[Tagging] Inclined elevators

[Guillaume Chauvat]

My main issue with this is not technical details about how they work, 
but about how they are used. They look like an elevator, act like one 
and serve exactly the same purpose. You press a button, they come, the 
doors open, you press a button inside to go up or down, etc.
They are used on relatively short distances, often alongside escalators.
Funiculars to me look more like trains, and have a different 
connotation: something you have to buy a ticket for, that go longer 
distances, etc. In the end it's a common issue with categories being 
inherently fuzzy and we have to draw a distinction somewhere.

I would have no problem if the wiki instructed to model inclined 
elevators as funiculars even if it might not be technically correct.
But it isn't: 
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:highway%3Delevator#How_to_Map_as_a_Way 
(and this page is also referenced from the funicular page) so there is 
an ambiguity.
How do I tag the inclined elevator close to where I live? With 
highway=elevator, as stated on the wiki and which seems more technically 
correct? But then the maps don't display it and it's typically not 
included in navigation software. Or do I tag it as a funicular because 
at least it will be displayed on maps, even though it's technically 
wrong and goes against the wiki?

This also creates a chicken an egg problem. Mappers don't use 
highway=elevator because it's not supported, and then developers may 
refuse to consider it because it's not commonly used...


Guillaume


On 2020-12-04 22:58, Joseph Eisenberg wrote:
> I've looked into these.
>
> Most inclined elevators seem to also operate with cables, with the 
> difference being that in a funicular there are 2 cars attached to 1 
> cable, so one ascends while the other descends, but in an inclined 
> elevator each car (or there might only be 1 car) is attached to a 
> counterweight or a winch.
>
> Unfortunately it looks like most uses of the tag highway=elevator on a 
> way are actually areas (closed ways):
> https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/10S8 - 3080 highway=elevator ways are 
> closed. A review of a few of these suggests they are mostly 4 node 
> rectangular ways which represent the area of a verticle elevator. 
> About half are tagged |indoor=room| - https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/10Se
> vs
> https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/10S9 - 190 ways which are not closed. 
> These look to be inclined elevators, though in some cases it’s not 
> possible to tell if they might actually be a funicular instead.
>
> While railway=funicular is 10 times as common, this might or might not 
> represent the actual relative frequency of these features in the real 
> world, I don’t know.
>
> The wiki page text says that a railway=funicular is "A funicular, also 
> known as an inclined plane or cliff railway, is a cable railway in 
> which a cable attached to a pair of tram-like vehicles on rails moves 
> them up and down a steep slope, the ascending and descending vehicles 
> counterbalancing each other.”
>
> However, the description in the infobox (which is much more commonly 
> seen in places like taginfo and iD) is only “Cable driven inclined 
> railway” - and this could include many types of "inclined elevators” 
> which mostly run on rails too. So mappers might be using 
> railway=funicular for inclined elevators already.
>
>
> -- Joseph Eisenberg
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 3, 2020 at 2:55 PM Graeme Fitzpatrick 
> <graemefitz1 at gmail.com <mailto:graemefitz1 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>
>
>     On Fri, 4 Dec 2020 at 08:33, Guillaume Chauvat
>     <guillaume at chauvat.eu <mailto:guillaume at chauvat.eu>> wrote:
>
>         Yes, but this is a node, not a way. Inclined elevators require
>         a way and those are not displayed properly.
>
>
>     Sorry, didn't get what you were getting at!
>
>     Graeme
>
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