blog of uni
Table of Contents
1. semi-manual tracking where i’ve been - my workflow
1.1. motivation
Despite all odds, I do indeed go outside and touch grass, and counterintuitively I sometimes go even more outsider by going inside public transport, something that is actually viable over where I live. Since I’m also almost unhealthily addicted to collect data about myself, I try to track the roads and paths I’ve walked on as well as the train and bus stops I’ve visited, even the routes inbetween.
1.2. things i have tried and abandoned
- Google Maps My Places: I used that for train/bus stations for a while, but it’s arguably pretty horrible, you can only see a couple places at once and it’s just incredibly limited.
- OpenStreetMap UMap: Great interface honestly, especially with the styling features and all that. Used it for quite a while, but it’s just horrible insecure since there’s no way to restrict people who can view your map, which combined with the 4-digit map IDs just doesn’t feel particularly safe for a map that makes it pretty easy to determine where I live and the places I regularly visit.
- GPS tracking only: While I use GPS tracking as an important step in tracking walked tracks, it’s both to inaccurate and unreliable (well, at least my phone is) to suffice.
- gpx.studio: Useful tool, especially the “street-matching” feature, but GPX is not made for long tracks that consist of segments accumulated over months or even years.
- Mapbox custom maps: This is essentially yet another pretty well-done online GeoJSON editor, but since I only used it to track villages I’ve been to, I’ve moved the little data there was to local files.
1.3. what am i doing currently
In my Org main folder, there’s a subdirectory that contains four GeoJSON files: one for walked routes, one for bus data, one for train (which contains subways and trams) data, and one for overall localities (“Ortschaften”) I’ve been to. This is more or less the place where all the magic happens.
1.3.1. when i go outside
When I’m walking somewhere I know (or at least think) I haven’t been to, I use the app Geo Tracker1 to record my routes as GPX files. Once home, I retrace the not-yet-visited parts on my currently preferred GeoJSON editor, geojson.io, and once again save it, which makes for a pretty simple setup, I guess.
1.3.2. public transport
Since I live near Nuremberg, most of my transport activities take place within the VGN (Verkehrsverbund Großraum Nürnberg), who in turn provide their own app for routing. When I go somewhere new, I use the Share feature for their routes to post them to a certain 1-member telegram group. Once one of my computers and a network connection is in reach, I use telegram2org to add a task based on the route message into my org mode agenda,. Once again, my go-to editor for actually adding stops and routes is geojson.io. I add stops as points with a name tag, and add routes without any metadata. To avoid redundancy, multiple tracks close to another that are in some way part of the same route are only added once. In order to figure out where I’ve been exactly, I use the “ÖPNVKarte” view of OpenStreetMap and retrace the routes from there 2.
1.3.3. localities
This one’s pretty boring, I just add a point for each village or whatever to the file and tag it with the name and maybe a Wikidata ID.
1.3.4. metadata
I’ve got another literate org file with python source blocks that use the GeoJSON library as well as GeoJSON-length to compute some metadata, in particular the combined lengths of the routes I’ve walked, as well as the number of train and bus stations which I usually update after adding new data.
1.4. use
There is none, honestly, it’s just another fun little thing to track, maybe it’s inspiring or something but that’s not really the point to me so far.
2. Update March 2023
2.1. maps
A while ago, I figured out how to change privacy settings in UMap, so I’ve switched back to that service, since it provides way more display and editing capabilities. However, I still keep the files downloaded in order to run processing on them, since the individual layers are still available from a single cURL command (even without authentification - doesn’t seem all that secure either, but it’s way less problematic than the full maps).
2.2. public transport
I have also startd to use Träwelling, which allows you to track your rides in more detail and simplifies the process of reconstructing routes a decent bit.
3. Update December 2023
Now I use Travelynx instead due to better integration with a discord bot and also record routes via OSMAnd instead of the other GPS tracker.