Mapping TTC branches

Communities Canada
1

I have been mapping TTC bus routes, and one thing I found confusing is some routes having a branch for one direction, and not having the branch in another direction. I know they kind of become one branch because they are basically heading the same terminal; however, these two branches still have different stops.

for example for 102 Bus RouteNumber 102 Markham Rd you cannot really go to Centennial College Bus Terminal if you boarded the returning 102 from Steeles on weekends (as seen on the timetable). Thus they should not be one route relation. However on the website they are they same route, and have the same name and ref. how should i map it?

Now I am mapping them as two separate route relations ( Relation: ‪TTC 102 Markham Road‬ (‪14985419‬) | OpenStreetMap ), but it seems to be not correct, as 63 Ossington bus osm.org/relation/9757334 returning 63a and b are mapped in one relation.

2

I’ve been seeing it, thank you!

In case of the 63 specifically, the returning route branches do not have any separate stops, and it’s signed only as the 63, so I mapped it as one relation only. It didn’t make sense to me to have a separate relation with same destination and ref and only a subset of stops.

If there are different stops, especially if the difference is towards the end of the line (rather than just the first stop or so), I think separate relations make sense.

3

There is another problem if you want to map it as different relations: (in this case) should I still use 102a as the ref, or 102? As you have seen, 102b (Relation: ‪102B Markham Road to Warden Station‬ (‪14985417‬) | OpenStreetMap) is not mapped by me, and the returning relation used 102B as the ref.

5

Also, I am just wondering if there is any naming conventions in Toronto. As of now I have seen

  • “TTC [ref] [route name] [eastbound/westbound]”,
  • “TTC [ref] [route name] to [to]”,
  • “TTC (Toronto) [ref] [route name] to [to]”,
  • “[ref] [route name]”, and
  • “[ref] [route name] to [to]”. (most of the ptv2 relations are named like this)

However, many route relations using “[ref] [route name] to [to]” naming do not have the to=* tag.

I was using “[ref] [route name]: [from] -> [to]” but just changed to “[ref] [route name]” since many says that the ptv2 approach is not appropriate in Toronto.

6

I don’t think there is a binding name convention, and as far as I know there hasn’t been one documented anywhere.

Personally I am fond of the “501 Queen to Humber” and “504B King to Dufferin Gate” name format for PTv2 per-direction/per-branch relations, and I think it’s a great fit for Toronto:

  1. That’s what is announced by the speakers when the vehicle pulls up to the stop, so riders will be able to identify the direction/branch based on the name
  2. That’s what is displayed on the headsign (with some stylistic variations, minor abbreviations like “Stn”, etc), so riders will be able to identify the direction/branch based on the name
  3. It is also fairly useful to mappers since in most cases the name will be enough to uniquely identify what direction/branch is meant, with only some exceptions [1]

I agree that ref and to tags are important on these relations, from will be useful for editors, and via should be added when applicable.

In the past I have sometimes used different naming (e.g. “501 Queen to Neville Park (from Humber)”, “75 Sherbourne northbound to South Drive” [2]), but the more I map, the more I think that the exceptions from the announcement/headsign format usually aren’t really justified.

I don’t really see a need for including “TTC” in the name (are there any places where a TTC route and another route with the same number intersect and could be confused?), and have no love for the original PTv2 format starting with “Bus” and including from and the arrows.

  1. like route variations with different starting stops but same destinations, e.g. 501 eastbound from Humber or from Long Branch ↩︎

  2. the north end of the route being called “South Drive” seemed potentially confusing, though this particular problem seems to have been resolved by TTC route reorganization ↩︎