[Tagging] Was public_transport=platform intended to always be combined with highway=bus_stop?

Joseph Eisenberg joseph.eisenberg at gmail.com
Tue Jul 30 13:57:36 UTC 2019


I got the information about the origin of the dispute about
highway=bus_stop next to or on the way from this page:

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Tag:highway%3Dbus_stop#Contradictions_in_the_wiki

"In the early days of OSM, the bus stops were mapped beside the street
simply because the poles are beside the street. ... A couple of
software developers adapted this in several imports ....
At that point, X came around with the idea to import data from
professional sources ... Transmodel). ... After some imports with the
shifted model, the data was quite messed, because highway=bus_stop got
ambigous for either the pole beside the street or a technical datum
from Transmodel on the street.
... X put a lot of time in writing wiki pages. In the end, the wiki
was less ... in line with the majority of the exisiting data and
software tools. ... To stop worsening the wiki, the 2010 proposal was
organized. Of course, X was involved in the proposal ...
This ended up with a proposal that is even more complex ... ,  simply
because it is intentionally vague. But at least it contains a way to
make the people passionate on On-Street-Stops happy by using their
specific tagging. ..."

I don't know if this is a fair assessment of the history, but it does
suggest that the problem with that imported data from some sources had
the nodes on the highway.

It does sound like everyone agrees on the history that some mappers
wanted to move highway=bus_stop to the highway way, but most wanted it
besides the way. So public_transport=stop_position was created, plus
bus=yes and train=yes to say what sort of vehicle stops there  - but
then there was also a new tag public_transport=platform, so now the
proposal suggested adding 2 points with at least 2 main feature tags,
plus name / operator / ref etc, for each place a bus stops.

And later, people who wanted to deprecate highway=bus_stop and
railway=platform realized that public_transport=platform isn't a full
replacement, so they recommended adding bus=yes or train=yes etc to
each public_transport=platform feature, which leads to 3 tags for each
one.

I still haven't seen any benefit in adding public_transport=platform
to highway=bus_stop or highway=platform or railway=platform features,
and it doesn't look like the =stop_position tag is needed for routers
either, so all 3 of the main public_transport tags (except perhaps the
stop_area relation?) are rarely helpful.

Joseph

On 7/30/19, Martin Koppenhoefer <dieterdreist at gmail.com> wrote:
> Am Di., 30. Juli 2019 um 11:47 Uhr schrieb Jo <winfixit at gmail.com>:
>
>> By the way, I don't think the 'schism' of some people/countries mapping
>> the stops as nodes of/on the highway and others nodes/ways next to the
>> highway comes from an import in Switzerland. I think it came from habits
>> in
>> mapping of railway infrastructure. At one point, we had a single way for
>> multiple tracks, then we added more detail. Back then it made sense to
>> have
>> station nodes on those ways.
>>
>
>
> for me it was a new interpretation as well, that the dispute about bus stop
> nodes on the highway and nodes aside the highway was based in an import
> which "had the node in the center of the highway". It doesn't seem
> completely logical, because it would make an import more complicated, not
> less, if you had to add the node to a highway.



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