jokar Arsanjani, J., Mooney, P., Helbich, M., Zipf, A., (2015): An exploration of future patterns of the contributions to OpenStreetMap and development of a Contribution Index, Transactions in GIS.
- Jokar Arsanjani, J. & Vaz, E. (2015): An assessment of a collaborative mapping approach for exploring land use patterns for several European metropolises. International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, DOI: 10.1016/j.jag.2014.09.009
- Vaz, E. & Jokar Arsanjani, J. (2015:accepted): Predicting Urban Growth of the Greater Toronto Area – Coupling a Markov Cellular Automata with document meta-analysis. Journal of Environmental Informatics.
- Jokar Arsanjani, J., Bakillah, M.,(2015): Understanding the potential relationship between the socio-economic variables and contributions to OpenStreetMap. International Journal of Digital Earth, DOI: 10.1080/17538947.2014.951081.
- Vaz, E., Jokar Arsanjani, J. (2015): Crowd sourced mapping of land use in urban dense environments: An assessment of Toronto. The Canadian Geographer Journal.
- Bakillah, M., Liang, S. H. L., Mobasheri, A., Jokar Arsanjani, J., Zipf, A., (2014): Fine resolution population mapping using OpenStreetMap points-of-interest. International Journal of Geographical Information Science (IJGIS), DOI: 10.1080/13658816.2014.909045.
- Jokar Arsanjani, J., Helbich, M., Bakillah, M., Loos, L., (2015). The emergence and evolution of OpenStreetMap: A cellular automata approach. International Journal of Digital Earth. 8(1), 76-90. doi:10.1080/17538947.2013.847125
- Jokar Arsanjani, J., Helbich, M., Bakillah, M., Hagenauer, J., & Zipf, A. (2013). Toward mapping land-use patterns from volunteered geographic information. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 2264-2278. DOI:10.1080/13658816.2013.800871.
- Jokar Arsanjani, J., Helbich, M., Vaz, E., (2013): Spatiotemporal Simulation of Urban growth patterns using agent-based modeling: The case of Tehran. Cities 32; 33-42.
- Jokar Arsanjani, J., Helbich, M., Mousivand, AJ. (2014): A Morphological Approach to Predicting Urban Expansion, Transactions in GIS.18(2), pp. 219-233, DOI: 10.1111/tgis.12031.
- Bakillah, M., Liang, S.H., Zipf, A., Jokar Arsanjani, J. (2013) Semantic Interoperability of Sensor Data with Volunteered Geographic Information: A Unified Model. ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Information, 2, 766-796.
Conference Papers
- Jokar Arsanjani, J., Zipf, A., Mooney, P., Helbich, M. (2015). The contribution of OpenStreetMap to GIScience, Association of American Geographers (AAG), Chicago, USA.
- Jokar Arsanjani, J., (2015). On contribution of Volunteered Geographic Information to land monitoring efforts, Association of American Geographers (AAG), Chicago, USA.
- Jokar Arsanjani, J., (2015). Towards a digital earth through integration of citizen-based sensing and remote sensing in collecting geoinformation of terrestrial objects, 36th International Symposium on Remote Sensing of Environment (ISRSE-36), Berlin, Germany
- Jokar Arsanjani, J., Vaz, E., Bakillah, M., Mooney, P., (2014). Towards initiating OpenLandMap founded on citizens’ science: The current status of land use features of OpenStreetMap in Europe, in proceedings of the 17th AGILE conference, Castellon, Spain.
- Jokar Arsanjani, J., Vaz, E., (2014). Bringing citizen science into mapping global landscapes, in Proceedings of the First IMASS conference, Olhao, Portugal
- Jokar Arsanjani J, Helbich M, Bakillah M, (2013): Exploiting Volunteered Geographic Information to Ease Land Use Mapping of an Urban Landscape, in proceedings of Urban Data Management Society 2013 conference, London.
- Jokar Arsanjani J, Barron C, Bakillah M, Helbich M, (2013): Assessing the Quality of OpenStreetMap Contributors together with their Contributions, in Proceedings of the 16th AGILE conference, Leuven, Belgium.
- Jokar Arsanjani J, Loos L C, Helbich M, Bakillah M, (2013): Individuals’ contribution to cells: a cellular automata approach for simulation of collaboratively mapped areas, in Proceedings of the 16th AGILE conference, Leuven, Belgium.
- Jokar Arsanjani, J., Helbich, M., Bakillah, M., (2013): Mapping Land Use Features from OpenStreetMap Contributions, GI_Forum conference 2013, Salzburg, Austria.