[Talk-transit] Proposed Feature - RFC - Public Transport

[Richard Mann]

On Fri, Dec 10, 2010 at 3:31 PM, Dominik Mahrer (Teddy) <teddy at teddy.ch> wrote:
> Think of a terminal bus station somewhere in the center of a city. Four bus
> lines end here. One platform of 50m. The four lines stop always at the same
> position (line 1 is first,..., line 4 is last). Only one pole for all buses.
> Where do you place your tags? Or how do you tell where to wait for bus
> number 4? At the pole that is 40m away from the stop position?
>

That'd be four bus stops in the NaPTAN system, the three "invisible"
ones being what they call customary stops (these are far more common
in rural areas). I wouldn't recommend the passengers go to the
stopping position (not unless I wanted them to be run over).

> highway=platform is for buses/nonrail
> railway=platform is for train/tam/rail
> What should be used if there are buses and trams at the same station?

Whichever feels right. I'd probably use highway=platform if you can
walk across the tracks at the platform, railway=platform if you can't.
Does it matter?

> highway=bus_stop is used different. Sometimes as stop position, more often
> as platform/pole. See
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Tag:highway%3Dbus_stop#Results_2010-10-27
> The meaning of how highway=bus_stop should be used differ. It can not be
> replaced easily with a new public_transport tag.

I would agree that on-highway highway=bus_stop should be phased out
(is anyone saying they should be retained?). I think they're a
hangover from the time before we realised that tagging the pole was a
better approach. In the mean time, I don't think it causes any major
problem (it just isn't as clear as tagging the pole).

Richard