[Talk-transit] Summary of Public Transport Proposal Criticism

[Frankie Roberto]

On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 9:10 AM, Michał Borsuk <michal.borsuk at gmail.com>wrote:

> Am 24.01.2011 09:39, schrieb Roger Slevin:
>
>  I have not been able to follow the large number of posts on this group in
>> recent weeks - but I can confirm that stopareas are an important part of
>> NaPTAN data in the UK, and are an important aspect of the way that stops
>> data are used in journey planning applications.
>>
>

>  This is true, but IMHO obsolete. They are used in situations where the
> routing application does not possess the information on the location of
> stops. OSM does have that information. Such places can be calculated,
> instead of being entered by hand.


Hi all. I've been following this debate but haven't had time to post as of
yet.

It seems one of the main bones of contention is that 'stop areas' can be
calculated from the existing geographical data, rather than needing to be
explicitly stated.  I would agree with this if stop areas simply imply 'it
is physically possible to interchange between these stops fairly quickly'.

However, there's a possible conceptual meaning to 'stop area' which is
separate from and non-inferrable from the geographical realities. To take a
famous example, I don't think you'd consider Embankment and Charing Cross
stations to be part of the same stop area, even though they're very close to
each other? On the other hand, some stop areas (Waterloo perhaps) may be
huge, even though it may take you more ten minutes to get from one stop to
another (even from one tube platform to another).

I don't know whether this is intended from the current proposal or not, but
I think you could construct a definition of stop areas along the lines of:

"a collection of public transport stops, often of differing modes, which are
often physically connected by short walkways, often sharing the same name,
are advertised as being an interchange on public transport maps and
diagrams, and may be treated as a valid interchange by fare structures."

- this would seem to me to be a valid use for relations. ??

That said, I'd agree that they're often not really needed in simple cases
such as two bus stops on opposite sides of the road.

Frankie

-- 
Frankie Roberto
Experience Designer, Rattle
0114 2706977
http://www.rattlecentral.com
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