[Tagging] Semi-colon separated route values

[Andy Townsend]

On 23/01/2022 11:13, yvecai via Tagging wrote:
>
> There is a lot of relations out there with semi-colon separated route 
> values, such as route='hiking;bicycle;horse' and every flavor one can 
> think off. I guess that as there is so many, this is probably not  
> wrong, it's just a fact.

Indeed.


>
> The obvious alternative is to create quasi-duplicated relations with a 
> single route=* value. It seems simpler, easier to dealt with for data 
> consumer and also to maintain (what if I'm a cyclist and don't know 
> about horse-riding specificity ?).

As a data consumer it makes essentially no difference to me.  As you 
said, the tagging is just a fact, so as a data consumer, you just deal 
with it.

As an example, The Pennine Bridleway 
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/50288 in England is tagged like 
this and the extra work to render routes of this type is one line of 
code: 
https://github.com/SomeoneElseOSM/SomeoneElse-style/blob/master/style.lua#L7626 
.


>
> I'm starting a little poll here and on 
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Relation:route#Semi-colon_separated_route_values.
>
> In your opinion, what are pro and cons of each method? Is there a 
> specific meaning conveyed by semi-colon separated values?


I've interpreted the meaning of "route='hiking;bicycle;horse'" here as 
"this is a route that walkers, cyclists and horse-riders can all use" 
(exactly the same as if there were three separate routes, one with each 
tag).

 From a tagging point of view, where it does make sense to have separate 
routes is if some sections differ for different modes. My recollection 
is that that used to be the case for the Pennine Bridleway around 
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/50288#map=15/53.4482/-1.9877 , 
but (at least in OSM) is no longer.  In the case of long routes such as 
this it might make sense to have one superroute per mode, with the 
relevant component relations in each, and with each component relation 
having appropriate "route" and "network" tags (perhaps 
"horse;mtb;hiking" for a section that is shared and "hiking" for a 
section that is for walkers only).  However, getting community buy-in to 
the change for a particular route, doing it, and maintaining it is no 
small amount of work.

Best Regards,

Andy