Public Transport Route Names

Communities Oceania
, ,
1

The public transport mapping documentation at Public transport - OpenStreetMap Wiki suggests that transit routes mapped with a type=route relation should have a name=* tag value set as

Human readable description of the route. should be the value of ref=* . Examples: "Bus 201: Uitikon Waldegg, Bahnhof → Uitikon, Wängi" for a bus route or "Train RE 7: Dessau Hbf → Wünstorf-Waldstadt" for a train route. If the line has no number in reality, only use the word “Bus” for buses or the type of train (e.g., IC, TGV or RE) for trains (e.g., RE Würzburg Hbf → Stuttgart Hbf ). Note that “->”, “=>”, and “–>” can all be used in the place of the Unicode character “→”.

In the format

<type of transport><reference number>: <from> → <to>*

This is controversial per Talk:Public transport - OpenStreetMap Wiki and it has been proposed to move this description to an alternative tag Proposal:Use description instead of name for route relations - OpenStreetMap Wiki

While the main public transport wiki pages still suggests this format and the proposal has not been approved yet, I’d like to be more proactive about this and update the Australian Tagging Guidelines to say this practice is not used within Australia.

The reason I bring this up, is a mapper has recently been changing existing route names to this new format, but in the process discards the name which usually is the “on the ground” or most commonly known as route name.

For example

  • Broken Hill Xplorer to
    Train 446: Broken Hill Station, Platform 1 => Central Station, Platform 1
    (relation/8406941)
  • Dubbo XPT to
    Train 427: Dubbo XPT
    (relation/17784163)
  • Palm Beach - Bennetts - Bonnie Doon - Basin - Currawong - Mackeral to
    Ferry PLMB: Palm Beach Wharf => Palm Beach Wharf
    (relation/10968284)
  • 911 Picton to Yanderra & Bargo to
    Bus 911: Picton Station, Station St => Bargo Station, Railside Av
    (relation/19121454)
  • Dulwich Hill Line to
    L1: Central Grand Concourse Light Rail => Dulwich Hill Light Rail
    (relation/964748)

Are there any thoughts about how we should name public transport routes in OSM?

Go with what’s on the ground/what appears in the transport operators documentation or go with the fixed format imposed by the Public Transport schema documentation?

2

The only time I think that the PTv2 name scheme could be valid is if the route doesn’t have any kind of name, if it only existed as a route number and that’s it. If the route has a name, whether from GTFS data or displayed out on vehicles and on signage, that’s the name we should use.

3 Likes
3

I agree with @fortera_au but I believe that could be solved by data consumers where if no name is set then fallback on description in replacement of the name. I also agree with @aharvey in that we should be using name=* for on the ground locally known/official names for it. PTv2 advice is an odd suggestion and kinda just replicates existing data and shouldn’t even need to exist. The format <type of transport><reference number>: <from> → <to>* is very obviously a derived value from other tags attached to a route and thus is duplication and redundant data.

3 Likes
4

You might have noticed it already: For PTNA’s AU-NSW-* reports, I’ve deactivated the check of the ‘name’ being set according to the PTv2

5

Can this also be disabled for AU-SA-Adelaide-Metro?

1 Like
6

I’ve gone ahead and reverted some of the name changes made recently and updated the guidance at Australian Tagging Guidelines/Transportation - OpenStreetMap Wiki.

1 Like