[Talk-GB] Update bus stop names

Sat Jan 18 12:53:16 UTC 2020

Hi Guys

I imported NaPTAN data for my local area (Chorley) some months ago. Took 
the data for Lancashire and filtered on Town:Chorley. Some of the stops 
were excluded because the data had not been correctly input by reason of 
no entry, misspelt, wrong town entered.

Using the JOSM:Conflate tool enabled me to identify existing stops and 
merge/manipulate the data - hard work with some mistakes which I am now 
correcting by field survey - I know the area well so I tend to be able 
to spot errors. Conflate allows the setting of distance to match nodes - 
I started at 10 meters to get the close matches then 50 metres, several 
iteration through the data.

I would encourage you to add the fields naptan:ATCOCode & 
naptan:NaptanCode as they are useful references when using timetable 
software - all my local bus stops include NaptanCode for text alerts for 
buses.

Bus stop types - most are MKD which I think translates as marked on the 
ground, but CUS are the Custom and practice stops which Stuart refers. 
As they are not physical should they be in OSM ? Answering my own 
question - I think so because it is additional data and very useful for 
map users, but I would now put in the BusStopType field. Similar for HAR 
hail and ride.

Have a look at putting nodes in - helps to complete the map.

I found Latitude and Longitude locations to be accurate within 10 yards 
or so, more accurate than the previously entered bus stops - I surveyed 
/ used Mapillary to confirm.

Be critical about the data and your process - it helps accuracy but 
don't be afraid.

Good mapping

Regards

Tony Shield (TonyS999)

On 18/01/2020 12:16, Stuart Reynolds wrote:
> Hi Cj,
>
> What you have got there is Southern Vectis’s link to a subset of the 
> current NaPTAN data. Please note, though, that Southern Vectis are not 
> responsible for this data - that is maintained by Isle of Wight Council.
>
> NaPTAN data is always available by local authority, or for the entire 
> country, from the official source. You don’t need to have a login, and 
> instructions can be found at 
> http://naptan.app.dft.gov.uk/DataRequest/help on how to download 
> individual areas. Essentially, you will need the Atcoprefix to form 
> the URL and you can get this most easily by following the “last 
> submissions” link contained within that page.
>
> But all this comes with a health warning!
>
> NaPTAN data from the official source will /generally/ be more up to 
> date than what has been imported into OSM some years ago. But I know, 
> from when I proposed a mechanical edits few years ago, that many 
> mappers have surveyed their local stops and would be unhappy with it 
> being updated without a further survey by what they regard as an 
> inferior source, particularly if is not well maintained.
>
> Be aware of “Custom and practice” stops in NaPTAN which are unmarked. 
> Buses stop there, but there isn’t something that you can see on the 
> ground that you can map, necessarily. Hail and Ride stops are even 
> worse, because they are virtual stops intended to give something that 
> a scheduling system can hang a time on rather than an accurate 
> representation of where a bus stops. You can identify all of these by 
> BusStopType in the data.
>
> Common errors in the official NaPTAN data set may be missing stops, or 
> the inclusion of stops that are no longer in use. Some areas remove 
> stops when they are no longer served, even though the infrastructure 
> is still in place on the ground (wrong, in my opinion, but there you 
> go). You may also find stops that are not precisely where you expect 
> them to be, and they may also not have the name that is on the stop 
> flag on the ground.
>
> That last one is a point worth dwelling on. NaPTAN is intended to be 
> granular in its data. That means that the street that a stop is on 
> should go into the “streetname” field, and a short name should go into 
> the “commonname” field. Our advice to database administrators is that 
> where there isn’t a prominent landmark (bus station, pub, etc) then 
> this is most suited to a nearby side road. That way stops along a long 
> road can have different names, which is essential in a journey planner 
> or timetable. On the ground, though, many authorities will put 
> composite names on the flags, and often the other way round if they 
> consider the main road to be more important. And they then differ on 
> occasion from what the operator wants to call the stop (although 
> operators tend to focus on just the timetabled points). Oh, and some 
> areas misuse the fields. In Sheffield (for good historic reasons, so I 
> don’t want to pick on them unduly) you will find that the commonname 
> is simply the stop letter e.g. CS1 which should properly be in the 
> Indicator field, and the common name (which should be “Century 
> Square”) is only found by looking at the stop area name.
>
> All this just goes to highlight that you will need to reflect 
> carefully on what the fields that you are updating in OSM should be 
> before making the changes - although I agree that in many places the 
> data in OSM is way out of date and desperately needs updating.
>
> Regards,
> Stuart Reynolds
> for traveline south east and anglia
>
>> On 18 Jan 2020, at 11:18, Cj Malone via Talk-GB 
>> <talk-gb at openstreetmap.org <mailto:talk-gb at openstreetmap.org>> wrote:
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I've recently found an open data set with more accurate bus stop names
>> than OSM. Based on my limited survey of differences in OSM data and
>> this data, theirs has been more accurate. Not really surprising, since
>> it's there network, and most of the OSM data hasn't been updated since
>> the naptan import nearly a decade ago.
>>
>> I intent to start updating OSM based on this data. The legal mailing
>> list has OK'ed this as it's OGLv3.
>>
>> I won't be importing any nodes, but I do intend for it to be "machine
>> assisted". I will create a report similar to
>> https://gregrs.dev.openstreetmap.org/fhrs/ where I will then go through
>> on a node by node basis and decide if the node should be updated. Any
>> tag I edit I will add source:name=Southern Vectis, and leave the
>> naptan:CommonName untouched.
>>
>> While I do this I could also upgrade from highway=bus_stop to
>> public_transport=platform, bus=yes. Keeping the legacy tags as the wiki
>> recommends.
>>
>> I will be using this data set https://www.islandbuses.info/open-data 
>> <https://www.islandbuses.info/open-data>
>> the same data set is available for more regions, but at the moment I 
>> don't intent to use them, a local mapper would be better suited. 
>> https://www.discoverpassenger.com/2019/06/25/open-data-portals-go-
>> ahead-group/
>>
>> Any comments?
>>
>> Thanks
>> Cj
>>
>>
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>
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