Adding name to railway platforms is inconsistent with wiki guidelines in most cases

[burrscurr]

Summary

As of now, the "What's the name of this stop?" quest (AddBusStopName) is asked for all public_transport=platforms. Due to #3374, this also applies to railway platforms. Though railway platforms are typically part of a station and don't have a name on their own, the quest encourages adding a name anyway.

Wiki on name for public transport stops

The following table compares wiki guidance on how to map different types of public transport stops and their name. public_transport= is abbreviated as pt=. Bus stop tagging is included for comparison.

Type	Tagging at the platform	Tagging on stop position	Tagging on station	stop name tagging
bus stop	highway=bus_stop	-	-	on platform
bus stop (PTv2)	highway=bus_stop + pt=platform	pt=stop_position	-	recommended for platform, optional for stop position
railways (general)	railway=platform + pt=platform	pt=stop_position	railway=station/halt	discouraged on platform, recommended on stop position, recommended on station
subways	railway=platform + pt=platform + subway=yes	pt=stop_position	railway=station + station=subway	recommended on platform "for easier route editing", recommended on stop position, recommended on station
tram stop	railway=platform + pt=platform + tram=yes	pt=stop_position + railway=tram_stop	-	on stop position

For bus stops, tagging the stop name on the platform is recommended, while tagging on the stop position is optional. For railways, tagging the name on the stop position (= on the track) is recommended, while tagging on the platform is either discouraged or optional. (The subway guidance on adding name to the platform looks to me like tagging for the renderer - or editor, in this case.)

Do platforms have a name on their own?

Typically, a railway platform is part of a named station, but does not have a name on its own. While the platform might have a sign with a name, this is probably the name of the station and not the platform itself.

At least for Germany, I personally don't know of railway platforms that have a name on their own. This discussion seems to suggest this is also the case for the UK. Other countries might have conventions on how to use name (e.g. a combination of station name and platform number), but those seem more like description to me.

For bus stops, adding the station/stop name on the platform seems to be the preferred tagging scheme. This makes sense, because for bus stops, the station/stop is pretty much identical with the platform. For train stations, especially those with many platforms, this is not the case. Duplicating the station name on every platform (even if it does not have a name on its own) does not seem like a good practice in general, and is not in line with what the wiki says as well.

Current SC behaviour

SC encourages adding a name to railway platforms anyway. For users unfamiliar with the tagging practices and wiki details described below, it is easy to think that, for instance, a sign pointing to the name of the station on the railway platform is the proper answer for that quest, while in most cases "has no name" would be the correct answer.

Examples for problematic outcomes encouraged by SC

name on platform inconsistent with name on stop_areas:

• https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/1137279497
• https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/157634194

Found via OSMcha

Unnecessary name labels on all platforms in a station. See also changeset/138591957, which added all those names (no offense to the mapper!).

Ideas how to handle this

• limit the quest AddBusStopName to highway=bus_stop and create a separate quest for adding name to public_transport=stop_positions on railway=... ways
• Disable name quest on railway=platforms if the platform is a member of a public_transport=stop_area relation with a public_transport=station member
• Make the "has no name" option more prominent in the quest

Open questions

• My main experience with this are railway platforms in Germany. Are there other countries where railway platforms typically have a "real" name?
• Even though this is discouraged by the wiki, many railway platforms are tagged with the station name regardless. How should SC handle this difference between wiki and established practice?

[rhhsm]

This should be considered for subway platforms too

[mnalis]

• (ref. related issue about duplicated info in similar situation: Platform vs stop quest (name/shelter/waste basket) in tram/bus stops #5132)

[burrscurr]

I updated the issue description with a better overview over the different public transport types and how they handle tagging of platform, stop position and station names.

[westnordost]

Thank you for the detailed description. Looking back at #3374 it seems to me that indeed this has been an unintended side-effect of the change.

According to taginfo,

• 98% of railway=halts have names
• 97% of railway=stations have names
• 34% of railway=platforms have names

Of all public_transport=platform,

• 84.5% have highway=bus_stop
• 4.6% have railway=platform
• 2.0% have train=yes
• 1.0% have tram=yes
• 0.3% have subway=yes
• 0.2% have light_rail=yes

So what I will do is to

• ask instead for names of railway=station and railway=halt
• only ask for public_transport=platform if none of railway=platform, train=yes, tram=yes, subway=yes, light_rail=yes or monorail=yes is set.

As the numbers show, about 10% of all public_transport=platform (more than 300000) don't have specified the kind of public transport. In absence of any other information, I'd assume that the probability of any of those being a bus stop is about 85% too, which is why I prefer a filter that does not require bus=yes to be set.

Sounds good?

[westnordost]

Or actually, requiring bus=yes is going to be easier to maintain. And for some random overpass queries like

[out:json][timeout:500];
  node["public_transport"="platform"]["railway"!="platform"]["highway"!="bus_stop"]["train"!="yes"]["bus"!="yes"]["subway"!="yes"]["tram"!="yes"]["monorail"!="yes"]({{bbox}});

in e.g. whole of Germany, whole of USA, South East Asia, I didn't find a single one. So I guess this is mostly on areas for which it is much more likely that it is indeed a railway platform.

[burrscurr]

Thanks for addressing the issue and for the implementation.

I have one small possible addition: Can we also include tram stops (railway=tram_stop) in the query? The updated name quest currently does not apply to those, as they aren't railway=station or railway=halts.

[westnordost]

ok, added that

[riQQ]

Added in 5bf14bf by westnordost

[schnackOpPlatt]

It is possible to use a relation [type=public_transport, public_transport=stop_area, name=...] to group the elements of a bus station - like:

[public_transport=platform] and [public_transport=stop_position, highway=bus_stop]

If I do this and tag the name on the relation then Streetcomplete might could not ask for the name or use the name of the relation as a proposal for the individual platform name?

[westnordost]

Public transport relations? Not sure if I understand you correctly. You want to skip the bus-stop-name-quest if it is a member of a relation that already has a name?

Hm, can you provide a link to the wiki that describes this?

In any way, this should probably be a new ticket.

[Dimitar5555]

The quest is being asked for tram platforms with tram=yes + bus=yes is this intended? Maybe tram=yes platforms should be excluded?

Example for which the quest appears: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/621942301
Example for which the quest appeared and was answered in the latest version (58.0): https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/1146015600/history

[westnordost]

Maybe it should, maybe it shouldn't. To make a decision, we need sources and numbers:

• what does the wiki suggest in that case?

• how much percent of public_transport=platform + bus = yes + tram = yes have names?

[Dimitar5555]

I've made a quick query. 91% of public_transport=platform + bus=yes + tram=yes have names.

[out:json][timeout:25];
nwr[public_transport=platform][tram=yes][bus=yes][!name]; //69+378+0=447
//nwr[public_transport=platform][tram=yes][bus=yes][name]; //1845+2672+20=4537
out count;

Sidenote: The data is skewed. Trams usually have their own railway=tram_stop+public_transport=stop_position+name+etc.... Buses on the other hand usually have platforms highway=bus_stop+public_transport=platform+name+etc.... When a bus and a tram share a stop, it's common to share the platform, but not the stop position since usually the buses drive on the road and not on the tracks. Even in cases where they drive on the tracks, they follow a road and if there is a bus stop position, it's on the road.

A possible simple solution would be to exclude railway=platform, regardless of other tags.

[westnordost]

Thanks!

But if 91% of these do have names, why do you want to change the quest, as it looks like common mapping practice then?