[OSM-talk] specific Relations

[Stephen Gower]

On Mon, Oct 08, 2007 at 08:11:11PM +0100, David Earl wrote:
> See ... http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Relations
> 
> [...] I have put in initial descriptions for: [...]
> 
> * Routes, to include numbered roads, cycle routes and bus routes, 
> expandable to others.

  I've been thinking about this over the weekend, before actually
  reading David's proposal, because both my wife (in person) and a
  friend (on LJ) have wanted to find out about some of the newer
  routes in Oxford and realised there isn't a decent, up-to-date, bus
  route map of Oxford - naturally I thought OSM!
  
  I had thought some of what David had, and some other stuff, but
  before I go further with his proposal, I'd like to estabish the
  limits of relations.
  
  David has suggested we record, using the "role" tag, the
  direction(s) the stop operates in.  This is important, but I can
  think of other attributes, that may refer to every route using the
  stop, but may refer to just one route. If "role" is being used for
  direction, what can we use to tag the other attributes?
  
  As an example, some stops are set-down only, generally this is for
  all routes using the stop (so could be tagged on the node itself,
  not the individual relations), but that's not guaranteed. 
  Similarly some stops have time restrictions, but not for all routes
  - the Oxford Park and Ride busses will stop at some stops in
  non-peak times, but go all the way through during the rush hour.
  
  http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/OSM_Protocol_Version_0.5
  describes the XML for relations thus:
  
} <relation id="99">
}   <member type="way" ref="345" role="" />
}   <member type="way" ref="346" role="" />
}   <member type="way" ref="347" role="" />
}   <tag k="highway" v="motorway" />
}   <tag k="type" v="superway" />
} </relation>

  So, after all my long-winded verbage, my question is: do members
  *have* to be self-closing XML tags, or could they also contain
  <tag>s?

  If not, is there another way to express the various attributes of a
  bus stop which refer to just a subset of the routes of that stop?
  (for example)

  s