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If a bus route has a normal route, but on certain occasions, may take a slightly different route (e.g. a certain bus stop is only served by the particular route at certain times), or a bus may have a combined school bus service, where it will perhaps, divert from its normal route, or extend is normal route, should there be one relation for each individual route? In the case of the Southdown PSV Route 410 in the UK, there are about 5 different routes. Should there be 5 different relations?

asked 16 Oct '13, 00:47

TheUltimateKoopa's gravatar image

TheUltimateK...
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Roland Olbricht: That bus route is not "exceptionally complex", at least not for the UK. I am mapping my local bus service here. It's officially all called "route 44" but there are: two obvious start points, three different terminating points, a small village optionally served, a shopping centre optionally served, buses changing to a different number mid-route, long one-way loops (with the timetable showing a different start-point and route number, depending on where you are on that loop), different Sunday services, garage journeys, school journeys. There is no coherency in the trips: you do need to have access to full timetable data to work out where each trip is going.

If I were to do this as separate relations, I'd need >=32 possibilities, just for one direction. What would I call each one ?

I suspect that the reality of bus timetables is markedly different in the UK wrt the rest of Europe: there isn't really a turn-up-n-go mentality, so people expect to read the full timetable for every journey. This gives the bus companies the "flexibility" to add an extra opt-out, diversion, short-running all over the place.

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answered 26 Oct '13, 13:45

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mwbg
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Garage journey done as a passenger service or empty go-off as in İzmir Public Buses? If empty go-off, no need to map that as a special route.

(27 Oct '13, 10:18) erkinalp
2

Could we please dicuss this further on the public transport mailing list https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-transit ? This is an important observation, but help.osm.org is not well-suited for detailed discussions.

(28 Oct '13, 07:05) Roland Olbricht
1

Yes, Roland. I'll take this to the talk-transit list. I didn't know it existed until now.

(11 Nov '13, 19:45) mwbg

Err, Roland. I've subscribed to the talk-transit list, but can only see archives for upto August 2013. It's now November 2013.Are you sure that's the right list?

(13 Nov '13, 19:08) mwbg
2

Yes. It simply had no traffic since some time. On the other hand, nobody has unsubscribed, so you will get the right audience when you write there.

(14 Nov '13, 07:05) Roland Olbricht

Yes, each variant should have its own relation. This allows to model them such that any other mapper can easily understand what's meant.

Please consider also whether it makes sense to add a certain variant. Services that run only once a day and only on school days or similar services to the depot only might be of little use for the public. In that case, it doesn't harm to have them added, but it is also fine to spend time on mapping something more relevant.

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answered 16 Oct '13, 06:45

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Roland Olbricht
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accept rate: 36%

I'm asking so many questions because its so confusing. But in relation to my last recent comment about specific times, what if, over all, a bus route starts at East Grinstead in the UK, at 7:42, then arrives at its normal route at 8:10, then continues its normal route, going back and forth in a loop, before eventually making a single diversion in the afternoon back to East Grinstead? Would you have to do a separate relation altogether for the one from East Grinstead, and the one towards East Grinstead? Otherwise, how is it done? Or are bus routes in the UK just really stupidly complex?

(17 Oct '13, 00:19) TheUltimateK...

Another question I just thought of about bus routes, is what do we do if a particular bus journey on a route, arrives at a bus stop on its normal route, but then changes to another route? For example, the particular bus on the 410 route arrives at a bus stop at 4:21 pm, on Monday to Friday, but then continues as route 236. How do we show that the bus on one route changes to a different route at a certain time?

(17 Oct '13, 00:32) TheUltimateK...
1

I think this bus route is execptionally complex. The basic idea of bus routes in OSM is to map where a bus service is available all over the day every few minutes. These services tend to have a fixed itinerary with no exemptions. And even without OSM, quite a lot of passengers get confused if they have to care on extra information beside line number and direction.

(17 Oct '13, 07:00) Roland Olbricht

When a bus normally has a constant route going between two destinations, but has a school service or any other service, where it starts from a different location, before eventually joining on to the main route, should the relation for the route contain only the part UP TO the main route, or including the main route itself? In otherwords, if the bus runs between Oxted and Redhill, but starts at East Grinstead in the mornings for a school service, should the relation contain the entire route from East Grinstead to Oxted, then to Redhill?

(18 Oct '13, 18:23) TheUltimateK...
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question asked: 16 Oct '13, 00:47

question was seen: 6,428 times

last updated: 14 Nov '13, 07:05

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