Scotland/Import/Edinburgh/Street Lamps
Edinburgh Street Lamps is an one time import of the Edinburgh Street Lighting Columns dataset covering the City of Edinburgh. The import has been preformed on 2026-06-09.
Goals
The goal of this import is to have complete coverage of all publicly maintained street lamps in Edinburgh in the OpenStreetMap database.
Schedule
The data has been prepared and conflation has been tested. Once this document is complete and all information is compiled, the 14 day community buy-in window can begin.
Once community buy-in is confirmed, the import can be completed quickly as there are only 270 existing street lamps. The data is also quite simple. The import likely can be completed around mid June 2026.
Import Data
Background
- Data source site: https://data.edinburghcouncilmaps.info/
- Data license: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/
- Type of license: OGL-UK-3.0
- OSM attribution: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Contributors#United_Kingdom
- ODbL Compliance verified: yes
OSM Data Files
The GeoJSON to be imported can be found here.
Import Type
This is a one time import. The import is being prepared via a python script to transform the GIS data into an OSM format, and is being overseen and verified manually.
JOSM with the conflation plugin will be used to import this data.
Data Preparation
Data Reduction & Simplification
Data not relevant for OpenStreetMap such as site_code, site_name and internal object id's will be removed.
Tagging Plans
A Python script has been used to transform applicable values into the OSM schema, drop null and invalid values, and drop columns that are not useful as mentioned above. This script was adapted from the Coquitlam Street Lamp Import.
Changeset Tags
| Key | Value |
|---|---|
| comment | An import of City of Edinburgh street lamp data. |
| import | yes |
| source | Edinburgh Street Lighting Columns |
| source:url | https://data.edinburghcouncilmaps.info/datasets/cityofedinburgh::street-lighting-columns |
| source:date | 2024-02-26 |
| import:page | Scotland/Import/Edinburgh/Street Lamps |
| source:license | OGL-UK-3.0 |
Data Transformation
The python script can be found here. As mentioned above, this script was adapted from the Coquitlam Street Lamp Import.
The following fields are being converted into the OSM schema:
| Source field | Source value | OSM tag | OSM value |
|---|---|---|---|
| asset_id | string | ref | same string |
| lantern_mo | number | height | same number (0.0 values dropped) |
| commission | generic date string | start_date | YYYY-MM-DD |
| support_ma | material (e.g Steel, Concrete) and some more descriptive names (e.g Steel + Cast Embellishment) | material | material converted to OSM value |
The following tags will also be added to all street lamps:
| OSM tag | OSM value |
|---|---|
| highway | street_lamp |
| light_source | lantern |
| support | pole |
| light:method | led |
| operator | City of Edinburgh Council |
| operator:wikidata | Q28530250 |
light:method=led is being used as all City of Edinburgh street lamps were converted to led in 2023. I would also appreciate comment about light:method vs lamp_type.
support=pole will also be added to all lamps as all records have feature__1=SL: Lamp Post. Additionally after checking all non-pole mounted lamps that I know of, they do not seem to be included in the data.
Data Merge Workflow
Team Approach
This import will be conducted solo.
Workflow
- Download shapefile from council website.
- Remove poles with missing coordinates in QGIS (there are 35)
- Using QGIS, convert from British National Grid and convert to geojson. The geojson cannot be downloaded directly from the council as the coordinates has been improperly converted resulting in an up to 50m offset.
- Run python script on the geojson.
- Download existing street lamps in josm and open geojson.
- Conflate in josm using the conflation plugin, check all conflicts (as there are a small number)
- Upload result to OSM
Reverting can be done if needed with osm-revert as the data is simple.
Conflation
Conflation is done with a distance of 20. Due to the lack of existing street lamp data in Edinburgh, there are only 180 nodes that need to be conflated. The few conflicts that arise can be manually verified to ensure tags are properly merged.
QA
The dataset has high precision throughout. Multiple areas across the city have been checked and the location of each pole is very accurate (within 0.5m).
Some commission dates in the original data have random text or Not Applicable instead of a date, these have simply been ignored.
Discussion
The post to the community forum was sent on 2026-05-23 and can be found here
Updates
2026-05-24 - Added missing light_source=lantern
2026-06-07 - Fixed bug in code leading to dates before 1969 being parsed as in the 2000's.
2026-06-20 - Updated import with highway=street_lamp