[Talk-transit] Summary of Public Transport Proposal Criticism

[Michał Borsuk]

On 01/24/2011 11:38 PM, Christian Krützfeldt wrote:
>
>>
>> If disagree then please attack my arguments with
>> counter-arguments. I stand by what I wrote.
>
> Well, I could agree with you that your proposal is fine for most usage cases. But below you say it yourself, the direction is lost, so for all those usage cases where people would like the direction your proposal isn't working.

Graphically lost, so no arrowa (that didn't work anyway, because there 
are streets in which bus A runs one-way north, bus B runs one-way south, 
and openbusmap.org could not render this).

The information on direction is preserved 1) in bus stop roles, 2) in 
the timetable application/software.

>>> Thinking about the 100+ messages about this topic, this
>> might actually
>>> be the reason for the problems in finding a good proposal.
>>> You have an idea of what you want to do with the data and you think
>>> that everybody else wants to do the same stuff. That's not the case!
>>
>> I am aware of this. Sometimes the minority is correct.
>
> I'm not sure if there is a right or wrong here. Its just different ways to use the data.

It's also about efficiency in entering and maintaining the data.


>>
>> My proposal does cover that. A simple bus line will be mapped
>> as it was before, with the minor exception that the route
>> will not contain the direction (you don't need that as a
>> user) - but the stops will.
>
> I have to read your proposal again, maybe I missed something. I thought your proposal wouldn't allow me to see the exact roads a bus travels on between two stops.
> If that is the case and the road between two stops is known with your proposal, just not the direction, how about changing/amending your proposal to add an *optional*
> argument or maybe a relation somewhere to store the direction?

Sure, I'd use roles for it. But let me remark that from my experience 
that dropping the entire role thing on relations would be a big 
improvement in efficiency. We could instead use that time to adapt bus 
stops to carry the direction information, which is, as user "ant" 
pointed out, essential for the visually impaired. And lost tourists in 
an unknown town. Knowing whether you're standing on the right side of 
the street/tram stop is important.

In short: bus stops need directions of a line more than streets. Bus 
stops need to be added to the relation so that we know what stops at any 
given stop. That's IMHO where time has to be invested.

> If someone wants the direction (for whatever reason) they could still
be 100% compatible with your proposal but do some extra work and also
get the direction - which only makes sense when the roads are different
depending on the direction.

I have nothing against optional tags, we can make two versions of the 
wiki documentation (short for beginners, and full for pros, optional 
items of course in the latter).

Also, just realized that the direction of the bus line can be calculated 
from the backward_stop and forward_stop roles on the stops, even if 
stops are not added to relations in any particular order. Think of it: a 
section of a road that only has stops with forward_stop (or 
backward_stop) roles must be a one-way section for the given bus line. 
To implement it as a script is much easier than to spend time entering 
it by hand.

> Christian

Michal aka LMB.