[Talk-transit] Naming concepts

[Felix Delattre]

On 31/10/16 13:54, Greg Troxel wrote:
> Felix Delattre <felix-lists at delattre.de> writes:
>> I also like them. Thanks, Jo!
>> But isn't "line" an European wording? Would an English native speaker
>> intuitively understand the concepts of "line" and "itinerary"? I always
> For me (en_US), I find it awkward.

The same thing told me a friend (en_US) I asked.

> I'm still not 100% following.  In the wiki table, is concept number 1
> just a name for the collection of route variants, and basically the name
> that the bus company (agency/whatever) uses?  I would call that
> "bus_route_name" then, with a name, and perhaps bus_route_ref for just
> the numberish part, along with bus_route_operator.  This is making it
> like highway ref tags.

Yes, that's what it is a collection of variants. I think in proper
English the overall collection of route variations is just called a
"route".

Unfortunately OpenStreetMap's tagging schema uses "route" for route
variations and "route_master" for what should be called a route :/ That
is also the reason why I want to avoid the use of the pure word "route"
-  to avoid confusion.

I like the idea of using bus_route_name, as this is most understandable
in human language, but can be misleading as well -  somtimes variations
have different names (Bus route 37A, Bus route 37B....). Maybe it's a
good option to use:

1. RouteContainer (which can have then one to several)
2. RouteVariation(s)

This is also computer jargon, but better understandable than
route_master, I guess?

> I think "route_variant" is a good name, in that it captures the sense
> that all of the route_variants of a route are similar somewhow but not
> quite.   The only awkwardness is that sometimes there will be only one
> route_variant in a route.
>
> trip and itinerary are both confusing in that there is ambiguity between
> a specific one-time departure (e.g., 0800 from Harvard Square on 31
> October 2016) and a planned recurring departure (0800 from Harvard
> Square on all weekdays).   I would use the terms
>
>   recurring_trip
>
>   specific_trip
>
> but don't really like the second one.
>
>
> Overall, though, I would try very hard to just reuse the GTFS terms for
> the GTFS concepts, and to put a comment in the source or docs clarifying
> what they mean.  I think the benefit of clearer terms will be outweighed
> by having more to learn.

Yes, that's true. Use route for route (as GTFS does) and put a comment
in there, every time OSM routes are used, that they are actually
representing route variations...

> Finally, I think osm2gtfs is going to want to use information that isn't
> in OSM.   I'm not sure what the plan is, or if one can produce a GTFS
> version that is just missing the fine-grained schedule information, and
> if that's what you want to do.

It combines OSM data with other sources of schedule/time information to
create a GTFS format out of it.