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I live in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The bus stops here are tagged in differing ways. They seem to be tagged with the bus numbers or bay numbers for the name field. I am wondering how they should be tagged.

Briefly, each bus stop has a number of ways to identify it.

  1. Bus stop number. This is a unique 5 digit number (e.g. 53174) that identifies the bus stop and can be used to request the details of the next buses coming to the stop by an automated service. It may be possible that some of the longer bus stops have two poles with the same number.
  2. Bus stop location. This is the location of the bus stop as documented by the Translink website (e.g SB MARINE DRIVE AT KERR ST, 900S BLOCK 8 AVE NEW WESTMINSTER)and I believe is also unique but may not be for larger stops.
  3. Bus stop name. Not all bus stops have this, but some of the larger ones have names (e.g. Granville, Bridgeport, Sasmat). These are not unique.
  4. Buses that use the stop. This is subject to change as scheduling changes and is definitely not unique. Bus routes are numbers from 1-999, but the route number does not uniquely describe the route (e.g. some routes may go via a side street but share the same route number, and buses going both ways on a route have the same number)

How should I tag the stops?

asked 07 Oct '10, 05:09

pnorman's gravatar image

pnorman
2.4k52140
accept rate: 18%


You don't have to put all information on the stop itself. Specify what describes the bus stop with the tags described on the wiki page about bus_stop. Tag the name of the station and/or its reference on the node. You can add more details if you wish (shelter, bench, wheelchair). The location is really optional since the node is self descriptive.
Describe the buses lines separately with relations of type 'route'.
There is a portal about buses on the wiki : http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Buses
For more complex cases (lines changing during the day/the week, routes depending on direction, etc) where we don't have a consensus on the wiki, you can subscribe to the active mailing-list dedicated for public transportation in OSM at 'talk-transit'.

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answered 07 Oct '10, 09:52

Pieren's gravatar image

Pieren
9.8k2083157
accept rate: 15%

edited 07 Oct '10, 16:43

  1. Bus stop number looks like a ref=
  2. Bus stop location looks like an address, this could be an alternative to storing the location as a position. This should be tagged with addr:*= on the coresponding addresses and not on the bus stop.
  3. Bus stop name should be tagged as name=
  4. Bus routes can be tagged using a relation. See the wiki

I hope this was helpfull.

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answered 07 Oct '10, 08:56

Gnonthgol's gravatar image

Gnonthgol ♦
13.8k16103198
accept rate: 16%

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question asked: 07 Oct '10, 05:09

question was seen: 7,056 times

last updated: 07 Oct '10, 16:43

NOTICE: help.openstreetmap.org is no longer in use from 1st March 2024. Please use the OpenStreetMap Community Forum