Thanks to everyone for continued patience with trying to refine the
definition.
I think we've most likely reached a point where "with all the horse
puckey about, there must be a pony in there somewhere!"
Let me try to take another run at the hill.
WHERE DOES ACCESS=PERMIT APPLY?
===============================
The lines between different sorts of access=* are always going to be
slightly blurred at the margins, because it's a human system we're
dealing with. Nevertheless, there are a few common themes here.
access=permit generally indicates "permission must be obtained in
advance, but permission is ordinarily available to the general
public."
The situations where it seems to be a recurring motif are access
to quasi-private roads, trails, parcels of land, and access to urban
parking. (There are also the ridiculous straw-men that people are
raising - countries that require visas for entry, the fact that a
driving license is required to drive on public roads, the fact that
some places require a doctor's certification for access to facilities
for the disabled. I ignore those for now.)
For both of these, key aspects are (1) that permission must be
obtained in advance, often at a different location; (2) the permission
is truly for public access to the facility, rather than the public
access being a benefit of some other affiliation, or being incidental
to another service.
URBAN PARKING: If it's simply "you must pay to park", it's
'fee=yes'. That carries the expectation that if you show up at the
facility and it's not full, you can pay your money and park there. By
contrast, 'access=permit' is, "you must contract with the facility in
advance to be allowed to park there." When I lived in a larger city,
there were many parking lots that were publicly owned but required a
municipal permit to park in them. It was easier for the city to
administer than having attendants and/or parking meters at each
one. Many "park and ride" commuter lots were administered in this way.
ROADS: I could imagine roads that are administered in the same way,
but around here I can't cite an example. (Even our roads that have
automated toll collection with a transponder have either a handful of
manual toll booths for visitors, or can assess the toll by means of a
license plate camera and bill the vehicle owner.) But it's certainly
possible to imagine a road whose use is by subscription only, and I'm
sure that such a beast exists somewhere in this varied world. Ordinary
toll roads are 'toll=*'. You show up, pay your money and go, with no
advance formalities.
I'm not sure about "low emission vehicle". I see it as being more
analogous to "heavy goods vehicle", "high occupancy vehicle",
"motorcycle", .... a vehicle type that the existing schema could
accommodate. It's an attribute of the vehicle (perhaps attested to by
a certificate or medallion), rather than a permission.
OUTDOOR FACILITIES: Here the difference is fairly clear in my mind,
but there is room for judgment at the corners.
I would exclude sports clubs, country clubs, summer camps, ski
resorts, and such facilities that provide access to members only from
'access=permit'. A membership in such an organization provides other
services than simple access to the land: often food, lodging, changing
rooms and showers, warming huts, ski lift services, and similar
ancillary services are bundled in the fee, or conditioned on paying it
as well as paying extra for the service. For several of the ski
resorts around here, I would nevertheless add 'foot=permit' or
'foot=permissive', because they have a policy of either out-and-out
allowing the public to access their grounds (provided that they do not
intrude on pistes, or out of season), or to access their grounds with
prior permission. That is a permit merely to access the lands, rather
than a membership or fee for services in which the land access is one
of an array of benefits. Other than that sort of exception, these
facilities are "access=private."
I would also exclude those facilities that condition access to being a
member of a particular group, for instance, a parishioner of a
particular church, a member of a particular profession, or a citizen
of a particular dependent nation (e.g. Native American
reservations). These, too, are 'access=private'.
Facilities that offer 'day memberships' are in a grey area, but I'd
tend toward 'access=private' or 'access=fee' mostly depending on
whether the permission must be purchased in advance or is available on
arrival. Still, I wouldn't raise a stink if someone else were to
decide that such a facility is 'access=permit'.
Conditions required by local law that are not specifically bound to
the facilities in question are entirely out of scope. The fact that I
would need a state hunting license, an appropriate firearm
registration, and a bear tag to hunt bear on a particular preserve, as
well as having access to the land, is not something that I propose to
map. All the state and local regulations regarding the possession of
arms and harvesting of wildlife must be complied with whether I'm on
state land, New York City watershed, a private preserve, or my
brother's back forty. (If I were to hunt, I'd favour my brother's back
forty, because I don't want to have to carry a deer out of most of
those other places. My brother can get his tractor pretty far into his
woods on his ATV trail.)
So is there still a place after this for 'access=permit'?
WHAT ACCESS=PERMIT MEANS
========================
There are still significant cases that remain, even after excluding
all of these. They've been given in earlier messages in the
thread. They seem to share a common set of attributes. A permit must
be applied for in advance of a visit. The application process may be
easy and fast, or lengthy and difficult, but in any case applies to
the general public in a nondiscriminatory fashion (barring certain
exceptions such as "minors may not apply", "convicted felons may not
apply", with the exception groups all being groups who ordinarily are
expected to have diminished privileges). The permit is specifically
for access to the facility, rather than for a bundle of services to
which access is incidental. Often, permits are free of charge or
available at only a nominal administrative fee. (But see the
discussion of urban parking: I'm comfortable with the distinction that
'access=fee' might mean "fee paid on arrival or departure" while
'access=permit' would mean "access must be permitted in advance."
One thing that is common to all the cases I've seen, be they parking,
restricted road, or outdoor facility, is that they are posted with
their permit requirements. (Ordinarily 'access by permit only' and
contact information.) If the posters have no contact information, that
tends toward 'access=private' - if the manager wanted permits to be
available to the general public, they'd ordinarily tell the public
where to inquire. This check (which is really a special case of
"visible on the ground") would eliminate most of the spurious things
that posters here have warned against. Nowhere have I seen posters
warning that a license is required to drive on the public highway!
So the key facets seem to be.
* Advance permission is required. (Generally speaking, one cannot
expect simply to arrive at the site and receive permission on the
spot.)
* A policy is in place whereby the general public, rather than
members of a specified group, may apply for permission. (Among
other things, this alone would rule out border controls: the
citizens of a state ordinarily do not require permission to
enter or remain in their own state. It also rules out membership
clubs, affinity groups, dependent nation lands, ... which
are some other 'access=*', often 'private')
* Permission is ordinarily certified by a paper statement,
card, vehicle tag, medallion, or other physical token.
* The permission is specifically for access to the lands, ways or
other facilities. This eliminates things like 'day memberships'
that some clubs offer: those are for other services, and the
access to the land is incidental to the package. It also
eliminates documentation of things such as vehicle type or
disability that are attributes (which perhaps must be proven)
of the vehicle or of the person, rather than permissions.
WHAT ACCESS=PERMIT DOES NOT MEAN
================================
Things that are NOT key facets:
* The authority that grants permission. In my area, they range
from the Federal government right down to individual small
landowners. My state has a program in place to support
private landowners who wish to do this.
http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/wildlife_pdf/askperm.pdf
and provides a standard permit form
http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/wildlife_pdf/ask.pdf
that they may use, and a standard sticker to apply to their
posters to inform the public that permission may be sought.
* Whether or not a fee is charged. (Rather, it's whether or not
facility access is the principal benefit of the permission.)
* The difficulty of obtaining permission, as long as the process
is open to the public at large. (Permits to access certain areas
of US National Parks are by lottery, with many more applicants
than places, but entering the lottery is available to the public
on a nondiscriminatory basis.)
* The reason that the manager of the facility requires permission.
* The specific activities that may be allowed, except as posted
and observable in the field. (What should be mapped is what
is posted. Ordinarily, contact information is posted, while
the details are provided along with the permit process.)
DISTINGUISHING FROM OTHER ACCESS=*
==================================
'access=permit' is different from the following access restrictions,
as indicated:
access=yes (no permission needed)
access=destination (ordinarily, permission not required as long
as you're visiting the destination)
access=permissive (ordinarily, no permission needed)
access=customers/delivery/agricultural/forestry/dismount (limits to
a particular activity)
access=private, access=no (favored unless conditions are met for
other access=*). I find it difficult to distinguish these two;
I tend toward 'no' only when a way is impassable to a given
transportation mode or when the given mode is prohibited by
statute; 'private' when the given mode is reserved to the
landowner (who can, of course, delegate permission).
(transport mode)=designated Usually implies permission
(transport mode)=use_sidepath Usually inherits access constraints
from 'access=*'
(transport mode)=discouraged Used to represent signage that
deprecates a given transport mode, such as warning HGV away
from narrow but passable ways.
COMBINATION WITH OTHER TAGS
===========================
Including 'access=permit' without contact information for the
permitting authority is to be considered poor practice. If signage
requiring a permit is present without contact information, the access
is likely to be 'private' rather than 'permit' according to the
definitions presented here.
Of course, 'access=permit' may be applied with conditional
restrictions, just as any other tag. That would allow a mapper to
build up combinations such as:
"Open to foot/horse/ski travel at all times. Open to motor
vehicles and bicycles by permit May-October, not at other
times. Open to snowmobiles (no permit required) November-April.
No buses or heavy goods vehicles at any time, except for
forestry vehicles."
That would be a complicated bit of tagging, but would certainly
be representable in the schema. And it would be a reasonably
accurate spelling out of what's meant by local signs that say,
"Seasonal Limited Use Highway, Permit Required." I've never tried
to tag that, I don't see how to do it without violating the "good
practice" of "don't map local legislation." I would simply tag
it as 'motor_vehicle=permit bicycle=permit foot=yes horse=yes
ski=yes snowmobile="yes @ November - April"' and include contact
information. That's going a little bit beyond the observable
sign, but the benefit to routers of at least that much detail
would be pretty compelling. (Given that these roads are also
usually 'highway=unclassified/track surface=compacted,
smoothness=bad', routers would tend to avoid them anyway!)
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