[Talk-gb-westmidlands] Bus stops

[Matthijs Melissen]

Dear all,

I noticed that we have nearly all bus stops in Birmingham on the map,
including Naptan data, but most of the stops don't have a name tag.
For the stops where we do have name tags, these tags are formed
inconsistently. Name tags are necessary in order to display the name
on the Transport layer, and to make them searchable.

In Birmingham, all bus stops have a street name (Naptan: Street),
which is the first line on the blue area of the shield, and a common
name (Naptan: CommonName), often the intersecting street, which is the
second line on the shield. Neither CommonName nor Street are
individually sufficient to uniquely identify a stop, but together,
they are. Some stops also have a red shield containing the interchange
name (not in Naptan) plus a two or three character reference (Naptan:
Indicator). A bus might stop at multiple stops of the same
interchange.

An example of a bus stop:

Weoley Castle (Interchange) WE (Indicator)
Castle Sq (Street name)
Somerfield (Common name)

The question is now, which of these should we use for the name tag?
Currently, all of the following formats are in use:

Street; CommonName
CommonName
CommonName Indicator
InterchangeName Indicator
Indicator

Which format should we aim for?

It should also be noted that the Naptan data contains some mistakes.
Should we first check whether Naptan is correct, and then fill in the
name tag? Or can we already add the name tags, and verify later? The
first has the advantage that we only display correct names, while the
second has the advantage that we have data quicker, and that errors
might get discovered more quickly because the stop names will be
displayed on the map.

Please let me know what you think.

Best regards,
Matthijs