I've been reading this: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/Public_Transpor t which I assume is the correct one to understand these discussions.
The key section I believe is: > Main Problem with the existing Schema > * Inconsistent handling of railway=tram_stop / railway=halt (node on the way) and highway=bus_stop (node beside the way). > * highway=bus_stop beside the way causes extra preprocessing for routing software. > * No separate tags for stop position and platform / pole. > * Insufficient possibility for line variants for bus lines. I don't see the first point as an issue. So they're inconsistent. If they're documented though that isn't a problem. The problem comes when people edit the wiki to try and change the definition to something other than that which is already widely used. Because these wiki changes has caused some debate, particularly about highway=bus_stop, I do like the backwards compatibility of public_transport=platform and public_transport=stop_position as people can use these new tags and still tag highway=bus_stop (either correctly besides the way, or wrongly in the way <g>) as they prefer. It is a shame that the wiki edits have made such unambiguous tags necessary though. The second point I can't comment on as I've never written routing software. As routing software exists and this proposal isn't (widely) used, it can't be a big issue, and I believe another post in this forum has made a similar point. The third point is only an issue if you feel it necessary to map the stop positions, which as per my comment on the second point I remain to be convinced about. The fourth point seems almost valid to me. While the existing forward/backward/alternate roles for route relations might make rendering the routes simple, I can see that having separate relations for the route from B to A and from A to B *if they are not identical but reversed* could have applications. Whether a route_master relation is necessary or not I am unconvinced about - it feels too much like using relations as categories which isn't what they are for. It may be a bit more work to create the relations originally, and maintain them on an ongoing basis, but some people map individual trees and how often do you need to resurvey those to check they haven't been hit by lightning, killed by disease or just plain felled? Or pubs - how often do you check each of those that yu map hasn't closed down in these financially difficult times? Maintaining the map going forward will be the bigger part of the project. None of the problems listed suggest any need for stop_areas or stop_area_groups, and the proposal indeed shows that the same can be done with appropriate tagging of the objects, or ignoring the stop_area_groups relation existence. So if we discount the stop_area, stop_area_group and route_master relations as unnecessary (sorry, optional), this proposal isn't really that big a change and I don't see why people are getting so upset about it. Ed _______________________________________________ Talk-transit mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-transit
