[OSM-talk] bus times - existing tags

[Mike N]

On 5/30/2011 10:07 PM, Robin Paulson wrote:
> i'm getting more into tagging bus routes in auckland, and wonder if
> there is a tagging scheme to cover the times of bus
> arrivals/departures? i have a few ideas of how it might work, but want
> to check out the existing system first. i can't find anything on the
> wiki


   From what I know, bus route schedules are all but officially 
discouraged in OSM due to

   1.  The difficulty in defining a mapping for time based data to geo data
   2.  While #1 is certainly possible, it's all but a waste of effort 
because data consumers would have to learn to consume a whole new protocol.

   It would be better to encode bus schedules following an existing open 
format such as GTFS http://www.gtfs-data-exchange.com/ .

   It's possible that "Someone" could run an open version of GTFS in the 
future if necessary to encourage use of OSM based bus routes.