It is not clear to me what one should do with the information button available without knowing its function. (This may be only helpful to request another mapper to complete the function)
I know the following functions which are usually also recognizable on the button
Request green (“please touch”, “please press” or a “please wait” indicator but also no indicator at all)
Request longer green (walking aid symbol)
Request blind function (sound,vibration) (three dots symbol or tactile arrow)
Green light only on button:
Some traffic lights are permanently green for one direction. This is especially the case for pedestrian-only crossings where the road has always green. Here it is quite clear that the button must be pressed to cross in the (main) road.
There are also pedestrian/bicycle crossings at high traffic streets which only switch to green when pressing the button. You can find that out very quickly if you don’t press the button for a traffic light phase.
Here in Hanover, there is a special type of traffic light where you can press the button to turn the light on. For vehicle traffic, these lights only show yellow or red. If the traffic light is off, you can legally cross the road without pressing the button and wait for the light to turn green.
No function:
At some traffic lights, the please-wait indicator comes on immediately when the light turns red again. Here you don’t have to press the button yourself. It is not used by the control.
In Hannover, this is the way for nearly all traffic lights. There are 2 types of switches:
The infamous “beg button” for requesting green, plus there’s often a switch at the bottom that activates a vibration, or makes the switch rotate.
This one has an arrow-shaped button at the bottom to request a beeping sound, plus the arrow also rotates when it was pressed.
The point is, though, depending on the city, state, or country, the default functionality of a traffic light’s button varies. Just tagging “there’s a button” is about as correct as useless without further specifying, what’s supposed to happen when you press it - at least on traffic lights.
I mean … we should probably keep that button_operated=yes simply means that there’s a button, but that information needs refining. And I’m happy @Langlaeufer is kicking off the discussion what and how to tag.
Well, Hannover has always been a bit different … the double button does not really make sense to me, as the acoustic signal is standard on many objects since decades. I dunno why in Hannover one has to press 2 buttons to enable a safe crossing, but as I said already " I don’t say such combination would not exist …".
You mean at the bottom of the traffic light pole? How to press it, if it is at the bottom? Do you have a pic showing both buttons together at 1 pole? Could be helpful for the wiki if further tags for these buttons may be invented …
This is one of those combined “request green” / vibrate when pressed switches. They usually don’t activate sound over here, they only rotate and vibrate. A lot of blind people I know prefer these over the beeping signals
OK, probably misunderstood you. You did not want to express:
There is one infamous “beg button” for requesting green = pic 1 plus an additional button as shown in pic 2 at the bottom of the pole that activates a vibration, or makes the switch rotate
but:
either there is the infamous “beg button” for requesting green = pic 1 or the combined button as shown in pic 2 activating the light and having some additional knob/switch at it’s bottom to activate additional sound/vibration/rotation.
In other words, there is 1 button with 2 functions to be activated separately. Is that correct?
Btw: I like the desing of the button in your last pic …
This is still a button_operated traffic light, no special button tag needed for it imho. The special feature (completely off usually and crossinig is possible without using it) is an attricute of the traffic light itself, not of the button.
things change over time. At the moment there is no consistent documentation and no homogenious usage. some mappers use it for any button and some only for reqest green buttons (as defined in streetcomplete). And there will be always mappers which use a tag not correct.
We have the option to keep the tag button_opperated=yes for undefined function and add new values or keys for the specific functions.
In this case? Probably not, because there’s no clear outcome.
But in general, it absolutely can change how a tag is used because responsible mappers and developers (especially editor developers) will pay attention to, and attempt to support, efforts to improve standardization and consistency in OSM tagging conventions.
It’s not as effective as it could be if the OSM community was more committed to these goals, but it’s worth trying.
probably I didn’t word it in the best way.
I didn’t want to hear what is documented but what people would expect when they find an attribute named “button operated” at an object “traffic signal”.
That makes sense (I interpreted " should" in the poll as “I want to redefine what widely used tag means”) - and that would not work well, editing wiki is not going to magically remove uses mismatching new definition from OSM
In Korea, at leasn in my area (Busan), button for sound is much more common than button for green light. It does exist, usually in rural areas where walking is more like work, but I’ve not encountered enough of them to conclude that both can happen at the same time. FYI I have never seen a tactile signal over here.
The visible, labled and tactile marked button at the front requests the traffic light to switch generally.
The hidden butten underneath requests acoustic notification for when green light is active. Often it it indicates the direction to cross in a tactile way. Visual impaired persons know that, others sometime mistake it for other effect.
This is true for most, but not all devices, models vary.
The device would make an unobtrusive sound every second to allow visually impaired to find it and would only get loud when sound on green was activated by the second button.
Some devices also indicate the number and type of lanes to cross in a tactile way, for exam tram tracks.
To be clear, I’m very much in favor of splitting hairs about a beg button’s functionality if known. What I said, in context, was that mappers aren’t in a good position to judge whether a beg button is useful enough to map.
In a way, many of the beg buttons in my hometown were utterly useless even though they influenced traffic signal timing. You could press the button and wait to cross until you see a green light or hear a chirp, but you’d still have to watch for cars coming at you from two or three directions while doing so. Yet if such a button is present and you fail to press it, you could be waiting a long time.
