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Closed gates in North Africa, online and offline

· 2 min read
Massimo Di Stefano
Massimo Di Stefano
FastGIS author

Since the routing graph crossed the Strait of Gibraltar, a route in Morocco has known its roads but not its gates: a private gate on a track near Ouarzazate came back as "unknown, not found in OSM". Now it comes back closed, with its OSM node, and the route goes around it.

A second OpenStreetMap mirror​

Our gates, live speed limits and wild camp search read OpenStreetMap from our own mirror, and that mirror held Europe only. A second one now holds the seven North African countries: Morocco with Western Sahara, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Algeria, Mauritania, and Senegal with Gambia. Like Europe's, it takes OpenStreetMap's changes every day. A lookup asks every mirror its area touches and merges the answers, so a route from Tarifa to Tangier reads both shores.

Online in these countries, a route now gets the same things as in Europe:

  • its closed gates, named, and a way around them;
  • the speed limit of the road you are on;
  • the wild camp search with its water, buildings and roads;
  • the scenic stops;
  • the roadbook's OSM symbols;
  • the match of rider reports and OSM edits to the road.

Gates in the offline packs​

The five countries with an offline pack now carry their closed-gate file too: Morocco 2,106 barriers that can be closed, Tunisia 352, Egypt 3,709, Mauritania 163, Senegal and Gambia 91. Installing a country downloads it with the rest, and the phone's own router keeps out of the locked and private gates without a connection.

The Gulf states are in neither mirror yet. The guide's North Africa section lists what each region has.