Talk:Tag:highway=bus stop/Archive 1

New proposal (unified stoparea)

Unresolved: Can we just agree to let the db data resolve the issue for us and move on? Seems pretty cut and dried to me --achadwick 13:01, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

There's a unified stoparea proposal that could replace all of the public transportation stop mapping schemes. Please evaluate & comment on it.

Trying to change the meaning of highway=bus_stop (from the shelter/pole position beside the road to an virtual position on the road) seems likely to only cause confusion, disputes and incosistent rendering. Please use some other tag. Alv 12:24, 23 October 2010 (BST)

The buses I know in several countries stop on the road and not somewhere in the field beside the road. Some bus stops have bus bays, yes. But this is usualley only 3 meters from the center of the road. There is also a highway=platform that is interpreted and rendered correctly. It is where the people are waiting for the bus and where a shelter and so on can be placed. Usually beside the road. --Teddych 05:45, 24 October 2010 (BST)

The people I know in several countries wait on the sidewalk and not somewhere in the middle of the road, nor in the field beside the road; so that doesn't make the location on the road more worthy of the highway=bus_stop tag. And in everyday language people (that's mappers) refer to the pole or shelter with the bus stop sign as "the bus stop". Since the beginning people have described the bus stop with attributes such as shelter=*, ref=*, name=*, timetable=*, wheelchair=*, waste_basket=* and so forth, which all describe the physical structure for passengers. Even the unified stop area model, and models used outside OSM acknowledge that both positions are needed: the bus stop, and the stop point (you know, public_transport=stop_position). Not all bus stops have a distinct platform (even railway=platform acknowledges that, to which the highway=platfrom refers to for definition), and it describes only the walking area at the stop, not the stop itself. Alv 07:43, 25 October 2010 (BST)

For me a "bus stop" usually is the combination of two (sometimes more) stopping positions, two (or more) poles and if shelters, benches and so on. All this is one bus stop with one name (in all proposals this would be the relation). When I understand correct, you reduce a bus stop to mainly one pole (with a shelter, bench, ...).

Another thing I do not understand: You are writing people wait on the sidewalk. A sidewalk usually belongs to the road. So in OSM-terminology people wait on a road with a sidewalk. Where is the difference now?

The third thing: How would you map a bus stop that only has the yellow lines on the road, but no bus bay, pole, shelter, ... We have this outside in the country (but not in cities). I also know cities in developing countries where a bus stop is a completely virtual thing. There a bus stop is a where the driver stops. No pol, no lines, nothing. --Teddych 12:49, 25 October 2010 (BST)

In the end the sidewalks will be mapped as separate highway=footway ways. I finally found some minor cities in Germany where they've followed that advice, but that's only less than 1 out of 10 places in Germany. Seems someone has very recently and without any discussion edited the wiki to recommend such practice there. Major changes to tagging should be first discussed in the tagging mailing list and in English - or at least somewhere. There was some unfinished discussion in the distant past about "hail-and-ride sections", which seems to be in a way equal to totally unmarked bus stops. Alv 13:57, 25 October 2010 (BST)

Nice work in Helsinki. But I think on most places this will be still a long way. An I personally think it does not make sense. --Teddych 15:04, 25 October 2010 (BST)

I moved the stuff about unified_stoparea further down the page and clearly labelled it as a "proposal", but was tempted to just remove it. This page is established tagging documentation. Not really the place for adding new proposed ideas.

After much discussion (several years ago) most people are placing highway=bus_stop nodes off to one side of the way. If you want to change that you'll have to persuade many thousands of mappers that they've been doing it wrong for the past few years. As Alv said, a better idea would be to devise new tags to represent the things that need representing for this scheme

-- Harry Wood 10:18, 25 October 2010 (BST)

You would partially have my understanding when you would remove the unified_stoparea. Yes, because it is only a proposal. No, because the main content of the whole article differs quiet a lot between English and German version. The German version defines the bus stop on the way, not beside. I did not translate the german to english, I only added someting to the english version that was basically state of the art in the german version. --Teddych 13:10, 25 October 2010 (BST)

Aha interesting. So there's a difference between german and UK mapping, and a difference between the language versions of the tag docs. Of course these are self-reinforcing. Would be interesting to just confirm this state of affairs with a map of bus stops on ways vs bus stops off ways. Is everyone mapping them on the ways in Germany? or was this introduced recently? -- Harry Wood 13:20, 25 October 2010 (BST)

Germany (and therefore also German part of Switzerland) has very different mapping models (bus stops). There is Oxomoa, unified_stoparea, the so called reasently used practise and perhaps others. The reasently used is off the way, unified_stoparea is on the way and Oxomoa sets as compatibility also on the way. I did not count, but wherever I map I find bus_stops on the way. Alv said 1 out of 10. In Switzerland I guess it's 30-50%. --Teddych 15:04, 25 October 2010 (BST)

OSM works best when the community reaches consensus about how to tag. Handing down dictats by fiat is likely to meet resistance, not least because it is likely to mean that 99% of existing tagging does not accord with the wiki. The wiki is for documenting how tags are used, NOT FOR ORDERING PEOPLE HOW TO USE THEM. Europe now has about 550,000 highway=bus_stop, of which 204,356 are in Great Britain, many imported from NaPTAN data according to the side-of-the-road/location of pole or sign convention. As a proposal this asks OSM contributors to change in excess of half a million objects in Europe alone. There has been a considerable amount of discussion on talk-transit, on the wiki, on IRC, and in country-specific lists, on this and related subjects for the two years I have been involved with OSM. Furthermore various suggestions have been made by transport professionals closely involved in the development of national and european data models (e.g., User:PeterIto). This proposal seems to ignore all prior discussions (except possibly ones in German) and fails in consensus building, compounded by ill-considered wiki edits. Another point is that the pole location is eminently amenable for verification (see Verifiability), whereas the stopping locations of buses is not as straightforward. SK53 14:49, 25 October 2010 (BST)

Mappers in Germany are mapping highway=bus_stop on the way since arround early 2009 (or longer). The german wiki was updated to this handling in 2010, one year later. So it definitively was not to order people how to use, it was a documentation on how (german) people really use it. For me PeterIto's Stop Place is only one out of many ideas. And by the way only a variant of Oxomoa's Proposal. A variant I did not see in OSM yet. Teddych 13:59, 26 October 2010 (BST)

Why would someone recommend changing the practice? The practice of using the location of the pole/shelter predates any of the more comprehensive information schemas. "PeterIto's Stop place" only acknowledges that the bus_stop has been used, and would be used at the pole/shelter. Seems that no other part of the oxomoa or unified stop area conflict with the older way. Alv 14:40, 26 October 2010 (BST)

It is a need, that the mappers are able to map a bus stop more exactly then only one node for the pole. This is shown by the multitude of proposals. There are two things that get rendered properly: highway=bus_stop and highway=platform, but no other tags (AFAIK). The platform is definitely beside the way. So it is obvious to redefine highway=bus_stop as the stopping position to represent the second important point of a bus stop. This is how I would answer your question. Why others (especially German community) changed the practice you have to ask them yourself. This was before I started to work on OSM. Teddych 08:12, 27 October 2010 (BST)

As a German mapper, I cannot confirm "Mappers in Germany are mapping highway=bus_stop on the way since arround early 2009 (or longer)." other that it means "Some mappers ...". In the places I've been mapping bus stops have been near the road all the time. However, in some places it was migrated to "on the road". When I was a beginner, I read the wiki and found the pole position an obvious way to tag. And since you can easily infer the stop_position on the road from the pole, and because you can not vice versa infer the pole position from the stop position on the road, it should be obvious that bus_stop should not be redefined. kay_D

You think you can infer the stop_position form the pole. But this is not through. I know several bus stops where the pole/shelter is before or after the bus bay. What about bus stops with two or three stop positions and only one pole/shelter? Teddych 11:19, 27 October 2010 (BST)

What of those roads which don't use bus bays or marked positions? Best to mark the physical location of the marker - if present - as a highway=bus_stop (because that's the most common worldwide usage now) and the location of the marked bus bay - if present and physically distinct from an ordinary kerb - as a or public_transport=stop_position? --achadwick 13:01, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Also, routing software generally performs pre-passes to generate its internal routing graph, as I understand it. In the absence of more exact information, just associate the pole position with the nearest way in the route relation, at the nearest point, and call that a stop_position (inferred). --achadwick 13:01, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

kay_D: I found the exact opposite obvious when beginning, to be honest, but I've switched to off-way highway=bus_stop because we should be mapping physical objects primarily. My experience may have been driven by exactly where in the discussion I stepped in, of course - perhaps yours too? There's been a *long* to and fro about this. Can we have consensus please? I vote for Alv's method below. --achadwick 13:01, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

With a little help from more skilled awk users, I managed to analyze the germany.osm.bz2 downloaded today. In that extract, out of the total 134 351 nodes tagged highway=bus_stop, only 25 564 (19,02%) are part of any ways. That is hardly the common way, especially if they've been doing it for so long. Change those to public_transport=stop_position and survey the location of the pole/sign/shelter, OK? Alv 13:21, 27 October 2010 (BST)

Definitely. Seconded. Suggest we use the existing and widespread pattern of highway=bus_stop positioned to the appropriate side of the way for the physical location of the stop (and any associated shelter, initially). Bind the way, the stop_position, poles, road markings, bays, shelters, whatever together in a route relation, and have done with it. --achadwick 13:01, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

You showed your opinion on unified_stoparea. Do you have such a clear opinion on oxomoa's schema? --Teddych 15:35, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Rendering of bus stops

Resolved: Both on-way and off-way are rendered. Semantic differences are still being discussed, but elsewhere --achadwick 11:29, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

It seems bus stops which are not part of the way are not rendered in openstreetmap or informationfreeway. However both do render bus stops which are part of the way. This is in contrast with the way bus stops are most commonly tagged as described by Bus_stop. Making a bus stop not part of the way would make it easier to visually spot which direction the stop is into, but obviously this doesn't work if the bus stop is not rendered at all. Are there plans to make both styles of bus stop tagging rendered, or should bus stops be tagged as part of the way as in the second proposal above? --Jkp 15:05, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Bus stops do get rendered if the node not part of the way. In both Mapnik and Osmarender. Example:

I don't know why you're under the impression they dont get rendered. Maybe you're setting the tag wrong, or maybe you're not waiting long enough for the map to be re-rendered.

-- Harry Wood 16:04, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, I stand corrected, they do get rendered as shown by your example. Some of the ones I've added (like all bus stops not part of ways) didn't get rendered, though. When comparing the above to the ones I've tagged, the only difference I see is I have used "source=survey" in addition to "highway=bus stop". If I understand Map_Features correctly, source=survey is correct usage for nodes as well as ways or areas. But now when I look at the nodes I've tagged with source=survey (like a convenience shop), it seems some of them haven't been rendered, when ways I entered later than those have been rendered. Some have been rendered, like amenity_parking, so I'm confused. Or maybe I'm just forgetful about when I have added what, as you suggest. Anyway, I'm now checking with removing source=survey from some of the tags and asking for a new rendering to gather some more data. --Jkp 20:10, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I ruled out being forgetful about when I have added what. An example: yesterday I added a mailbox and bus stop next to each other, both with source=survey, tags being highway=bus stop and amenity=post box. I added both with potlatch. The mailbox is rendered at http://www.informationfreeway.org/?lat=60.24392840216323&lon=24.65566641775273&zoom=17&layers=B000F000F but the bus stop is not. What am I missing? --Jkp 09:43, 19 May 2008 (UTC

Correct tag values are bus_stop and post_box, with an underscore and not a space. What potlatch shows as the available shortcut (post box) is not necessarily what it puts in the tag value (e.g. post_box which has been rendered). Alv 10:06, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Maybe it's the coding of space vs. underscore what I'm missing? Potlatch shows the tag for post box as "post box", so I've assumed that I can code the tag as "highway=bus stop". But Potlatch doesn't offer bus stop as a selection for tag highway, and I see things like amenity=bus_station in wiki, so should I type the bus stop as bus_stop? --Jkp 09:56, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, that's it, problem solved. I typed "bus stop" when I should've typed "bus_stop". The two are almost indistinguishable when just looking at them in Potlatch - in the example above, Potlatch shows the tag as "bus stop", not "bus_stop". Now when I look at it closely, bus_stop shows a slightly wider space between the characters, but no underscore. When I cut&paste, the difference is clear. --Jkp 10:31, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

That's some local or version issue with potlatch/flash/system, on mine and likely most other systems users can clearly see if there's a _ or a space in a tag value. Alv 10:41, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Seems to be a font issue on the gnome desktop (with firefox as well as konqueror), the letters don't fit into the box allocated to them, g's lower part is absent as well as the underscore. --Jkp 11:20, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

What is the general consensus? Should we tag highway=bus_stop together with left=*/right=*, should we tag highway:left=bus_stop/highway:right=bus_stop? Or should we use a separate node, even if the bus stop is part of the main lane of the road? --Skippern 15:41, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

These days, I make a separate node at the physical location of the sign or the shelter, and make it part of the relation (with a blank role). Same as you do when adding a post box or a telephone kiosk. Let the physical location determine which way the stop is "on". The fact that both will exist in the same relation is a helpful hint! Documenting what I do right now at User:Achadwick/Mapping style. --achadwick 19:19, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

My point is that if the node is on the side of the road, it will be missed by routing software, and if the bus stop is in the lane of the road and not a designated pocket at the side of the road, a warning or notice in the router might be desired. Besides, this node at the side of the road should be connected to the road itself in some way, how do you do that? Service road? --Skippern 11:24, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I think the consensus is as achadwick has described. The node is off to the side of the road, and (for the benefit of future routing software) linked to the route via a relation.

We had plenty of other tagging ideas discussed in the past. Many of those discussions pre-dated relations. These days if anyone wants to implement hybrid pedestrian->bus routing (and I don't think anybody's done it yet), then all the data is there. The bus stop is associated to the road by means of a relation. No real need to connect the bus stop to the road in any other way. -- Harry Wood 14:34, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

there still seem to be some problems with this approach.

1. i think, it is important to know where the bus actually stops - for example, if the bus stop is on the corner, exactly the same distance from both ways, is the bus stop located before the turn or after ? what if bus route goes past a bus stop in both directions at the same distance (like bus entering town, then leaving it), how would routing software have any idea which direction this stop is on ?

2. most often, when tagging bus stops, i have no idea what route goes there. mapping them is still important, because they serve as location markers, often being named after house or populated place.

3. imagine a case where a named bus stop does not belong to a bus route anymore. it's still a useful for navigational purposes - let's say you come out of a wood, holding a printed osm version ;) - seeing the named bus stop immediately allows you to know where you are.

thus i believe bus stops should be connected to corresponding ways where the bus itself would stop. they can/should still be added to route relations, but noting actual road connection is important. now, how to do this - currently i'm connecting them with untagged ways, which seems to be a bit bad. should these helper ways be tagged to help routing software, maybe ?

--Richlv 11:49, 18 April 2009 (UTC)