IMHO route_ref is just a placeholder until you make the stops members
of the route relations, so don't worry about it
Richard
On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 3:35 PM, Hillsman, Edward hills...@cutr.usf.edu wrote:
As I mentioned in an earlier post, we have two public transit systems
operating in the area of our university. They both serve a transit
center/bus_station just off campus, but they share some stops on campus (and
pass by some of the others’ stops on campus). They have multiple routes at
some of the shared stops.
I have found guidance on the wiki
(http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:highway%3Dbus_stop) that where a
multiple routes serve a stop, this should be tagged by listing the routes in
numeric order and then (if necessary) alphabetical order, with the routes
separated by semicolons, using no spaces unless they are part of the route
designation. The example in the wiki is
route_ref=66A;123;456;s78;x9
What is not clear is how to handle a situation in which a stop serves two
operators and multiple routes for each. For example, one stop is on HART
routes 5 and 12, and on USF routes A and C
By inference, we would code the operators in alphabetical order, separated
by semicolons, as
operator=HART;USF
And in this case, because the USF system designates routes by letters while
HART uses numbers, we could luck out with
route_ref=5;12;A;D
But if both systems used route numbers, this would not indicate which routes
belong to which operators.
I know from experience that transit agencies in the Puget Sound region
interline all the time, sometimes at transit centers/bus_stations but more
often not, and most use numeric route identifiers. My understanding is that
when the UK privatized some of its bus service, it had multiple companies
serving the same stops. So this should not be a one-off instance here.
An alternative format would be to code an operator1=HART and
route_ref1=5;12, and an operator2=USF with route_ref2=A;D, but this seems
error-prone to me. I’ve seen this format used in mapping some other
features, but I haven’t seen documentation of it.
A recent comment here suggested that it might be better not to include route
information, because routes change, and situations such as this may be
another reason not to do so. However, the routes near campus are very stable
(the USF system adds routes, but otherwise changes them only to avoid
construction). And, when we communicated with local mappers of bus_stops
about our plans to upload GTFS data, we were asked whether we could upload
the routes as well as the other information. So there is demand for it, even
though in a trip-planning application we would use the GTFS stop_id to link
between other OSM data and transit route/schedule data.
We would welcome suggestions or guidance on how to handle the route tagging.
Given the specialized focus of this problem, I’m not posting it to the
tagging listserv.
Ed
Edward L. Hillsman, Ph.D.
Senior Research Associate
Center for Urban Transportation Research
University of South Florida
4202 Fowler Ave., CUT100
Tampa, FL 33620-5375
813-974-2977 (tel)
813-974-5168 (fax)
hills...@cutr.usf.edu
http://www.cutr.usf.edu
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