StreetComplete: Pokémon Go for map geeks
A few years ago, while recuperating from our at that time “favourite” dreaded lurgy,1 I stumbled across StreetComplete, an Android app to update OpenStreetMap data in a fun and easy way. It’s reminiscent of games such as Pokémon Go. But instead of tracking down Pikachu, you update the world’s largest open mapping system, thus contributing to the wider community.
This story is about how I discovered StreetComplete and gives my impressions
of the app and its potential. Give it a go! I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.
Image credits: StreetComplete
Nudged into active recovery
Most of January 2023 was pretty much screwed for me because of Covid. While recovering, I did a lot of reading and in the process stumbled across a blog post by Terence Eden, in which he became “the #1 mapper in New Zealand”. As a New Zealander myself (and as a geek), this piqued my interest. He achieved this feat by being the most active user in New Zealand within a seven-day period.2 To do this, he used StreetComplete, an app which gamifies the process of updating OpenStreetMap metadata.
After having read Terence Eden’s post, I thought that sounded interesting. It also gave me the impetus to get outside and moving again. I was definitely in need of some fresh air! It turned out to be a lot of fun and rather addictive. I highly recommend it!
Like Pokémon Go, but more useful
You use the app like how you play Pokémon
Go: by walking around
outside in the real world (
) and solving quests. The
StreetComplete website sums this up well:
This app finds missing map data in your vicinity and displays it on a map as quests. Solve each quest by visiting the location on-site and answering a simple question to update the map.
Community contributions
Playing StreetComplete is great because you make a direct contribution to your local community. The quests you solve update OpenStreetMap, which contains a wealth of metadata about our physical environment. And it’s completely open. Sure, Google Maps shows me where the roads are, what the name of a business is and what that business’s opening hours are. But OpenStreetMap is so much more. For instance, OpenStreetMap contains data about pedestrian crossings that use audible tones or have tactile paving, allowing visually impaired people to navigate their surroundings. Apps have been built on this data so that people with visual impairments can navigate their city more safely and easily. How cool is that?
Inclusive applications
What I find most appealing about OpenStreetMap is that it is inclusive. It’s not only for data or geography geeks to have fun, nor is it only for people who want to drive their cars down to the shops. All members of a community can benefit. Importantly, through applications built on OpenStreetMap data, people with physical, visual, or mobility impairments can be more independent.
Think of someone in a wheelchair, an elderly person using a walker to get around, or even a parent pushing a large pram. Each person needs to cross the street easily. And if you know where the street crossings are best, you can save energy and effort. That’s why OpenStreetMap contains detailed data about the properties of street crossings. And with StreetComplete, you help keep this information up to date. Are the crossings on the same level as the street? Or is there a slight bump to get from the street onto the footpath? Such information forms, for instance, the basis for navigation apps for people in wheelchairs. Now you can plan your route to the shops without having to stress about finding a good place to cross the road.
These are the kinds of applications that benefit everyone in a community, not only able-bodied people sitting in cars. That’s brilliant! And OpenStreetMap data is freely available; you’re not being tracked for the “new oil” that is your personal data.
Making map updates fun
To be honest, I can’t rave about StreetComplete enough. The developers have managed to gamify the (potentially very dry) process of updating the world’s largest open mapping system and make it a hell of a lot of fun.
There’s a low barrier to entry to use the app. Simply download from Google Play or F-Droid and off you go. Currently, StreetComplete is only available on Android. However, there is a plan to create an iOS version.
It’s intuitive and easy to use. When you start the app, it’s clear what quests there are to solve, and they’re often rather simple questions. For instance:
- What kind of surface does this pathway have?
- Does this set of steps have a handrail?
- Does this bike stand have a roof (i.e. is it protected from the rain)?
- Does this bench have a backrest?
- Are the postal collection times still up to date?
- Does this bus stop have a seat?
There are almost two hundred such questions in total, including standard questions about business opening hours, road names, and house numbers.
Maybe we do need badges?
StreetComplete can be quite addictive. You get badges for achieving various milestones, which is cool and gives a bit of a dopamine kick. Also, you get the feedback that you’ve made a small, positive contribution to society.
There are many badges one can receive. To give an idea of the kinds of achievements available, I’ve listed below some of the badges I collected back when I first started playing StreetComplete.3
Here’s the badge I received after having solved 60 building-related quests:
This one is after solving 150 quests that help cyclists:
and for solving quests that help people in spaces in nature:
Then there’s the badge for solving 100 quests that help wheelchair users to find their way around:
… and the one I got after solving 60 quests relevant to visually impaired people:
In a city, there are several badges one can get, especially since cities are criss-crossed with streets:
and thus there are some quests relevant to pedestrians:
or to citizens in general:
If you continue long enough, you also get general badges, such as the “surveyor” badge. This achievement also unlocked the OpenStreetMap Haiku app for me, as shown in the image below.
As you can see, there are many ways you can contribute valuable information to OpenStreetMap by playing StreetComplete.
As shown above, some of the badges unlock links to various OpenStreetMap applications. Many are serious. For instance, a map for cyclists, a map to find barrier-free access to buildings and places, or an app which shows maps for the interior of shopping centres and train stations, etc.
Yet, some are also fun, such as the app that uses OpenStreetMap data to generate a haiku. Using this “unlock” mechanism highlighted to me just how many applications have been built around the massive amount of information stored in OpenStreetMap. There seems to be this flourishing community of volunteers imagining and creating clever ways to use map data to make other people’s lives easier. That’s way cool.
Positive benefits of open data
There are many positive side effects of playing StreetComplete beyond simply having fun. It’s a great way to discover a city you are visiting or even the city you’ve lived in for years. When I’m on holiday somewhere, I’ll play a bit of StreetComplete, and before long, I’m more aware of what’s where and hence navigating without an app becomes easier. I’ll know that there’s a bakery down that street, that the supermarket is up that way, and there’s a thousand-year-old tree up on the hill over there. I end up spotting details I’d have likely overlooked otherwise. Things like the funky little model car shop tucked away on a side street, the proliferation of hairdressers in one small area of a city, or water fountains disguised as sculptures. It’s fascinating.
I’ve also started to get an appreciation of the barriers existing in daily life that, at first glance, aren’t obvious. Things like a path separated from a road by a high curb. This means that wheelchair users have to travel an extra distance just to cross the road. Or the lack of acoustic signals or tactile paving at pedestrian crossings that help visually impaired people. You often find tactile paving at train stations and bus stops, but it’s still amazing how little there sometimes is. Even whether a public transport stop has seating is good information to have. This is especially true for people who can’t stand for long when waiting, say, for a bus.
A city or regional council wanting to improve infrastructure and make the physical environment more barrier-free and inclusive, need only look up the information in OpenStreetMap to find where more effort is needed. Local and regional councils are usually cash-strapped, so it’s a boon for them if they can use crowdsourced, open data.
Similarly, having well-updated data about the surface and width of bike paths and footpaths can give local authorities the information they need to improve and interconnect such infrastructure. The potential benefits of well-used open data are enormous.
Tip: avoid automatic uploads
There’s one tip I’ll give for anyone starting out with StreetComplete: it’s a good idea to turn off automatic synchronisation of solved quests. This option is on by default, and there will be times when you want to undo a recent change because it wasn’t correct. If automatic synchronisation is on, then you’ll have to fix the change later within OpenStreetMap itself. Thus, it can be a lot more work to correct a well-intentioned mistake. Since it’s easy to upload completed quests manually, it makes sense to switch off automatic uploads.
Go lose yourself in your surroundings!
So what are you waiting for? Get the app and go and get lost! 
It’s
heaps of fun!
-
Yes, I mean Covid. Yes, I’m being ironic about it being “favourite”. ↩
-
Terence Eden isn’t a Kiwi; he’s from England and achieved his high score while on holiday in NZ. A year later, I was also on holiday there and briefly achieved the number one spot for the seven-day window. It wasn’t that hard; there don’t seem to be that many people in NZ playing StreetComplete. In Germany, however, if you want to get a number one spot, it’s a full-time job! ↩
-
Note that I use German on my phone, hence the language shown in the badge text. ↩
Support
If you liked this post, please buy me a coffee!
