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So I have been working on mapping the public transportation system In Puebla, Mexico. Almost Immediately I noticed that someone had already mapped some of the bus routes, but I also noticed that he had done it by mapping all the bus routes as separate ways. It is a mess, here is an example of an intersection where many of these ways intersect. http://www.openstreetmap.org/edit#map=18/19.04547/-98.19027 This is that same intersection with one of the ways selected. http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/171825495#map=18/19.04578/-98.18989&layers=T How should I Fix this? Should I just delete those bus routes when I see them? Also with buses in Mexico, you can get on or off the Bus at any point on the route you just hail it like a cab. I was told in a previous question just to map the route without stops in this case. The guy who has mapped all these bus routes as separate ways instead mapped a bus stop on every block along the route which adds a lot to clutter. Should I delete all these extra bus stops too? Here is an example of all these bus stops. Follow Up Questions. I have been mapping the bus routes by adding existing streets to relations I just wanted to make sure that this is the correct way to do it? Edit:Update, I have traced down the majority of the bus routes to this guy http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/lebannen/history#map=12/19.0334/-98.1759&layers=T who added all of these 2 years ago and has not made any edits since. |
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First things first, I'd definitely contact the original mapper (it looks like they were still active fairly recently). There are a few different ways that public transport can be stored in OSM (two different data schemes described in the wiki, and variations such as "stops only" and "route only, no stops" I've seen used). Adding "parallel untagged ways" as has been done here doesn't allow routing or rendering software to understand how the bus routes relate to the actual roads that the buses run on, and so is definitely "wrong", but obviously there are "nice" ways of conveying that message to the original mapper and "not-so-nice" ones. Sometimes (far too often, actually) experienced mappers dive in and fix the data without thinking about how it got to be like that, and how they could educate the (often inexperienced) mapper that created it, so that that mapper too won't create "wrong" data that needs fixing tomorrow. Asking "what's the best way to fix this" (which you've just done!) is also often missed. Getting in contact with the original mapper has other benefits too - if they're local and you're not, then can provide useful information that isn't available via aerial imagery. If the reverse is true you can help educate them that sometimes aerial imagery can deceive and needs to be backed up by a survey to see what's really there. From my experience those mappers that do reciprocate an approach like this will almost always have other questions that you may be able to either help with directly, or point them in the direction of other helpful places. |
