[Tagging] Ferry lines, ways or relations?

[Dave Sutter]

I would like to continue this discussion under a new subject related
to the ref tag and external databases, but I am not sure how to do
that.

I think it would be great using existing tags to fully label the
reference. I am interested specifically in using an external database
for data appearing on indoor maps. On example is for the store
directory at a shopping center. I believe I can also create an
external database or, even better, use an existing one.

I'd like to know how to tag these entities. Here are a few specific
use cases of interest. There are of course many more.

1) Shopping Mall - For a given shopping center there are one or more
buildings with units that are occupied by stores. Some formats:
 - Unit specified as part of the postal address: Apple Store in Valley
Fair Shopping Center, Santa Clara, CA - suite 1025
 - Unit has a made up name not part of an official postal address:
American Girl at Mall Of America in Bloomington MN - 5160 Center Court

The external database would likewise need to specify this information.
In the case of the postal address it is easy. What tags would best be
used for the non-postal address? Presumably this would require
information about the venue since this is a venue level name.

2) University Room - A common use case will be referencing rooms in
academic buildings, for example to specify the location of a class or
a professor's office. Here, there may or may not be a postal address
for the building. The building may be named and/or numbered.
- An office at Stanford University - Durand 101A

Here it is easy enough to label a room and a building. What is the way
for labeling this as a part of Stanford University? Presumably the
external database would specify the room reference is a part of
Stanford University. (I presume there is a well established answer for
this one.)

3) Airport - The main thing to label at an airport are the gates. But
two other things that would be labeled are units for stores or
restaurants and the baggage carousels.
- Gate 71
- Carousel 12

With multiple types of references, I assume the object type (however
this is tagged) would be the give away as to what is being referenced.
Hopefully this would not be too cumbersome to infer the OSM object
type from the commonly used reference term (such as Apartment, Flat,
Suite, Unit etc)

4) Retail Store - In a retail store aisle, shelf and bin are often
used to specify a product location.  Also there are of course sections
or departments. Admittedly, OSM may not do a lot of retail stores at
the shelf level, but it would be good to have a strategy. The concept
also carries over to other use cases.
- Health and Beauty Section
- Aisle 7
- Aisle 7 Shelf 5B
- Aisle 7 Shelf 5B Bin 3

For bins, should the reference include just the bin number, or should
it include the full specification? Or perhaps it would be better to
just use the bin number as the reference and include a tag that tells
the parent information (in this case the shelf and aisle)?

Finally, for any case of matching a between OSM and an external
reference, there may not be a reference that can be tied to the
entity. How should the object be referenced in this case? Possibly by
ID in the OpenStreetMap or external database? Or is this discouraged?

Comments and suggestions are appreciated.

Cheers,

Dave

On Sun, Sep 9, 2012 at 7:53 AM, Janko Mihelić <janjko at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2012/9/7 Dave Sutter <sutter at intransix.com>
>>
>> I was thinking of using the ref tag as the publicly used term for the
>> entity. For example, there is a bus route 110 for SamTrans (San Mateo
>> county, California). I imagine the ref for this route is 110. There
>> could be some added information to specify this is a bus route for
>> SamTrans, as opposed to a room number in some academic building or an
>> exit on a freeway.
>>
>> Perhaps tags such as ref:type = Bus Route, and ref:scope = SamTrans
>>
>> The external database would also specify the same reference, and then
>> the two could be matched.
>
>
> But if you combine several already existing tags, like 'ref=38' and
> 'operator=SamTrans' then that should be good enough. If you add a website=*,
> there shouldn't be a chance that there is going to be duplicate elements
> somewhere in the database.
>
> Janko
>
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