On 5 Sep 2009, at 20:47, Chris Morley wrote:
Peter Miller wrote:I have been comparing the timetables for October 2009 and August 2009 for my home town in Ipswich and I would estimate that 20% of the routes have changed in that time. Some have merged, some have moved operator some have disappeared. That is a lot and I haven't evenchecked the individual timing for journeys or days of operation. There are some 1.4 million bus journeys in the UK database so if 20% of themdisappear randomly every 10 months that is 300,000 changes to spot.In my area (Chester West and Chester) 19 of the 105 bus services were added, withdrawn or had their routes changes in September 2009 alone. This is higher than the average but it does illustrate the transient nature of routes with the current system in the UK. Unlike Péter Connell, I do not think that there are enough enthusiasts prepared to do the grunt work of making these changes systematically on a monthly basis in every local transport area. It might be fun adding routes, but it is difficult to be as motivated on a continuing basis. It's true that other OSM data is patchy and sometimes wrong, but is generally on a trajectory of continuous improvement. With information that is too transient we could eventually be in a situation where the quality was getting worse with time. I think this means that either we should have no routes (option A) or if we do they should be automatically updated. This requires local authorities to share the information they hold in a comprehensive machine-readable format, which we have to hope happens soon. Even then, bus routes are maybe better suited to presentation as an overlay, with the data in a separate database that also hold timetable information. Routes and timetables change together, usually separately from roads or geography.
It is the chicken and egg problem. Once this data starts getting used, people will keep updating it if they find it useful. It is the same time and time again in OSM. Also as there are more people in more areas getting involved adding some more stuff coverage will become less of an issue.
Shaun
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