For loading OSM data in a format already ready for pgRouting queries, the two common tools I've seen used are osm2po and osm2pgrouting. Unfortunately osm2pgrouting has been for a long time a Unix only tool mostly because no one tried to compile it for windows or test it on windows to see if it works. So this means that windows users who wanted a quick road to pgRouting nirvana had to use osm2po. Turns out the osm2pgrouting code compiles fine on windows (at least under mingw-w64 chain) and seems to work fine, so we should start making it available for windows.
This is still experimental, but if you are a windows user (or have a pgRouting windows user friend) and want to kick the tires a bit, you'll find osm2pgrouting for windows (both 32-bit and 64-bit) binaries on the PostGIS windows download page in the Unreleased section.
I compiled osm2pgrouting (for pgRouting 2.0) against PostgreSQL 9.4 using the same mingw-w64 chain I use to build PostGIS and pgRouting for windows -- clumsily detailed in my gist shell scripts - . Though it depends on libpq, it seems to work fine if you use it against the PostgreSQL 9.3 libpq. So just need to copy the additional files (osm2pgrouting and expat) into your PostgreSQL bin folder and you are good to go loading data into a pgRouting enabled database. It is assumed you already have PostGIS 2.1+ and pgRouting 2.0 already installed which come bundled together as part of the PostGIS 2.1+ windows installers and also available on the PostGIS windows download page.
Which should you use: osm2pgrouting or osm2po?
In many ways osm2po is superior to osm2pgrouting and has had more time invested in it. It can handle larger files on smaller machines, can work with the OSM pbf format, and it supports both Unix like and windows platforms. That said osm2po is not absolutely superior to osm2pgrouting. osm2po is inferior in a couple of ways that are important to me.
- It's not open source, it's freeware -- which means you can't kick the code around and learn from it or inspect it. It also means you can't change it and contribute back your changes.
- The primary motive of osm2po is not as a loading tool for pgRouting. osm2po is a complete routing engine with webserver which doesn't even rely on PostgreSQL. That said, if the maintainer decides one day providing a pgRouting export is no longer beneficial to osm2po development path, or pgRouting devs need to tweak it a bit to work with newer pgRouting, it will be difficult.
- It's written in Java. This is my own personal dislike. Not that anything is wrong with Java, it's just sometimes a bit of a nuisance to get the VM going on a server I happen to get stuck on that I can't install anything I want. osm2pgrouting is much lighter weight not requiring a JVM, though it does require PostgreSQL,PostGIS, and pgRouting -- which you should have already.
- osm2po generates an intermediary sql file which you then have to load via psql. I prefer the direct load approach of osm2pgrouting over having a big-o sql file to contend with after.
That said osm2po is great in many ways, but alternatives are always nice to have. Only annoying thing with having alternatives is deciding which alternative is best for what you are doing.
