Talk:Trams

From OpenStreetMap Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

I believe we should encourage people to always draw each track as separate way. --Gorm 23:24, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Show us an example of how it's done (I think one way for both tracks is far more common, and separate tracks raises all sorts of issues that ought to be addressed before making it the recommendation). --RichardMann 10:23, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

In Budapest, all the trams are represented on the track level: tram in the middle, to the side, and embedded in the road. Another example. flaktack 18:26, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

In Bratislava, Slovakia we use a separate track (rails) for each direction for the whole tram network. Trains are a different story. -- aceman444 20 Oct 2013

Embedded Tracks

When mapping embedded tram tracks by its own osm-way but sharing the nodes of the road, how do we handle:

  • Track level mapping: For two tacks on on road, do we have three osm-ways sharing the same nodes? For me this would indicate both tracks are located on an absolute identical position (contradicting in reality).
  • Physical structures shared by the road and the track (bridge, embarkment, level, surface, ...). Do we duplicate them for for each osm-way? To me this would indicate, this tag applies to both, road and track, independently. E. g. two bridges instade of one shared bridge.

Why cant we treat an embeddet track like a lane dedicated for tram use? Like we do with bicycle lanes. Nzara 18:07, 7 April 2012 (BST)


I agree embedded tracks should be treated coherently with the way we treat bicycle lanes. That also gives a way to understand if a given road has embedded tram tracks in it (ie. to mark it as 'dangerous for cycling', or for any other use). Otherwise we would need some sort of tag on the 'street' osm-way to mark that the street has tracks, how many, where they are, etc. See "Is there any way to know if a road has railway (tram) tracks embedded in it?" and the Bicycle page. --Marcoq (talk) 14:08, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Level crossings

Is there any rule on how to map level crossings of a road (street) and a tram railway? Visually they are railway=level_crossing + crossing:barrier=no + crossing:bell=no + crossing:light=no. However, in practice they are not the same as a proper train railway level crossing. E.g. for train crossings there use to be additional law restrictions (e.g. maxspeed, parking, turning regulations). Crossing of road vehicles over the tram rail inside a city is probably controlled by highway=traffic_lights already mapped on a separate node on the node. For these 2 reasons I think mapping the crossing a normal railway=level_crossing may cause unnecessary penalties to be applied by navigation software (on a train level crossing you can be blocked for minutes without even seeing the train, on a tram crossing you usually can see the tram coming and the passing of it is a matter of seconds).

Has this been discussed anywhere? Can somebody show an example city where this is somehow solved already? -- aceman444 20 Oct 2013

meaning of tram key

The tag tram=yes on this page redirects to the access page (legal access restrictions), but the linked page has no information about the tram key. Also there might be a difference between legally accessible and dedicated for. E.g. you might cycle on a parking but not park you bicycle on a car lot. --Dieterdreist (talk) 12:14, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Defining service for tram tracks

Hello, I am suggesting to add/create new guidelines for service=* on railway=tram ways. Please see Talk:Tag:railway=tram#service.3D.2A_for_tram for more information. (Adding a note here in case someone watches this page but not railway=tram.) --Jarek Piórkowski (talk) 03:46, 11 February 2019 (UTC)