Semantic Annotation of OpenStreetMap Points of Interest for Mobile Discovery and Navigation

Current mobile systems for assisted navigation have limited effectiveness in satisfying user needs. The information content supporting location-based service discovery and path calculation is usually shallow. Semantic-based technologies can allow to overcome these limitations, by exploiting more accurate and meaningful descriptions of locations, points of interest, road segments and environmental conditions. This paper proposes a general framework leveraging an enriched cartography to enhance travel assistance and safety. The majority of available navigation systems is developed upon closed and proprietary solutions for both maps and software applications, so third parties cannot extend their functionality. Therefore the proposed framework is based on open standards and tools, particularly Semantic Web technologies and crowd-sourced maps available from OpenStreetMap. A case study is presented to assess provided benefits.