[Imports] Importing bus stops from NaPTAN

[Andy Townsend]

On 08/07/2015 15:08, Stephen Dawkins wrote:
> I'll look into creating a page on the wiki with my import procedure. 
> It should be noted that part of the NaPTAN data has already been 
> imported, just not for the area that I'm working in.
>
What the previous NaPTAN import missed was conflation of bus stops with 
existing OSM ones.  I still occasionally find "duplicate pairs" in 
Nottinghamshire.  To gain general approval I suspect that any new import 
would need to explain how the merging of the two datasets would take 
place - I can think of places where NaPTAN's correct and OSM not, but 
also vice versa.  However, I can see a few obvious "quick wins" (e.g. 
bus stops in unsurveyed remote areas).

> NaPTAN is the official list of all bus stops (amongst other things) in 
> the UK, and is continuously updated. It's accuracy is pretty good 
> overall (at least in the stops I'm looking at importing).

Obviously, given that it's continuously updated, consumers have the 
option to use NaPTAN bus data _instead_ of OSM.  I believe that this is 
what Traveline do (they're certainly active on the GB list; not sure 
about here - they may be able to add more detail).

This does prompt another question - post import, what plan would you 
have for keeping the data in OSM updated when NaPTAN data changes?

For info, see also this recent thread on the forum:

http://forum.openstreetmap.org/viewtopic.php?id=31616

Another possibility rather than an import might be to find a way of 
making the NaPTAN data a more easily-accessible resource than it is now, 
and letting mappers update OSM, much as happens now with road names, 
using tools such as http://ris.dev.openstreetmap.org/oslmusicalchairs ?

Cheers,

Andy