I don’t think this would affect my proposal, since it doesn’t really mention network=* anyway.
I also haven’t been doing it (or any mapping at all, actually) for a while because I guess I’ve lost interest for the moment… I guess it’s pretty “in character” for myself to start a big project and then immediately lose steam haha
Although, I think most of that proposal should be doable by a mechanical edit anyway… it’s mostly just adjusting GTFS-related tags to be more specific about which feed it refers to, IIRC.
Either way, I don’t know if I really have a strong opinion on whether the G:link is light rail or not, but if the network=* values are each naming a kind of vehicle I would go with “trams” because “light rail vehicles” seems kinda verbose and awkward.
I think this is a good example of why the tagging has been fractured because there hasn’t been clear enough explanation of what a network is vs an operator vs the actual physical form of the PT.
just FYI: you’ll need to update NSIfirst, before doing a bulk-update in OSM, since the current suggestion is to use network=TransLink + brand=G:Link. Otherwise iD users will be instructed (quite aggressively) to change everything back to the old tags.
Sending a pull request to NSI first will also help to get feedback from the NSI maintainers, who have strong opinions about tags like operator:type=government, which they believe should be added to every single feature, in some contexts[1][2]
If we consider that gtfs information is published by the responsible authority for Public Transportation in the state/territory, we shouldn’t simply ignore their publications, particularly when devising naming standards and names for conceptual items that cannot be found on the ground.
A network is very much a conceptual item.
So, should multiple network items be created to map different modes of transport within the same Public Transport Authority? Aren’t they expecting that the public might consider it one network and simply use multiple modes to get to their destination?
I have been working with both the Qld and NSW PT info.
Note that the gtfs info from Translink is less well organised than the gtfs info from Transport for NSW. (Unlike the NSW feed, it does not provide operator information and the gtfs route_ids are unstable).
Currently, the NSW OSM data has various artificial “networks” that don’t align with published information. (i.e. NSW Trainlink, Transport Buses, etc) As I have built out the NSW data, I have followed the principle of consistency, and added OSM bus routes with a network of “Transport Buses”. (Try searching for “Transport Buses” and see what you find. It is an artificial construct that is being applied to the network attribute in OSM bus routes).
Building out the Qld data is problematic, but why do we need artificial network names, rather than just the name of the responsible authority?
I think we should take guidance from how things are presented in the GTFS feeds, but don’t rely on that exclusively. The same way we take guidance from other goverment datasets, but don’t necessarily recreate those datasets verbatim.
The wiki says
On route relations for bus, railway, and tram service routes, this key indicates the bus system, if applicable. There is currently no consensus whether the values should be abbreviated or not. It is an optional key for stops.
Sydney Metro
Sydney Trains
Intercity Trains
Regional Trains
Sydney Ferries
Newcastle Ferries
If you just used network=TfNSW how would you distinguish Sydney Trains from Intercity Trains? Sydney Ferries from Newcastle Ferries? At the same time, it would be nice to have another tag to group these all together under TfNSW, but I guess that’s what wikidata is for.
NSW is a good example of the complexity of PT. Transport NSW Trainlink and Transport Buses are both networks under the domain of TfNSW. However, NSW Trainlink is also a state-owned operator which delivers NSW Regional Trains and Coach services (however, recently all of the train services have been rolled into Sydney Trains, for that matter, Trainlink now only services the regional coach network).
The six state PT networks of NSW are Transport Sydney Trains, Transport NSW Trainlink, Transport Buses, Transport Ferries, Transport Light Rail and Transport Sydney Metro.
The government has a stake in three operators which service 3 networks: Sydney Trains, NSW Trainlink, and Sydney Metro. The Buses, Ferries and Light Rail networks are operated by other private companies. (Transdev, CDC, Keolis (formerly Keolis Downer) etc)
I see the network tag as a method to bring together all routes and route master relations that are of a certain form of transport and overseen by a certain authority. Whether that authority is public or private makes no difference and I would group them if they already are presented as a unified cohort even if they are differing ends of a state. Networks and operators can also be the same sometimes in the case we see above with NSW. But this is not always the case. Anyway, my naming scheme is to both ensure the authority responsible is presented but also we are still providing differentiation in the case that there is a difference in service or because of mode type (coaches vs buses, both would use ‘bus_stops’ but they are not the same type of service).
Other parts of the world appear to not differentiate on modality of transport. As a PT user (i.e. “on the ground”), you can transparently use one network that consists of both buses and trams/light rail.
Your observation “I see the network tag as a method to bring together all routes and route master relations that are of a certain form of transport and overseen by a certain authority”
is apparently seen by others as
“I see the network tag as a method to bring together all routes and route master relations that are overseen by a certain authority”.
Should Australia create a delineation of “networks” based on modality when this is apparently not the case in other countries?
I never really had a good grasp about what network is meant to be. I can see arguments about having all the modes as one network=* because they are all part of the TfNSW Public Transport Network, and they are designed to connect your journey between modes. But I can see how public transport user are still visibly presented with different network systems like the Sydney Metro network vs the Light Rail network. I think it’s better to be more specific that more general, so we should either rely on wikidata to link each narrow network into the TfNSW group, or we use something like parent_network=TfNSW to group them…?
Yes, but if you view this from a data consumer point of view, we have mandatory relation attributes of route=bus and route=light_rail if you want to distinguish between the two modalities (or “greater specificity”).
No-one is going to parse the network name to see if a mapper added the wrong network name for a particular specificity (type of transport), so we are introducing the potential for data inconsistencies with a desire for specificity to be somehow embedded within text.
For presentation concerns, please note that the agency already specifies colour coding with different colours for the various modalities and this should be respected by the renderer.
For processing (or viewing) the network routes and forming them into “collections”, the common network name plus the route type provides the necessary information to show the modalities without having to join external data sources.
if you wish to propose “parent_network” as an attribute (which is not yet in use within OSM) as part of the solution, by all means setup the proposal for that attribute so that it can be debated, and the various renderers and data consumers can discuss the merits of creating an attribute that has hitherto not been needed.
If the objective is to have a colour-scheme for transit stops by modality in a particular renderer, then it should be noted that all three are (almost) specified unambiguously.
The bus stops have highway=bus_stop
The train stops have railway=stop
The tram/light_rail stops also have railway=stop but could arguably be railway=tram_stop instead. (See Tag:railway=tram_stop)
