Large-Scale Generation of Transit Maps from OpenStreetMap Data

We investigate the automatic generation of transit map overlays (either geographically correct or schematic) for the entire planet from OpenStreetMap (OSM) data. To achieve this, we first extract relevant transit line geometries (together with their line name, and, if present, colour) from OSM using SPARQL queries against an RDF version of the OSM data. The queries are run against our SPARQL engine QLever. In the second step, we build a global line network graph where every edge is labelled with the lines travelling through it. The components of this network graph are then rendered as a transit map using tools and methods developed in previous work. Final maps are delivered as vector tiles to an interactive web map, from which individual network graphs (in a GeoJSON format proposed in this work) can be downloaded for research purposes. The vector tiles are also freely available. We briefly describe the methods used in each pipeline step, evaluate the speed and quality of our approach and discuss possible shortcomings.