Hi Daniel,
Am 2015-04-11 um 09:18 schrieb danmey@web.de:
this second mail is to think about other ways to determine the importance of a station without any specific tag. I have to say that I have no idea about how difficult it is to render a map and define render rules. So throw eggs if these ideas are not really thought through...
One way to define the importance of a station could be to have a look a the route relations. How many different route relations are conected with the stop_positions of the station? Do these relations have a range of service tags (from commuter to long_distance?) Perhaps we could define a system to evaluate this.
A different way could be the number of platforms: more platforms means higher importance. Either with the platform*s*-Tag (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:platforms). But it is not in really wide use. I don't use it, either. But there could be a way to determine the number of platforms through the stop_area relation.
The stop_area does not have to fit to the operating site from infrastructure point of view. It is hard to tell most mappers that Berlin Central Station should have three stop area relations because it consists out of three operating sites (Berlin Hbf tief (platforms 1–8, S Berlin Hbf (Lehrter Bf., platforms 9+10 used by S-Bahn), Berlin Hbf (platforms 11–14).
If a station is partly on a bridge and partly not, platforms might be splitted. The same occurs if parts of a platform are paved and parts only covered by dirt or grass (many small stations, e.g. Darmstadt-Süd).
Of course, you can show me a lot of examples where a station with few route relations / platforms has higher importance than another station with more of these.
If you count route relations, you also need a frequency=* tag. What if a station is served by 8 intercity lines which only run ever 120 minutes or only once a day?
Best regards
Michael