[OSM-talk] Escalators and Travalators

[Tobias Knerr]

Peter Childs wrote:
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/Escalator
> 
> I'm trying to work out how to tag Escalators I'm not sure the current
> tagging it clear, or even partially useful.

I wouldn't call this "current tagging". That page is a proposal in
"draft" state, i.e. its not even in the "please look at my proposal, try
it and comment" state (aka "RFC"). So if we find something better, we
can just use that instead.

> There seams to be no clear way to tag "Moving Walkways" or Travelators
> these are Esclators without steps, so the current tagging steps with
> an extra tag just does not work, spouse you could tag a path, but that
> just makes it worse.

I believe the best way to solve this is to create a new top-level (that
is, highway) value for all variants of conveyor transport. So, for
example, we could do:

highway = conveyor
conveyor = escalator / travelator
incline = up / down / <percentage> (nothing for horizontal travelators)

If required also something like:
conveyor:direction = forward (default) / backward / on_demand

Using a highway value is justified because applications that don't know
about this kind of feature would use it wrong anyway (e.g. route in the
wrong direction).

Would that solution work?

Tobias Knerr