[Imports] Importing bus stops from NaPTAN

Stephen Dawkins elfarto at elfarto.com
Wed Jul 8 15:26:42 UTC 2015


On 08/07/2015 15:49, Andy Townsend wrote:
> 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).
>
I would like to make it clear, I just want to import the ~1700 stops 
(some of which already exist) that are needed by the bus routes I want 
to import.

>> 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?
>
I was thinking of building a small Java tool, to grab the latest NaPTAN 
file, and a all the highway=bus_stop nodes in the UK, and do a diff. The 
output from this can be:
- All the bus_stop nodes that don't have a NaPTAN code, and maybe some 
suggestions.
- A list of all the NaPTAN nodes in OSM that have a different position 
to the original NaPTAN ones, so that NaPTAN itself can be updated (by 
someone with access obviously).
- A OSM changeset XML, that updates all the existing NaPTAN nodes in OSM 
that haven't been otherwise changed.

A web site that did the above would be ideal, but I don't have anywhere 
to host it.

I think a small module for the OpenData plugin in JOSM, that allowed the 
NaPTAN XML to be loaded as an OSM layer would certainly make it easier 
to access the data (there is a python script that I used, but it was a 
bit buggy).

I certainly don't want to be married to updating this information 
indefinitely. I'd rather build tools that can be used by everyone.

Regards
Stephen
> 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
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Imports mailing list
> Imports at openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/imports




More information about the Imports mailing list