What to do with duplicate bus stops (manually created + NAPTAN import)

In numerous places that I’ve noticed, there are duplicate nodes representing bus stops — ones which were created manually by users based on surveys, and then the same stops added again when the NAPTAN database was imported.

The solution seemed obvious to me initially — simply delete the manually created node, as it’s now superseded.

However, it turns out that there’s often useful information in the tags of these manually created nodes that isn’t in the NAPTAN nodes. For example, here we see three stops rendered — there are actually four nodes — where the manually placed nodes mention which bus operators use the stop, which bus lines actually stop there, and the fact that there’s a bay for the buses to pull off the road.

My question is: what to do with these nodes? Having duplicate nodes representing the same things isn’t desirable; simply deleting the information that someone has taken the time to collect is also undesirable; but I hesitate to edit the NAPTAN nodes, because imported nodes like this may at some point be re-imported, or batch processed in some way that might destroy any modifications that have been made manually to individual nodes.

Can anyone give a definitive answer regarding whether it’s (a) permitted, or (b) advisable to modify imported nodes such as the NAPTAN bus stop nodes?

Thanks in advance.

See this page for full details: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/NaPTAN/Surveying_and_Merging_NaPTAN_and_OSM_data

Basically, yes, it is permitted and advisable to edit the Naptan nodes, and its a good idea to merge any duplicate bus stops.
Though you should not edit any of the tags that start with “naptan:”, as they are official references etc. Except you can remove the naptan:verified=no tag if you have checked that bus stop and it actually exists.
Also, the positions of the Naptan stops can be inaccurate in places, so its fine to move these if you have surveyed them accurately.

There is this tool which is very useful for showing which bus stops have Naptan data and have been verified etc: http://mappa-mercia.org/novam/

Any future imports or updates of Naptan data should check for any modifications and avoid overwriting them.

Excellent, that’s the kind of answer I wanted — comprehensive, authoritative (-sounding!), with a link to a wiki.osm.org page to back it up. Ta very much. :slight_smile: