Hi,
OTOH, this doesn't seem like a huge problem if we're importing the data
from elsewhere using automated tools and only tweaking by hand where
it's wrong--and ideally, there should be some sort of feedback mechanism
to get the source corrected so even that's a short-term problem.
Well, that's explicitly deprecated in OSM. Please look in the wiki about
mechanical edits.
If you have useful and free data then the better approach is to mix them
up with OSM data outside OSM and give the OSM mappers a tool such that
each mapper can pick what he/she deems useful in OSM.
Also, like it or not, Google Maps (and hence GTFS) has set a bar for
what users expect from online maps. I'd certainly like OSM to be
better, of course, but the current situation is that OSM is generally
far, far worse.
I think this is where local differences matter. In large parts of
Europe, the transit agencies themselves have already good information,
OSM is more or less on par with that, and Google lags significantly behind.
And: how to tell apart services that run a few times per day from those
that have a headway of a few minutes?
That's starting down a slippery slope to including full schedule data.
Once again, please note that this is a huge difference in local culture.
All around the world, if there is a metro then people usually go there
without looking on a timetable and it as granted that the headway is a
few minutes. Next to nobody consults a timetable first, and some systems
don't even public precise timetables.
Believe it or not, there are quite a number of bus service mimicking
this concept:
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_%C3%A0_haut_niveau_de_service
This is in contrast to a number of service that run once a day on
schooldays.
In between, there are a lot of services that have a fixed headway all
over the day:
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horaire_cadenc%C3%A9
In practice here in Europe, reducing complexity would mean to send a
potential passenger to the next stop of a high frenquency service or
clock-face scheduled service and to ignore once-a-day services altogether.
And the right solution for this is not to delete these services from OSM
but to mark them as low-frequency service.
If you would like to improve relevance of OSM, discriminating between
these three levels of service would be a prime concern.
- Where to start/end routing of vehicles?
Sorry for the misunderstanding. I'm talking about getting a vehicle from
stop to stop. While the overall level of detail is often good enough for
routing, this doesn't hold always. To find and resolve the mapping
issues it makes sense to check whether you can route from stop to stop.
If not, this is always a strong hint that there are mapping issues.
I do notice as a benefit from this discussion that not all transit
agencies (Tulsa, Portland) care whether their routes can be lawfully
driven in reality. That's different here in, at least in Western Europe,
maybe all Europe.
- How to obtain a name of a station?
Please start trying to work with the data.
Names can come from the pole, the platform, the stop_position, a
connecting stop area. Or a combination of that, including contradicting
information. Factor in "local_name", "loc_name", "official_name",
probably others, and in countries like Switzerland and Belgium names in
multiple languages.
To make things more fun, some stations have different names for some of
their stops within the station. And add abbreviations to the equation or
the repetition of the municipality name in the name tag.
I would like to see a set of rules that answer questions like:
- Does a "name:en" tag on the pole override a "name" tag on the
stop_position, or vice versa? What about a "name:en" tag on a
stop_position versus "name" on a platform?
- Should "Hbf" be expanded to "Hauptbahnhof", or the suffix "(Westf)" to
"(Westfalen)"?
- Have the tracks in the station "Vaugirard" this name or the name
"Montparnasse"?
Paul has already mentioned that, to the contrary of these observations,
at some places the stops don't have explicit names and get their names
from nearby street features.
To sum up: if you set up a consolidation service to mix up GTFS data
with OSM data outside OSM, a lot of people would be grateful. If you
push somehow converted GTFS data into OSM then most mapppers will treat
this as more harm than good.
Best regards,
Roland
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