The OpenStreetMap US Trails Stewardship Initiative (TSI) and the Trails Working Group were launched in 2021 – and it’s been a while since our last update! If you haven’t heard, the Trails Working Group convenes government, volunteer, and private sector stakeholders working to address issues in trail mapping and improve trail data in OSM across the United States. Because a single, digital, authoritative trail dataset does not exist in the US, OpenStreetMap is used by thousands of companies and has become the source that most navigation applications (such as AllTrails, OnX, and Gaia) rely on to drive their apps. As app usage increases, so does the need for validated and up-to-date data. The TSI aims to create a standardized approach to visualizing trail data on third party applications and develop tools to improve the crowdsourced trail mapping workflow. Its mission is to:
- Increase SAFETY for outdoor enthusiasts on public lands
- Improve EQUITABLE ACCESS to trails for all citizens
- Promote RESPONSIBLE RECREATION for the protection of our natural environment and out of respect for tribal and private lands
The dedicated Trails Working Group has found that both government sources and OSM trail data can be incomplete, out of date, or missing important metadata. To address this issue, OSM US and its partners have been developing an accessible workflow through multiple pilot programs for land managers, park rangers, and volunteer trail stewards to improve the trail data being used in third party applications, reducing the risk that hikers get lost or end up in dangerous situations.
Wrapping up the Utah Pilot
Planning for a statewide Utah campaign began in October 2023. Since then, OpenStreetMap US and its partners have been working on building relationships, technical requirements, and initial mapping workflows within Utah while simultaneously developing and providing the resources necessary to expedite and scale the Initiative to a national level.
After solidifying trail tagging schema through the previous Washington State pilot, Bryce Canyon National Park and surrounding priority areas were chosen as pilot locations, which were updated using OpenStreetMap US Tasking Manager Tasks #447, #451, and #452.
The objectives of the pilot were to:
- Validate the Trail Stewardship Initiative’s recommended trail tagging schema by expanding its application to areas of high recreation use on Utah public lands
- Continue testing the existing workflow to identify roadblocks for tagging improvement on trails
- Expand adoption and support for the Initiative with federal and state public land management agencies, local advocacy groups, and other key stakeholders in Utah
Thanks to pilot participants, over 1,100 miles of trail were updated in Utah! Trails in all five of Utah’s national parks (Zion, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, and Arches), as well as most trails in Dixie National Forest and popular recreation areas near Moab, have been reviewed and the following information added:
- Which entity operates or maintains the trail (operator=*)
- If it is a formal or informal/social trail (informal=yes/no)
- The name of the trail (name=*)
- If access to the trail is prohibited or discouraged by the land owner or manager (access=private/discouraged/no/permissive/unknown)
- If access to the trail is designated or allowed for foot traffic, bikers, horses, off-highway vehicles, and more (foot=designated/yes/no, etc.)
Thank you to the mappers, hikers, land managers, and volunteers who contributed their knowledge to this pilot project, and to all of the members of the Trails Working Group!
Where to Next?
The Utah pilot furthered our hypothesis that in order to improve the accuracy of the nationwide trail network in OpenStreetMap, the Trails Stewardship Initiative should invest in tooling and documentation that empowers hikers, land managers, and mappers alike to better steward trail data. Volunteers who participated in the pilot project highlighted several difficulties they experienced when mapping trails in OpenStreetMap:
- Inaccuracies in the trail data may not be immediately apparent when looking at OpenStreetMap (the default OSM Carto style, for example, does not visually distinguish between official and unofficial trails), so issues can easily go unnoticed.
- Certain trail data (such as access and allowed modes of travel) must be sourced from official maps or datasets. When this data is entered into OSM manually, the process is slow and prone to data entry errors.
- The complexity of trail mapping and the lack of clear documentation is often a barrier to entry for new mappers, outdoor enthusiasts, and land managers interested in improving the maps they rely on.
To help address these issues, OpenStreetMap US and the Trails Stewardship Initiative have been building several new tools and planning a trail-focused community initiative:
OpenTrailMap
To better identify gaps in trail data across the United States, OpenStreetMap US is developing OpenTrailMap. Today, OpenTrailMap is a trail visualizer that depicts all of the OSM trail data in the United States, including path segments and points of interest such as trailheads and ranger stations. Users can select a trail to view its attributes in a detailed, friendly interface, simplifying the process to identify and address issues in trail data. If a trail manager or trail user spots an error, they can fix it themselves, or they can drop a note and submit a request for an experienced mapper to address the problem.
As OSM US is able to secure funding, further development is planned for OpenTrailMap to feature application programming interfaces (APIs) that enable it to talk with other apps: namely, third party recreation apps that consume OSM data. The goal is for users of those apps to be prompted to edit or suggest issues with their trail using the accessible OpenTrailMap interface.
OSM Merge
OpenStreetMap US recently welcomed OSM Merge as part of our Community Project Program. OSM Merge is a software package for data conflation of official rural road and trail data from the US Forest Service, the National Parks Service, and various state and local governments. Instead of searching for and manually transcribing this official data into OpenStreetMap, mappers can focus on reviewing and validating. This allows for vast improvements to be made to the OpenStreetMap data that rural emergency response teams and recreationists rely on.
The Digital Trail Ambassador Program
The paid staff and volunteers managing and maintaining trails across the United States are often unaware of the crowdsourced nature of OpenStreetMap and its widespread use by third-party navigation apps, let alone how to correct or update OSM themselves. These folks hold the greatest knowledge about their respective trail systems, and are often the ones left assisting lost or endangered hikers following incorrect and unverified information. To bridge this knowledge gap, the Trails Working Group is finalizing a vision for the Digital Trails Ambassador program, intended to connect the land users and managers looking to update trail data in OpenStreetMap with experienced mappers in their area.
The Path Ahead
The Trails Working Group is currently drafting a 2025 Road Map, to include strategy for piloting the Digital Trail Ambassador Program and fundraising for the further development of OpenTrailMap. Starting in 2025, the Working Group will convene a general meeting once a month, with smaller subcommittee meetings to address specific initiatives. With more than 100 folks showing interest in the Working Group, the monthly meeting will be a space to build relationships, share ideas, and catch up on all things trails across the nation. We’re always looking for new voices and perspectives in the room, so we invite you to sign up and join!
If you are invested in the success of the Trails Stewardship Initiative and would like to see the program expand to areas important to you, please consider donating to the Trails Stewardship Fund.
Happy trails!
