Comparison of the accuracy of OpenStreetMap for Ireland with Google Maps and Bing Maps

Abstract

We describe a comparison of the accuracy of OpenStreetMap for Ireland with Google Maps and Bing Maps. Five case study cities and towns are chosen for this comparison. Each mapping system is analysed for accuracy under three main headings: spatial coverage, currency, and ground-truth positional accuracy. We find that while there is no clear winner amongst the three mapping platforms each show individual differences and similarities for each of the case study locations. We believe the results described in this paper are useful for those developing Location-based services for countries such as Ireland where access to high-quality geospatial data is often prohibitively expensive or made difficult by other barriers such as lack of data or access restrictions