[openrailwaymap] Station importance

[Alexander Matheisen]

Hello Marian,

Am Montag, den 07.03.2016, 03:12 +0100 schrieb Marian Sigler:
> Hi,
> 
> I also wanted to note that "international" is a bad category
> (Hannover
> is a good example). Good that you already changed it, but I still
> think
> the criteria are too much based on territories.
> 
> I think we should go more in that "dominance" direction, in
> particular,
> we need to get rid of the "Bahnhofskategorie" thinking. This is a
> categorization scheme that rather aims at a station's traveler
> infrastructure, not its relative significance.

do you have ideas for a better scheme?

> One example where your suggestion is too close to that
> Bahnhofskategorie
> thinking: I don't see any difference between "suburban" and "local",
> except where they are. This is not important for the aim of this
> categorization.

There are some differences: Suburban stations are located in urban
areas, while local stations are located in rural areas. Suburban
stations typically have a higher number of passengers than local
stations. The most important difference: A suburban stations is
typically served by more trains per time interval and have a higher
number of passengers than a local station.

> Also, we'd need some way to differentiate Basel Bad Bf from Basel
> SBB,
> Berlin/München Hbf from Ostbahnhof, København C from Nørreport. In
> each
> of these examples, both mentioned stations have international
> traffic,
> but one is definitly to be displayed at a lower zoom level than the
> other.

This problem was also discussed on the wiki discussion page: http://wik
i.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User_talk:Rurseekatze/Station_Importance_Draft

I proposed to tag both of those stations with the same category, but
use additional information like passenger=* to determine the most
important station within one category.

> There's another problem that has not been mentioned yet: The scheme
> is
> only aimed at railway networks, but we would want such a system for
> underground networks, too, for example. And also for airports and bus
> stops [1].
> (Note that the importance of stations from different systems is not
> strictly hierarchical: I would want to see an important underground
> exchange station at a lower zoom level than some regional train stop;
> and some important bus node earlier than a small underground stop.)

I think that this system can be used for other networks, too. It just
needs some more general definitions. Some examples how that tagging
could be used:

Airports: Frankfurt could be importance=continental while Frankfurt
-Hahn could be importance=interregional. importance=regional could be
used for small airports, lower categories are not useful for airports
in my opinion.

Subways/Trams/Light rails: importance=local could be used as the
standard value for stops. The more important ones within a suburb (e.g.
providing access to other directions and traffic types) as
importance=suburban, while importance=urban is for important nodes.
Higher categories seem to be not useful for these railways.

Bus stops: Similar to subways, Trams and Light rails: importance=local
is the standard value for simple bus stops, importance=suburban is for
bus stops that provide access to other bus lines or tram lines,
importance=urban is for bus stations that are now tagged as
amenity=bus_station. In Germany, these stations are known as "ZOB".
Stations for long distance busses ("Fernbusse") could be tagged with
one of the higher categories, according to their traffic.

> I'm thinking about a how to define a scheme that can cover all of
> this,
> but I want to go to bed now, so I'll do that tomorrow, but already
> send
> this mail to avoid people considering the discussion over ;)

Do you already have any draft? I am interested in your ideas.

> [1] Yes, that lies outside the scope of openrailmap, but there's the
> same problem when rendering a transit map, so we should develop a
> solution that fits them all.


Regards
Alex
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