[OSM-talk] Bus Stops

[Andy Robinson (blackadder)]

Ben Laenen [mailto:benlaenen at gmail.com] wrote:
>Sent: 24 April 2008 12:30 PM
>To: talk at openstreetmap.org
>Cc: Andy Robinson (blackadder); 'Jeffrey Martin'; 'Peter Miller'
>Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Bus Stops
>
>On Thursday 24 April 2008, Andy Robinson (blackadder) wrote:
>> Because a bus stop is a highway feature it really in my view should
>> be part of it. And because we map what we see on the ground then
>> logically if there are two bus stops not quite opposite each other
>> then I place two nodes, one for each and tag them appropriately.
>> Placing short links from a bus stop node placed off the highway to
>> the highway itself is I guess fine if those links are tagged as
>> highway=footway, but personally I think that's a lot of unnecessary
>> effort and complexity in the map.
>
>I'd like to compare tagging bus stops with tram stops here. While I
>think it's common (at least from what I've seen) to use nodes on the
>ways representing the tram lines, -- like we do for train stations --
>for some reason it isn't for bus stops. Even though tram stops have the
>exact same issue: it's not always a stop in both direction
>
>
>> The remaining issue revolves around the direction of the bus at a
>> particular node. I didn't have an answer to this until I looked at
>> what the signage was on my local bust stops. Now I find it easy to
>> tag because each one tells me in which direction the bus is
>> travelling (eg "towards Birmingham"). So I add a towards= tag and
>> jobs a good un. I'm not going to worry at the moment about how I
>> might use this tag to make bus route information, the important
>> aspect is that the data that's needed to work that out later is in
>> the database.
>
>That can be done for bus stops with only one line, but not when there
>are ten bus lines stopping which go to ten different destinations.

In Birmingham the "towards" label on the bus stop gives the general
direction and is usually the next logical placename on the general route,
often not very far away. It's not the final destination of the route, that's
associated with the route reference number and the timetable. Where the
location of the stop has many different routes running through it with
wildly varying destinations they tend here to place two or more shelters
adjacent to each other. I know of some pleases where there is a row of at
least 5 stops all next to one other (mainly found in the city centre), all
with separate shelters or sign posts. You similarly get the same sort of
thing at a bus station of course.

Like I said, it's easy for me to forget the difficulty and just enter the
data as it's displayed on the bus stop sign. I'm sure I'll work out a way of
making use of the data logically a lot later when all the Birmingham bus
stops are in the database. Maybe then I'll find I could/should have placed
and tagged a little differently, but somehow I suspect what I have got will
be good enough. Its working on the ground, so why not via the OSM database.

Cheers

Andy

>
>In a beautiful world we could just add the bus stops to the bus route
>relations, but we'd need to define good roles to make it obvious what
>direction a bus goes to there. But if that is worked out, there'll be
>no ambiguity left to put bus stop nodes on the highways anymore.
>
>Greetings
>Ben