[OSM-talk] Bus routes

[Tom Chance]

Ahoy,

This looks really useful: http://oxbus.sparemint.com/

But I've been pondering how to collect bus route data where I live and I can 
foresee a few problems.

The most obvious way to collect the data would be to note down the bus route 
numbers at every bus stop.

But this doesn't give any indication as to the actual route, i.e. the sequence 
in which they are visited by each bus number and the route the buses take in 
between stops. We'd have to travel down each bus route to get this (an 
expensive and extensive task), or take the data from bus route maps provided 
by the bus companies (a copyright violation?)

Second, a typical bus stop may serve a bus that doddles around in a town such 
as Bedford (e.g. the number 120 bus', as well as a bus that goes as far 
afield as Hitchin (e.g. 'the number X1 bus'). But then in Hitchin the X1 may 
stop at a bus stop that serves another "doddle around town" bus that is also 
called the number 120, and that is clearly not the same one that doddles 
around in Bedford. Charting the full bus routes would solve this, but I can't 
think of any simple way to put this data onto nodes for bus stops. Neither 
the bus company nor the localities served provide a foolproof guide, so far 
as I can tell.


So what data should I collect, and how should I enter it into the database, 
whilst I map St Albans? I want to get every bus stop as I go, rather than 
requiring another round of trips once I've done the basic street data.


Regards,
Tom

-- 
The struggle against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting
 - Kundera