[Talk-it-piemonte] Linea 10 festiva

[Bartosz Fabianowski]

> If you don't like the site I can say the official GTFS data that we
> have the right to import and we have partially imported (mainly the
> nodes with bus stops) in the past months.

I actually proposed the stop import myself, suggested the "revised" tag 
and was going to do the import. But then someone beat me to the last 
step :). So yes, I am aware of the data and I use it myself a lot.

> In that file there's no distinction in refs between weekday/weekend
> routes.

Yes, and this is a problem. The schedules on the ground distinguish 
between feriale and festivo. The file does not. This is a deficiency in 
the GTFS file. Unfortunately, we cannot fix the data GTT supply to us.

> That is just an id as the osm relation id.

The website uses a code to distinguish between 10 festivo and 10 
feriale. To me, this is exactly what we call a route ref in OSM, not a 
relation ID.

> We are NOT removing any information from the osm DB. If you look at:
> http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/relation/1570939 you will see a
> tag: opening_hours = Su 05:15-01:00; PH 05:15-01:00 that say exactly
> when that route is handled far better then the F suffix.

Using "opening_hours" for public transport routes is interesting and 
works to some extent in Torino. But it is not general enough to replace 
route suffixes. For example, in Bergamo, routes 10A, 10B, 10C all 
operate at the same time. Suffixes are essential to disambiguate between 
them.

But even in Torino, you can see where the idea of using opening_hours 
breaks down: On working days, the complete route (10F) is broken into 
two pieces, one operated by tram (10) and one by bus (10N). If we wanted 
to leave out suffixes, we should do it consistently. But we then end up 
with routes 10 (tram) and 10 (bus), both operating on working days, both 
covering different parts of the complete distance. As you see, the 
suffix "N" is important here. Rather than using additional tags and 
special case logic to reconstruct the 10F suffix from opening_hours 
tags, why not just map the festivo route as 10F, exactly as the 
schedules have it?

> How can you know that F means that route is handled only in weekends
> ?

> As said above the opening_hour tag is far more explaining than a
> different ref.

OSM cannot express the full intricacies of a public transport network. 
We can map the stops and the routes that connect them. Operational 
details such as schedules or maybe which buses are low floor for 
wheelchair/pram users will always be external to OSM. Using 
"opening_hours," you can copy some of this external data into OSM. I do 
not see anything fundamentally wrong with this. But it will never cover 
all cases and will never be able to replace the need for external 
schedule information to find out when exactly a route operates at what 
intervals.

> I'm also trying to build a renderer similar to the official gtt's map
> as I think that current public transport renders aren't very good.

This looks very nice indeed. I see you are doing some kind of stop 
clustering to render each route ref only once for example in Susa FS or 
Statuto. Great work so far!

> Anyway, as the Turin public transport work was started by Ken
> Hayabusa, I hope he say what he thinks about this topic.

Yes, I would love the community to discuss this. It is a small point in 
a way (a single letter "F" after all). But with so many people out there 
using OSM data in creative ways (you and myself included), I think that 
providing information in the most easy-to-parse way (suffixes for some, 
opening_hours for others), the vast variety of existing and future 
projects is served best.

- Bartosz