For years, OSM has been known as the defacto standard repository for trail mapping data. In most recent years, concerted effort has been made by the data providers in the public data community to produce an aggregate authoritative trials database. Some of the major challenges for trails is the wide variety of land managers and stewards. Quite often trails visible in satellite imagery are not intended for public access (especially by Forest Service and BLM) - however they get entered into OSM and used because these use attributes cannot be seen in air photos. Concurrently in this time map producers and app developers have continued to work in this environment to ensure consumers get accurate trails data, and most importantly to relay the information about trail use regulations. This session, co-sponsored by the International Map Industry Association and the Open Street Map community, invites attendees to join industry leaders in a forum and workshop to capture the status and collaborate toward a future of authoritative and accurate trails data.

This will be a forum and a workshop: To share about the efforts of the public data community (government providers) and the open data community (trail editors in OSM), alongside those consumers of the data (business owners and app developers) in an initial 30-45 minute forum. Following a break, it is proposed that all attendees will break into four groups to tackle the 4 main themes and issues with trail data in 30 min work groups, followed by a 15 minute ‘report-back’ style session closing. Wherever possible, attendees are encouraged to take away action items on how they can help make a national trails database - updated in OSM via authoritative government sources - a future reality (if OSM sees this as the right goal**).

WHAT IS THE IMIA?

The International Map Industry Association is a group of business and industry leaders who maintain a network of individuals with a vested interest in the future success of mapping and available data. In this group are entrepreneurs and companies who have long been a primary consumer of data used to create commercial products, and also the data stewards in government agencies tasked with producing an authoritative source. In the past two years at their Denver Regional Meetup, the IMIA has invited map professionals to come and share about their products, and also data professionals to share about the progress to produce the data. 2016 IMIA Denver Regional Meetup http://imiamaps.org/meetup-denver/, 2017 IMIA Denver Regional Meetup http://imiamaps.org/denver-meetup/