There’s a level crossing near me where you can cross on foot without any problems, but need to use the phone at the crossing to obtain permission if trying to do so with vehicles or animals.
I’d have expected something in the wiki page or in taginfo, but a quick check there doesn’t find anything obvious?
Any suggestions?
Is this a common thing where you live?
By “with animals” do they mean with a dog, or with a herd of cows?
Always granted immediately, or do they sometimes say No, sorry, wait a few minutes?
Visually and audibly you have maybe 30 seconds warning - that might not be enough for a long slow vehicle. The signal boz on the end of the phone will know that there is no traffic 2 minutes away.
Sounds like vehicle=permit to me. Generally open to everyone, but sometimes not and you need to ask beforehand whether it is open or not.
So, whether I can cross or not is independent of the call, the call just makes sure that I actuallly cross when I am allowed to (i.e. without impeding a train)?
Could be access=yes with a note to call.
Do you have an image of the sign? Or is it local knowledge?
The Tag:railway=level_crossing - OpenStreetMap Wiki wiki page mentions
it may be a requirement to telephone the signal box to check it’s safe to cross with a vehicle or farm animals before any gate is opened.
Just that in this case, there are no gates to be opened, right? Unfortunately, there is also no mention of how to tag this.
Both, really. See this note for some pictures. You should be able to read the most important text there. The small print below “lift handset to call Strensall Signal Box” just gives a Network Rail number to call if no reply from the signal box, and gives the location by name, as a grid reference, and as track mileage (also on other sign).
There are gates - a foot gate, and an adjacent wider gate for agricultural traffic (currently not separately mapped).
Yeah, I’d tag the crossing with
animals=permit
bicycle=no
crossing:activation=user
crossing:on_demand=yes
horse=no
vehicle=permit
on the assumption that there is some legal significance w.r.t. if the information given by the phone operator is wrong (i.e. the operator granted wrongly an oral permit). I’d see the recording of calls as an indication that they might be relevant for the investigation in case of an interruption. I’d also think bona fide that they might stop a train if they are aware that the crossing is blocked.
Otherwise we might as well tag it as if there was no phone, and for that I believe we have established tagging (though perhaps a note could be useful for people who’d like to call anyway).
I don’t know if it helps but I encountered once a similar crossing but with a regular barrier. You need to use the phone to get the barrier opened by an operator.
=permit shouldn’t be used if it’s not a permit you need to apply for, before going there. That’s a =yes , similar to how you can show up and ask to pay for something in other features.
There are inconsistencies between different articles
=user , but that only has 149 instances, less than one might think=user , but has crossing:supervision=supervised= / crossing:supervised= alongside without the crossing:supervision= detailsIt should be clarified what crossing:activation= and crossing:supervision= mean. crossing:activation= is for who opens and closes it physically. crossing:supervision= is “obstacle detection”, for whether there are crossing public trapped, breaking through barriers, or barriers not closing. The =phone is for calling after you have crossed. or listening to the sounds by the signaler.
This post’s question for whether you need to call for permission to cross should be crossing:on_demand= , as confirmed by machine translation of linked German Wiki. However, it seems to be intended for crossing:activation=remote by the signaler altogether. Anrufschranke – Wikipedia
Nevertheless, I suggest crossing:on_demand=yes + crossing:on_demand:foot=no first, to be more restrictive by default. Whether crossing:on_demand= must be =remote can be discussed. Its naming seems not ideal either.
animal= hasn’t been defined as a legal access= mode either. It seems to be the plural, similar to pet= vs pets= again confusingly. animals | Keys | OpenStreetMap Taginfo
German “Anruftelefone” are closer to what @Vinzenz_Mai describes. When their gates get opened, you can always pass the crossing. So access=yes resolves to “whenever the gates are open”, which is crossing:on_demand=yes.
With user-operated gates, it becomes ambiguous. From my understanding, they are also crossing:on_demand=yes, but just because they are open, doesn’t mean you are allowed to cross. Instead, you have to call in to say that you want to enter the crossing. That’s why I would put it under =permit - not that you have to apply weeks in advance to get a signed and written letter to grant you permission for the time and date of your crossing.
I would tag that with =customers, or =members. Do you have a more specific example where that doesn’t apply?
I kept myself to Animals - OpenStreetMap Wiki which only mentions animal= | Tags | OpenStreetMap Taginfo
Yeah, I’d think that =permit would be right:
Open only to people who have obtained a permit granting them access, but permit is ordinarily granted.
Oh, & also bicycle=no
If you have to ask the waiter before going inside and getting a table at restaurants, that’s not =customers (nor =permit). That’s for allowed for “customers” of another feature. toll= / fee= is used.
=permit is exactly used for “you have to apply weeks in advance to get a signed and written letter to grant you permission”, and often "for the time and date ". It’s not for immediate verbal permission on-site.
If you have actually read the wiki and Taginfo, you will see it’s mostly used for =yes and =no in the publicly allowed or prohibited meaning. It’s mainly used for whether animals exists on a feature, the type of animals, or animal-related features. So you are actually suggesting an extension to a homonyms use. Almost all animal=yes were mass-added on landuse=meadow in Belgium for some reason. animal=no on highway= was mainly added to a road in Ohio, and a =park in Budapest. The barrier= uses are affected by most being landuse=meadow + barrier= on the same object.
I think this is missing something. I can’t comprehend the meaning of this paragraph.
Do you have an alternative tagging suggestion? I mean, there is a difference to simply =yes, otherwise, there wouldn’t need be a phone.
I’ll change my tag suggestion to use animals instead. Thank you for your input.
So it’s a self-serve, remote-controlled, supervised crossing, quite the contradiction! Clearly there is a procedure to follow. If you have to wait for an all-clear signal, that’s a kind of permission but not necessarily as formal as getting a permit.
By analogy, it’s like you approach a lollipop crossing and have to make eye contact with the crossing guard, who has to stop cross traffic and give you a hand signal before you may cross. Except in this case, the crossing guard is somewhere else, it could take more time to stop cross traffic, and it’s up to you to open the gate and cross yourself.
That analogy was rather strained. It’s probably a sign that we can’t repurpose existing tags for this case.