We would like to find a way to record if service personell for wheelchair users is present at all times, or if they need to be manually requested.
Our use case applys to germany, which is why I am not sure if this topic would be better suited for the german forum, but as tagging should be global, we want to know how the wider OSM community would approach this issue.
So, for railway stations in germany, there can be service personnell that is available during certain times. But there is an additional variable: Even if service personell is available during certain times, it can be either there anyway, or only if you call in first.
The fact when service personell is available is recorded with service_times:wheelchair.
So, we thought abourt using something like wheelchair:reservation=required, but after having a telephone conversation with the railway service center we discovered that reservation is always required, regardless if personell is on-site.
We would still like to record that fact somehow.
We thought about something like wheelchair:personnel=yes/no/on_demand/on_site based on barrier:personnel. We also had other idead like service_times:wheelchair:personnel or service_times:personnel But we wanted to ask if the community has any better suggestions or concerns.
In the UK staffed stations have portable ramps and staff to help wheelchair passengers on or off the train.
I assume they have reservations as the staff wait at the correct place on the platform so they are by the correct door.
For unstaffed stations and when larger stations become unstaffed in the evenings there are ramps carried on the trains which are operated by the train crew.
Could you specify what situations you are thinking of? As the wheelchair personell is not there to guard something in general, we don’t think barrier:personell would be adequate.
I see your user name says “paid”. Is there an official project behind this? If so, I would be interested to know about it.
This is a form of assistance service, but you also said “service personell for wheelchair users is present at all times”, so it’s different from services that you can book.
Just for perspective, in Norway we have only 5 stations with permanent staff so assistance services must be booked.
Lastly, I think you should use “staff” instead of “personnel”.
IMHO it could work, the situations for “barrier:personell” are entrances with people sitting there (janitor/porter/doorman) that could help with wheelchair lifts and the like.
Yes, I am currently working and mapping for the project OPENER next (https://www.openernext.de/ (German), https://www.nasa.de/en/erdf-projects/opener-next (English)) which aims to explore ways to make travelling with disabilities in public transport better plannable and make information on traveling with disabilities more uniform in germany.
The problem we face is that, according to official documentation from german railway there are three cases:
No service times - No one will help you
Service times, “Staff on site: yes” - During “service times”, staff is always present at theese stations
Service times, “Staff on site: no” - If you want to travel during “service times”, assistance will be provided if you call prior and make a reservation
The problem is: Even at stations where Staff is present during service times even without reservation, you still need to make a reservation if you want to travel. So it is really unclear what the factual implications are of this value “Staff on site during service times”. So we are searching for a way that simply records that fact without making any implications what this service would include.
From the top of my head, I would estimate that around 150 or so stations have staff on site, and around 70 have “staff on demand”.
I will research how often and in what contexts “staff” is used in OSM, thank you.
so assistance services must be booked.