Railway | Eisenbahn

Communities Deutschland (Germany)
1

ENG

Hello Germany OpenStreetMap Community,

I would like to consult you regarding the railway layer/feature in OpenStreetMap. Recently, our analyses and queries have indicated potential issues with this particular layer in the country. The tags highway=* and railway=tram should have separate representations, meaning different and distinct layers on the map. The tram should be captured as a separate way as per the wiki osm guidlines, but this is often not the case

My goal is to support the creation of a MapRoulette challenge to help detect these instances and share them with the community. I am open for your input and remarks

One last remark on why this is important for tomtom, To put it simply, TomTom wants to support map data consistency for all OpenStreetMap users, improving OpenStreetMap to accurately show and display roads with all vehicle accesses, as most people use them for mobility analysis, driving and routing applications.

image (24)
image (24)1155Ă—665 242 KB

image (25)
image (25)836Ă—712 54.2 KB

TomTom believes in consistent map data for all OpenStreetMap users. By ensuring that roads are accurately captured with all accessible vehicle types, we can enhance the overall quality of OpenStreetMap. This is crucial because most people rely on maps for driving and route planning.

Thank you for your attention

Salim

DEU (Used AI translation tool)

Hallo Deutsche OpenStreetMap-Community,

ich möchte euch bezüglich des Eisenbahn-Layers in OpenStreetMap konsultieren. Aktuelle Analysen und Abfragen unsererseits deuten auf potenzielle Probleme mit diesem Layer in Deutschland hin.

Die Tags “highway=*” und “railway=tram” sollten separate Darstellungen haben, d.h. unterschiedliche und getrennte Ebenen auf der Karte. Die Straßenbahn sollte gemäß den Wiki-OpenStreetMap-Richtlinien als separater Weg erfasst werden, was jedoch häufig nicht der Fall ist.

Mein Ziel ist es, eine MapRoulette-Challenge zu erstellen, um diese Fälle aufzudecken und mit der Community zu teilen. Ich bin offen für eure Anregungen und Anmerkungen.

Noch ein letzter Punkt, warum dies für TomTom wichtig ist: Im Wesentlichen möchte TomTom die Konsistenz der Kartendaten für alle OpenStreetMap-Benutzer unterstützen und OpenStreetMap verbessern, damit Straßen mit allen Fahrzeugzugängen korrekt dargestellt werden. Denn die meisten Menschen nutzen Karten für Mobilitätsanalysen, Routenplanung und Navigation.

TomTom setzt sich für konsistente Kartendaten für alle OpenStreetMap-Benutzer ein. Indem wir sicherstellen, dass Straßen mit allen zulässigen Fahrzeugtypen korrekt dargestellt werden, können wir die Gesamtqualität von OpenStreetMap verbessern. Dies ist entscheidend, da sich die meisten Menschen für die Navigation und Routenplanung auf Karten verlassen.

Vielen Dank fĂĽr eure Aufmerksamkeit,

Salim

2

The second screenshot appears to be of a bus-only lane sharing physical space with a streetcar lane. Can you explain why you think this is problematic, and how it would be mapped otherwise?

Perhaps it’s cases like this: File:Bahnhof Pankow Straßenbahn.jpg - Wikimedia Commons mapped as Way: 1052302098 | OpenStreetMap

Do you think it should be two separate ways (one tram and one bus) sharing the same nodes? Do you think this follows OSM’s principle of “one feature, one OSM element”?

3

Hab’ mal mit Overpass geprüft: In der Tat sind viele der Fälle Bus/Tram Kombinationen.

Ob man da auch trennen sollte? MĂĽssen die PT Fuzzies entscheiden. :wink:

4

That was my first thought as well, but our wiki states it differently and suggests to create two ways sharing nodes. Not that I’m a big fan of this…

5

Ich denke, dass geht sehr wohl auch alle anderen Mapper an. Zwei Wege übereinander macht editieren nicht gerade einfacher… :wink:

2 Likes
6

That was my first thought as well, but our wiki states it differently and suggests to create two ways sharing nodes. Not that I’m a big fan of this…

das macht Auswertungen viel schwieriger ob Tramgleise in der Fahrbahn sind, wenn beides an derselben Stelle aber auf unterschiedlichen Objekten getaggt ist. Beim Fahrradrouting will man Tramschienen normalerweise meiden.

Wie meistens hilft uns hier „one feature one element“ nicht weiter, weil eine Straße mit Tramschienen ein feature sein kann, und beides einzeln für sich aber auch features sein können.

Wenn wir von einer StraĂźe ausgehen die keine EinbahnstraĂźe ist, und Tramschienen in beide Richtungen hat, dann wĂĽrde man normalerweise die Schienen einzeln mappen und den highway zwischen den beiden rails, oder?

Ich habe mal eine EinbahnstraĂźe stichprobenartig angesehen, wo ich weiĂź dass es eng ist, und da hat man schon vor 13 Jahren die Gleise separat gemappt und vom highway entfernt, und seither wurda das wohl akzeptiert: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/30721660/history/10

7

Unless there is a physical separated, they should IMO merged into one way.
Sidenote: I myself have merged streets with a tramway but separate lanes multiple times[1] and the first ones were after I asked the community on what should be done there (the conclusion is the same i.e. merge lanes which aren’t physically dual carriageways).

Now, there are cases where the tracks are in the middle of the carriageway (or at least what the placement dictates) like in a one-way street in which case there is no proper solution. My preferred one is to simply let the highway and rails share the nodes where editors like JOSM will throw an error and makes editing them overall harder (particularly with iD) but it is what it physically represents (same deal with buildings parts where sometimes the only solution is to draw one over the building outline).

Edit: Clarified one sentence.

  1. Changeset: 137577642 | OpenStreetMap, Changeset: 152438413 | OpenStreetMap, Way: ‪Bahnhofplatz‬ (‪1215563758‬) | OpenStreetMap, Changeset: 142763381 | OpenStreetMap, Changeset: 140293917 | OpenStreetMap, Changeset: 149001120 | OpenStreetMap ↩︎

2 Likes
8

If a tram is really physically sharing the same lane/space with a bus or car traffic, I also believe that using a single way is not necessarily wrong.

Duplicating the way and sharing nodes is only necessary if some attributes conflict (e.g. oneway is different for the tram than for the busses).

So maybe the wiki guidelines need to be updated? Or is there a reason why tagging stuff on the same way is problematic for data users? @sbaido can you list some examples of problems that are caused by this?

1 Like
9

Dafür gibt es die im Startbeitrag verlinkte embedded-Sache, die aber noch nicht soooo alt ist (erst wenige Jahre m.d.E.n.) und deswegen noch manchenorts fehlen könnte. embedded hilft auch dann, wenn die Wege sinnvollerweise separat sind, weil die Richtungsfahrbahnen nicht getrennt und daher nur 1 highway sind, der von zwei railways eingerahmt ist, oder wenn beides spitzwinklig zueinander läuft.

1 Like
10

danke fĂĽr den Hinweis, jetzt mĂĽsste es nur noch weite Verbreitung finden.

11

@aighes @chris66 @Jarek @Jonathan_Haas @ManuelB701:

ENG. Thank you for your valuable feedback. To ensure safe passenger vehicle navigation, we aim to avoid routing through complex road sections that include tram tracks. We acknowledge that exceptions exist and certain restrictions may require specific considerations.
As the OSM wiki clearly outlines the importance of separating railway and highway networks, we would like to support maintain consistency across all data. This will contribute to safer and smoother navigation.
To address this, I’ll create a limited-access MapRoulette challenge with 20-30 specific cases for your review. We’ll also propose solutions/edits for some cases to align with OSM wiki guidelines.

DEU: Vielen Dank für Ihr wertvolles Feedback. Um eine sichere Navigation von Pkw zu gewährleisten, ist es unser Ziel, die Routenführung durch komplexe Straßenabschnitte mit Straßenbahngleisen zu vermeiden. Wir erkennen an, dass es Ausnahmen gibt und bestimmte Einschränkungen besondere Überlegungen erfordern können.
Da das OSM-Wiki deutlich macht, wie wichtig es ist, Eisenbahn- und Autobahnnetze zu trennen, möchten wir uns dafür einsetzen, dass alle Daten konsistent bleiben. Dies wird zu einer sichereren und reibungsloseren Navigation beitragen.
Um dies zu beheben, erstelle ich eine MapRoulette-Challenge mit eingeschränktem Zugriff mit 20-30 spezifischen Fällen, die Sie überprüfen können. Wir werden auch Lösungen/Bearbeitungen für einige Fälle vorschlagen, um sie mit den OSM-Wiki-Richtlinien in Einklang zu bringen.

12

@sbaido Can you speak more plainly? Your latest post sounds to me like “thank you but we’ll do what we set out to do nevertheless”. You thank us for valuable feedback but you haven’t responded to any - have any aspects of our valuable feedback informed your actions going forward, or is this just a polite phrase?

I don’t understand (1) why you want to route vehicles out of the way of tram tracks and (2) why you believe that separately mapped tram tracks make this easier.

13

@woodpeck : probably the message was not clear or you had the wrong impression. No, I am not referring to have it our way. we want to reason with the community to fully understand how this works in reality and try to represent it in the best way possible in OSM. that is why I mentioned that we would like to show cases/leads in an undiscovarble MapRoulette Challenge and solve/propose solution for a couple of cases with the community before we share more leads/cases.

The reply to all the above will be in my opinion to showcase the issues where it might be "“conflicted” or “disputed” or even “vague/unclear” in practice to learn from each other.

14

To be honest, I don’t see how a MapRoulette challenge can help to discuss specific cases with us (and additional it’s not quite clear why this should be discussed only with the German community, if your intention is rather a general topic).

1 Like
15

@aighes

DEU:
Unsere Analyse bzw. Abfragen haben ergeben, dass eine höhere Konzentration dieser Fälle in Deutschland vorliegt, gefolgt von Frankreich (weitere Details finden Sie in dieser Forumsdiskussion). Um dieses Problem effektiv anzugehen, schlage ich vor, eine MapRoulette-Challenge zu erstellen, bei der Aufgaben sowohl an die Community als auch an unser Redaktionsteam verteilt werden. Ich gehe davon aus, dass dieser kollaborative Ansatz in Kombination mit transparenter Kommunikation und Community-Engagement, wie in diesem Beitrag demonstriert, zu Ergebnissen führen wird. Alternativvorschläge sind ebenfalls willkommen.

ENG:
Our analysis and/or queries indicated a higher concentration of these cases in Germany, followed by France (for further details, please refer to this forum discussion). In my opinion, to address this effectively, I proposed creating a MapRoulette challenge for tasks to both the community and our editorial team. I assumed that this collaborative approach, combined with transparent communication and community engagement as demonstrated in this post, will yield to some results. I also welcome alternative suggestions.

Link to the discussion in the french forum:

16

Maybe I still don’t get your point. Your aim is to discuss with the community certain cases of where you (TomTom) think OSM-data is not matching reality or could be improved in the way how the reality is represented in OSM.
If so, just post a link to the location, a picture of the reality and describe what you think is wrong. Pretty simple, and the discussion can start. No need any challenge :wink:

2 Likes
17

Absolutely, @aighes! If I come across a large number, I’ll find a way to share them. I’ll keep in touch through this post.

18

Well,
on this way neither the
highway has a gauge nor the track has a number of lanes, and so on.

The broader picture for Germany for cases with relevance to
public routing or
any highway.

I do not know whether Salim had these cases in mind. But already all or
most of them will profit from scrutiny and many from surveying. Not
precluding more sophisticated quality checks that uncover more
undermapped places.

One can adapt in line 2 the query for other regions.

19

Well, lanes=* is only defined for highway. For railway we have tracks=*. The only tag which might lead to problems is oneway=yes but we could use oneway:train/subway/tram=no.

@sbaido: I still do not get what your problem is with railway=* and highway=* tagged together on a way. May you please explain in detail.

Once again, this challenge, mapping railway and highway as separate ways, would be far from easy to solve as there would be relation members involved and it would be nice to at least add embedded_rails[:lanes[:*]]=*. Both is missing in the Italian part (@DarioS_TT) where the topic even misses the tomtom tag.

I really would appreciate if TomTom would reflect their challenges more carefully and that I do not have to remind you about relations over and over again.

20

There are a couple of tags that are valid for both railway and road traffic. Therefore, using separate ways (but same nodes in some cases) is valid tagging and established tagging for about ten years in Germany.

maxspeed is a valid tag for both road and rail traffic, too. While speed limits for road vehicles apply for trams if trams do not use a physically separated track, trams may have lower speed limits due to a poor condition of their tracks or curves or may have higher speed limits (trams may run at 50 kph, see signal overhead; other vehicles are limited to 30 kph; “Tram frei” = “except tram”).

Examples:

  • 10 kph for trams but 50 kph for motorized vehicles in Hermann-Liebmann-StraĂźe in Leipzig.
  • 50 kph for trams but 30 kph for vehicles at KaiserstraĂźe Ost in Karlsruhe
  • 25 kph for trams but walking speed for permitted road vehicles in pedestrian zones in Karlsruhe: historic photo from KaiserstraĂźe. In PfinztalstraĂźe in Durlach it’s the same but unsigned. The mapper who added the speed limits in Durlach works as a light-rail driver.
2 Likes