Re: [Talk-transit] Mapping train services in Great Britain

[Tony Shield]

Hi Michael

As you say train services in England,Wales and Scotland (EWS) are 
difficult to map, Northern Ireland has its own train system.


'Routes' have different meanings depending on the view point of the user 
of the word. To a passenger there is a route Southampton to Brighton 
which is direct, there is also a route where you have to change trains 
and travels on a different railway line.


To the infrastructure operator a route is a geographic region with many 
lines and services that may use a particular piece of railway 
infrastructure. So London to Brighton is a route that may also 
incorporate the branches to Littlehampton and Newhaven.


Mapping the railway infrastructure has mostly been completed, but the 
services are complex, the route Preston to Manchester has trains which 
start in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Barrow-in-Furness, Blackpool North and 
Preston, and terminations in Manchester Piccadilly, Manchester Oxford 
Road, Manchester Victoria, Stockport, Heald Green and Manchester 
Airport.  Relating that set of variations and then been able to ask 
meaningful queries is I think beyond OSM. It is why there are many 
specialised ticket and route planning apps available.


I notice that someone has created a relation for the  10:28 service from 
Southampton Central to Brighton - but is the creator likely to maintain 
it for the years, it is of no real use unless all the other trains are 
so mapped.


Each service has its own internal reference/ID eg 1A26 which is not 
publicly available and may change with each timetable change.


My experience is that the professionals in the rail industry mess up the 
timetables with sufficient regularity that OSM maintaining its own 
version is going to be difficult.


You ask about joining and separating serves - passengers are not told if 
a service splits, they are advised to travel in first 4 coaches or the 
rear 8 coaches  - or similar. Inside the industry a service that joins 
may start as 1A88 and join with 1A56 at Preston to go forward as 1A88.


I'll happily help if I can but mapping the EWS rail system is hard - 
even for the professionals.


Tony

TonyS999

On 30/05/2021 21:52, Michael Tsang wrote:

Dear all,

I'm attempting to map some of the train services in Great Britain. However,
the rail network in GB is so hard to use and so hard to understand that I need
to ask the correct way to map it.

For example, the route I'm working on is Southampton - Brighton, however, it
seems that trains between these two termini have different stops for every
departures. In this case, do I create a relation showing the stops served for
each departure?

Also, there are some cases where a train split or merge en-route. How do I map
these services?

Thanks,
Michael

___
Talk-transit mailing list
Talk-transit@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-transit
___
Talk-transit mailing list
Talk-transit@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-transit

Re: [Talk-transit] Mapping train services in Great Britain

[Mark Lester via Talk-transit]

Wiring services directly into the map has obvious maintenance problems. Keeping 
the map aligned with timetable changes clearly isn't feasible. I don't believe 
this data belongs in the map proper.Using a route planner to calculate bus 
routes is feasible. I did a lot of work on this. It's all in JavaScript on 
Node. I can handle any public GTFS, you need to rationalize them extensively, 
they can be vast.Doing this for railways turns out to be much harder. You get 
trains doing crazy things at mega stations, you have to work out where the 
platforms are etc. It would be quite useful in the US where most of the network 
doesn't carry passenger services, or Argentina where there is an enormous 
network mapped which is largely derelict or just carries cattle.I was 
developing combined vector and raster tiles to support interactive network maps 
to any resolution. So you can zoom out and hover over the east coast mainline 
and get principal services highlighted. Or over a city and get to interrogate 
an otherwise impenetrable bus map. We have a transparent vector tile up to a 
limit laid over a full res raster. I gave up as I couldn't find anyone 
interested. The bus mapping was going very well, you just can't give this stuff 
away. The railways needs significant input from route planning guys to do this. 

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android 
 
  On Mon, 31 May 2021 at 18:17, Tony Shield wrote:   
___
Talk-transit mailing list
Talk-transit@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-transit
  
___
Talk-transit mailing list
Talk-transit@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-transit

Re: [Talk-transit] Mapping train services in Great Britain

[Peter Hicks]

Hello!

Services on Network Rail infrastructure have a set of timing points and
arrival and/or departure or passing times at these locations.  Services
must include a timing point at every location where it stops, plus
mandatory locations - so you will see all trains with a time at Watford
Junction regardless of whether they stop or not.  However, you won't see
any trains at Kings Langley (one stop north) apart from ones that don't
stop, because it isn't a mandatory timing point.

Services may also call at the same stations but take a different route on
particular days, and the concept of a 'route' is really hard to define
anyway.  Is a service from London Euston to Tring (destination) a "route"?
What about a service that runs from London Euston to Milton Keynes Central,
further down the line?  Is the Euston - Tring "route" a duplicate of the
Euston - Milton Keynes "route"?  If not, what about a Euston - Edinburgh
service?  Would a Euston - Tring service be part of that "route" too?

I agree with Mark that this is best kept out of OSM.  In the rail industry,
we don't really have a strict concept of a 'route' in train service terms,
only a set of timing points.

Peter Hicks
Director
OpenTrainTimes Ltd.


On Mon, 31 May 2021 at 14:38, Mark Lester via Talk-transit <
talk-transit@openstreetmap.org> wrote:

> Wiring services directly into the map has obvious maintenance problems.
> Keeping the map aligned with timetable changes clearly isn't feasible. I
> don't believe this data belongs in the map proper.
> Using a route planner to calculate bus routes is feasible. I did a lot of
> work on this. It's all in JavaScript on Node. I can handle any public GTFS,
> you need to rationalize them extensively, they can be vast.
> Doing this for railways turns out to be much harder. You get trains doing
> crazy things at mega stations, you have to work out where the platforms are
> etc. It would be quite useful in the US where most of the network doesn't
> carry passenger services, or Argentina where there is an enormous network
> mapped which is largely derelict or just carries cattle.
> I was developing combined vector and raster tiles to support interactive
> network maps to any resolution. So you can zoom out and hover over the east
> coast mainline and get principal services highlighted. Or over a city and
> get to interrogate an otherwise impenetrable bus map. We have a transparent
> vector tile up to a limit laid over a full res raster.
> I gave up as I couldn't find anyone interested. The bus mapping was going
> very well, you just can't give this stuff away. The railways needs
> significant input from route planning guys to do this.
>
>
> Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android
> 
>
> On Mon, 31 May 2021 at 18:17, Tony Shield
>  wrote:
> ___
> Talk-transit mailing list
> Talk-transit@openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-transit
>
> ___
> Talk-transit mailing list
> Talk-transit@openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-transit
>

-- 


OpenTrainTimes Ltd. registered in England and Wales, company no. 
09504022.
Registered office: Suite 1-3, Hop Exchange, 24 Southwark Street, 
London SE1 1TY

___
Talk-transit mailing list
Talk-transit@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-transit

Re: [Talk-transit] Mapping train services in Great Britain

[Roger Slevin]

An interesting thread – and one in which I agree with Tony, Mark and Peter in 
saying that public transport services and timetables don’t appear to me to have 
a valid place in OSM.  Whilst the infrastructure on which public transport 
operates and depends can and should be mapped as part of an area’s Topography, 
services and timetables are transitory in nature – and I find it hard to think 
of any other transient phenomenon that would be legitimately represented in 
OSM.  Surely OSM should focus on elements of the natural and man-made world 
that are durable – which can then be referenced by others (such as in journey 
planning or ticketing systems) whether to create the input or output of those 
information services.

 

Roger

 

From: Peter Hicks  
Sent: 31 May 2021 14:50
To: Mark Lester ; Public transport/transit/shared taxi 
related topics 
Cc: Talk GB 
Subject: Re: [Talk-transit] Mapping train services in Great Britain

 

Hello!

 

Services on Network Rail infrastructure have a set of timing points and arrival 
and/or departure or passing times at these locations.  Services must include a 
timing point at every location where it stops, plus mandatory locations - so 
you will see all trains with a time at Watford Junction regardless of whether 
they stop or not.  However, you won't see any trains at Kings Langley (one stop 
north) apart from ones that don't stop, because it isn't a mandatory timing 
point.

 

Services may also call at the same stations but take a different route on 
particular days, and the concept of a 'route' is really hard to define anyway.  
Is a service from London Euston to Tring (destination) a "route"?  What about a 
service that runs from London Euston to Milton Keynes Central, further down the 
line?  Is the Euston - Tring "route" a duplicate of the Euston - Milton Keynes 
"route"?  If not, what about a Euston - Edinburgh service?  Would a Euston - 
Tring service be part of that "route" too?

 

I agree with Mark that this is best kept out of OSM.  In the rail industry, we 
don't really have a strict concept of a 'route' in train service terms, only a 
set of timing points.




Peter Hicks

Director

OpenTrainTimes Ltd.

 

 

On Mon, 31 May 2021 at 14:38, Mark Lester via Talk-transit 
mailto:talk-transit@openstreetmap.org> > wrote:

Wiring services directly into the map has obvious maintenance problems. Keeping 
the map aligned with timetable changes clearly isn't feasible. I don't believe 
this data belongs in the map proper.

Using a route planner to calculate bus routes is feasible. I did a lot of work 
on this. It's all in JavaScript on Node. I can handle any public GTFS, you need 
to rationalize them extensively, they can be vast.

Doing this for railways turns out to be much harder. You get trains doing crazy 
things at mega stations, you have to work out where the platforms are etc. It 
would be quite useful in the US where most of the network doesn't carry 
passenger services, or Argentina where there is an enormous network mapped 
which is largely derelict or just carries cattle.

I was developing combined vector and raster tiles to support interactive 
network maps to any resolution. So you can zoom out and hover over the east 
coast mainline and get principal services highlighted. Or over a city and get 
to interrogate an otherwise impenetrable bus map. We have a transparent vector 
tile up to a limit laid over a full res raster. 

I gave up as I couldn't find anyone interested. The bus mapping was going very 
well, you just can't give this stuff away. The railways needs significant input 
from route planning guys to do this. 

 

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android 

 

 

On Mon, 31 May 2021 at 18:17, Tony Shield

mailto:tonyo...@gmail.com> > wrote:

___
Talk-transit mailing list
Talk-transit@openstreetmap.org  
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-transit

___
Talk-transit mailing list
Talk-transit@openstreetmap.org  
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-transit

 

 

OpenTrainTimes Ltd. registered in England and Wales, company no. 09504022.

Registered office: Suite 1-3, Hop Exchange, 24 Southwark Street, London SE1 1TY

___
Talk-transit mailing list
Talk-transit@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-transit

Re: [Talk-transit] Mapping train services in Great Britain

[Michael Tsang]

On Monday, 31 May 2021 16:14:47 BST Roger Slevin wrote:
> and one in which I agree with Tony, Mark and Peter in saying that public
> transport services and timetables don’t appear to me to have a valid place
> in OSM

We have already mapped the complete bus networks in certain cities. In OSM 
terms, a public transport route is defined as "the order where the service 
stops to carry passengers, and the path where it transverse on". It does not 
include the timetable data.

I have also mapped a lot of bus and train routes in different cities as well, 
and it is very useful for OSM to have bus and train routes. When I travel to a 
new city I use OsmAnd a lot to find which bus I need to take to go to a certain 
direction, and where it will stop.

The problem with GB railways is that each departure serves completely different 
stops, which means, if we strictly follow the "one variant = one relation" 
model as in current PTv2 schema, we have to map each departure as distinct 
relations on the map, because each departure serves different stops, which mean 
they are different variants.

Michael

-- 
Sent from KMail

signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
___
Talk-transit mailing list
Talk-transit@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-transit

Re: [Talk-transit] [Talk-GB] Mapping train services in Great Britain

[Philip Barnes]

On Mon, 2021-05-31 at 22:18 +0100, Michael Tsang wrote:
> On Monday, 31 May 2021 16:14:47 BST Roger Slevin wrote:
> > and one in which I agree with Tony, Mark and Peter in saying that
> > public
> > transport services and timetables don’t appear to me to have a
> > valid place
> > in OSM
> 
> We have already mapped the complete bus networks in certain cities.
> In OSM 
> terms, a public transport route is defined as "the order where the
> service 
> stops to carry passengers, and the path where it transverse on". It
> does not 
> include the timetable data.
> 
> I have also mapped a lot of bus and train routes in different cities
> as well, 
> and it is very useful for OSM to have bus and train routes. When I
> travel to a 
> new city I use OsmAnd a lot to find which bus I need to take to go to
> a certain 
> direction, and where it will stop.
> 
I think you are missing the point that GB is not a city.

Cities are densly pack and urban transport systems reflect this. In
London tube trains simply stop at every station.

This structure will not work when it comes to rural stations, and what
we have works very well. It would not be efficient to stop every trains
at stations which only have a few dozen passengers in a day.


> The problem with GB railways is that each departure serves completely
> different 
> stops, which means, if we strictly follow the "one variant = one
> relation" 
> model as in current PTv2 schema, we have to map each departure as
> distinct 
> relations on the map, because each departure serves different stops,
> which mean 
> they are different variants.
You also have to remember that the timetables and hence services are
seasonal to reflect different passenger demands.

Many of us have thought about train routes but concluded on a country
level they are too complex and require a huge amount of mainatainance.
The timetable changes every 6 months, and as a minimum needs to be
checked.

I started thinking about my local station, to the North trains can go
to Crewe, Chester or Manchester Piccadilly. To the south trains can go
to Shrewsbury, Birmingham International, Cardiff Central, Swansea,
Carmathen, Pembroke Dock, Milford Haven and Fishguard. That is all
before to start considering which of the dozens of stations each
service calls, or may call at if it is a request stop.

As other have said, this is not something that belongs in OSM. 

If you need to work out how to get somewhere then the train companies
apps and websites work very well. If you want to include buses as well
the traveline is excellent.

Phil (trigpoint)




___
Talk-transit mailing list
Talk-transit@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-transit

Re: [Talk-transit] [Talk-GB] Mapping train services in Great Britain

[Michael Tsang]

> I think you are missing the point that GB is not a city.

> Cities are densly pack and urban transport systems reflect this. In
London tube trains simply stop at every station.

> This structure will not work when it comes to rural stations, and what
we have works very well. It would not be efficient to stop every trains
at stations which only have a few dozen passengers in a day.

Other European countries are doing it much better. The routes are numbered. 
There are designated express services with stops only in big cities. The rural 
stations have only local stopping services which call at every stop en-route.

We don't even have a useful route map from train companies that can work out 
which train I should take without consulting the timetable.

___
Talk-transit mailing list
Talk-transit@openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-transit

Re: [Talk-transit] [Talk-GB] Mapping train services in Great Britain

[Mark Lester via Talk-transit]

This post is slightly spooky as only the other day I told Ed and Marc at 
opencage to reclaim the box, I can't be bothered anymore. It's been dormant for 
12 months. 
The bus stuff works certainly as poc. Getting hold of all the UK buses was 
beyond me, but Ireland and Holland have accessible saturation coverage of 
everything that moves. The process I developed handles both those countries on 
modest hardware within a day, RoI about 3 hours flat I think. I didn't pay the 
bill at digital ocean and they zapped my database despite the good money I 
paid.for backups. I was working at a planetary level if you like, I was piling 
on humongous amounts of data and repairing bottle necks. I had everything but 
North America, a substantial chunk but a lot less than half of the whole lot, 
and I'd already done the GTFS of countless other civilizations and bonkers 
datasets. Just from a fun point of view, New York is a scared place if you are 
building this. I was leaving her till last.
I looked at this subject very deeply for several years and produced a 
substantial architecture to handle not just national level , but the entire 
planetary infrastructure. To cope with that you are obviously going to need an 
incremental architecture, the data set is moving so rapidly you'd never get it 
printed. So I concocted an hierarchical incremental reductive tile rendering 
architecture I call Archimedes. So we not only print just what we need to but 
we can actually update the higher and global tiles in almost real time.Even 
places like Paris become a serious mouthful. We are trying to mechanically tag 
essentially our own way grouping with all the relevant services. The data is 
presented in an often super stupendously redundant manner I extensively stress 
tested this architecture. I was about to go coast to coast and hoover up all 
those Canoga Park metros in the US but I couldn't find the Greyhound stuff and 
hence not a national picture. It was intended as my gift to you, I do this for 
free. If the UK is so incompetent it can't even collect the GTFS that must 
necessarily exist for it to be on Google, Greyhound buses and Indian railways, 
consider the critical details of their national level public service to be not 
public domain information, and with nobody in here paying any commercial 
attention to me, I packed in. There are some potentially intractable issues 
with line/network reduction, I drifted off into trying to render a road map 
that would show me say Kazakhstan or Brazil at full view, but still handle 
Dortmund, Shanghai and the Eastern seaboard. I believe that is doable, and just 
the transport infrastructure is complex enough so needs btonbe addressed. . 
Just painting a substantial city in one view needs reduction and I wanted to 
build an interrogative map where you can pan out and discover stuff. We don't 
have much in the way of ferry data on GTFS but on examination of them on the 
map I decided they were quite reliable enough to be considered real. The boat 
network on the Irrawaddy delta is stupendous FYI.You can get away with 
scrawling the timetable on the map for ferries, it's perhaps a valid counter 
example as they are almost entirely mapped on a per service basis. The Baltic 
routes are too dense but almost everywhere else it's basically a service 
announcement. I guess that's accepted practice and I think it works. Doing it 
for bus and rail is futile and will result in worthless archeological data.
The only way this can be done is essentially getting the route planner to draw 
routes from GTFS. If you think that's not ultimately commercially feasible, at 
least not on a grand scale, we are just going to have to endure a world of bits 
and pieces where you have to in effect know where you are going beforehand, 
then in the final analysis I have to concede defeat. If on the other hand you'd 
like to have a go at an interactive bus map, and with a wee bit of cooperation 
from the route finding people also the trains, of the entire global published 
GTFS dataset, it is most certainly doable.







Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android 
 
  On Tue, 1 Jun 2021 at 4:58, Philip Barnes wrote:   On 
Mon, 2021-05-31 at 22:18 +0100, Michael Tsang wrote:
> On Monday, 31 May 2021 16:14:47 BST Roger Slevin wrote:
> > and one in which I agree with Tony, Mark and Peter in saying that
> > public
> > transport services and timetables don’t appear to me to have a
> > valid place
> > in OSM
> 
> We have already mapped the complete bus networks in certain cities.
> In OSM 
> terms, a public transport route is defined as "the order where the
> service 
> stops to carry passengers, and the path where it transverse on". It
> does not 
> include the timetable data.
> 
> I have also mapped a lot of bus and train routes in different cities
> as well, 
> and it is very useful for OSM to have bus and train routes. When I
> travel to a 
> new city I use OsmAnd a lot to find which bus I need to take to go to
> a certain 
> d