Chennai/Bus Route mapping project/Manual Mapping

Objectives

The most straightforward uses of transport mapping is to encourage people to use public transportation. In order for this to happen two things need to happen:

1. Public transportation must be available and frequent
2. Public transportation must be accessible and convenient

The first point requires governments to invest in public transportation design, infrastructure and upkeep. The second one requires governments to regulate the designs. This project is to help the second point by making information about public transportation (in Chennai) accessible by making the data about MTC Buses complete, open and parse-able.

What makes for useful data?

Personally, I want the data to make it easy for me to:

1. Find public transportation routes from A to B.
2. Find the nearest bus / train stop given my current approximate location
3. Get information about bus / train arrival times (and reaching times if possible)
4. Get fare information
5. Get alternative routes and compute mixed mode travel (e.g. I want to reach destination X only by bus or walk but not train)

What metadata do we have to have to make it useful?

We need :

1. Pedestrian pathways and sidewalk information
2. Complete inventory of bus stops and OSM relations describing routes to which these stops would have membership
3. Headway and departure timings or interval (MTC is unreliable; Chennai traffic is unpredictable; Road quality is unpredictable)
4. Fare information for buses (Could be calculated by stage)
5. Road quality (somewhat helps with travel time)
6. Traffic (infeasible to calculate via OSM)

Outcomes

Ideally one or many of:

1. Complete Geographical data for buses, routes and timings
2. GTFS feed to augment gaps like fare information, etc.
3. GTFS feed usable by transit apps like Transportr or OSMAnd
4. A FOSS phone app similar to Citymapper
5. A responsive website to find routes and info

Challenges

1. Searching for destination unreliable in OSM
2. Auto-complete like operations are expensive

A little about MTC Buses

MTC Buses have these services (I think)

• MTC Ordinary Service
• MTC A/C Service
• MTC Express Service
• MTC Deluxe Service

MTC Fares page explains(??) the fares for different services

How to map?

1. Tagging Bus stops
   • Operator = Metropolitan Transport Corporation (Chennai) Ltd.
   • Network = MTC
   • Role in a route = platform
2. Tagging Bus routes (relations)
   • Operator = Metropolitan Transport Corporation (Chennai) Ltd.
   • Network = MTC
   • Name = Route 5C: Broadway → Taramani
     • and Route 5C: Taramani → Broadway for reverse
   • From = Broadway; To = Taramani
   • Route colours?
3. External inventory of stops and routes (Spreadsheet? Table in a wiki page?)

Questions

1. Should we add two routes for up and down or just one route with roads tagged `forward` and `backward` for their roles in a relation?do
   1. No. PublicTransport:version=2 type tagging requires separate onward and return routes that both belong to a single route master.
2. How do we use route_master?
   1. Add both ways of a route to a route_master with ref=<bus number>
3. Transit data completeness
   1. Can only be handled effectively using GTFS.
   2. Find effective GTFS <--> OSM conversion tools for stop data and route shape data.
   3. Can route_master interval tag be used in any way?
4. What prevents OSMAnd from displaying bus route number shields?
   1. incorrect way or stop order?
   2. Incorrect stop / platform roles?
   3. Station tags?

Making progress

Map the following routes to begin with - please feel free to add. The short routes will be a good way to learn / practice mapping

LONG AND/OR BUSY ROUTES

Number (ref)	Route Master	Distance	Stops	Interval	From	To	Description / Status
5A					Pallikaranai	Velachery
5B
5C	13812680				Broadway	Taramani
5E					Vadapalani	Besant Nagar
14M	13763305				Medavakkam Jn.	NGO Colony	Both ways complete
15B	13911701				Broadway	CMBT	Both ways complete
18D	13913086				Keelkattalai	Broadway
19B					Saidapet	Tidel Park
21G					Tambaram	Broadway	Anna Square (Marina Route)
25G					Poonamalee	Kodambakkam Meenakshi College
27D					Foreshore Estate	Villivakkam
28					Egmore	Tiruvotriyur
29C					Perambur	Besant Nagar
38C					Thiru.Vi.Ka Nagar	Doveton
51	13648857				Tambaram	Velacherry	Both ways complete
57F					Broadway	Karanodai
64C					Manali	Broadway
95					Tambaram	Thiruvanmiyur	Used to be: T51
99					Tambaram	Adyar
101					Poonamalee	Thiruvotriyur
121F					Tambaram	Kaviarasu Kannadasan Nagar
147B					Mogappair West	T. Nagar
147C					T. Nagar	Ambattur OT
570
588		43.4 km	43	35-40 min			Adyar - Mamallapuram
588C					CMBT	Mamallapuram
D70	13834884				Velachery	Ambattur Industrial Estate	Both ways complete
E18					Tambaram	Broadway	TVS, LIC (Spencer Route)
M1	13795708				Keelkattalai	Thiruvanmiyur	Both ways complete
M70	13795707				Thiruvanmiyur	Koyambedu	Both ways complete
PP19					Broadway	Injambakkam
V51	13671549				West Tambaram	T. Nagar	Both ways complete

SHORT AND/OR EASY-TO-MAP ROUTES

Number (ref)	route_master	Distance	Stops	Interval	Description
14M					NGO Colony - Medavakkam Jn.
5B

Resources

• Mapping Bus Routes - A guide by Trufi that explains how to use JOSM to map bus routes and relations
• Geofabrik OSM Inspector - Can help validate routes (Select `public transport - routes` from View dropdown)
• Public Transport Network Analysis - PTNA can track changes to routes
• Crowdsources some route from+to data from this thread https://twitter.com/adhitadselvaraj/status/1524674557122015233