OpenStreetMap
I find that the width of OSM ways is a useful property for determining how good a pedestrian route is. However, it is often missing from OSM. As an experiment, I decided to use my running activities from Strava to estimate the width of a single OSM way that I use often. The specific way ID I used is in a relatively open area, meaning GNSS error is minimized. I also have collected over 100 traces of me running that single way ID over ~1.5 years. Given all this, how accurate can the estimate of the width be? I got the median width to be in the range of 11 meters. The actual width as measured with Google Maps satellite imagery is 13 meters. It’s close. I am happy with the result. I don’t have nearly as many traces for any other segment on the OSM map, so it’s a limited experiment, but the potential is promising. See the code on Github.
Discussion
Comment from Dzertanoj on 9 January 2026 at 14:18
People would do anything with knowingly imprecise GNSS measurements just to avoid getting a cheap differential setup and actually measure things like that with up to three orders of magnitude better precision.
Comment from kwiatek_123 on 9 January 2026 at 17:48
It is possible to calculate the exact propagation of errors taking into account, for example, the technical specifications of the GNSS receiver in the phone, but the accuracy of the calculations will certainly be a few meters.
Many factors influence the calculated GNSS position. These range from atmospheric conditions to interference generated by jammers. You would need a good RTK receiver for the measurements to be reasonably accurate.