Israel GTFS release

I think very few of the manually added stops have any useful information other than the location. So I would recommend deleting them (manually after being checked, not by a script), and if necessary moving the GTFS stops to the location of the old manual stop. The GTFS stops include information, like the official stop name and reference number, which is potentially very valuable if coordinated with other data (for example, the route database).

As for GTFS location accuracy - the first few stops I looked at appeared very accurate. But since then I have seen less accurate ones, particularly outside urban areas. And the fact that there are often stops with identical names a significant distance away from each other implies that the accuracy may not be so high. Of course, manually entered stops can also inaccurate. So I don’t know.

So, we doing merge and giving location priority to the old ones. Works for me.

eric22, can you somehow add fixme tag for all the new bus stops, so we can monitor manual validation status?

Hi eric22,

just checked the import and its amazing detailed.
Several street names could be fetched from this import.
Can be very very helpful in the future.
Great you found the time to do the job.

Beside that we should import more value from the data we got:

For example the bus numbers that are stopping on each stop.
And also the name of the bus company taking care of the stop.
Also the route ID could be from interest. Those kind of information are in the Israeli public data and we should really use them.

Currently I will not be able to create a bus route with the data we imported.
Its simply missing more information.

We should consider getting more data into OSM.
Is that possible somehow?

I just added (upload in progress) fixme tag for all (33051) imported bus stops.
Now, each time we see bus stop with fixme tag, we can check it, move it and/or merge it with existing one… until all stops will be approved.

We have a problem if we merge the bus stops. We would loose the “ref” number what will cause a overlapping for the next import.
We should not touch the location at the moment as we will have to import it again in the future.

What do you think?

Mr_Israel, no, we must only merge imported with existing and never two stops with different refs.

By the way, I see many stops which isn’t exists at all. It’s not a good idea to show them on the map and we need to find any solution to leave them in db but not show on rendering. maybe we can mark them as construction or proposed.

We could add the REF of the bus stop to a separated field.

Here some examples:

=> ref:merge=123123;123123;123123;123123
=> ref1=123123
ref2=234213
ref3=523423
=> description=123123;123123;123123;123123

I simply don’t want to loose any kind of information.
I’m expecting that they will fix the GTFS data in the future as it is currently not usefull for Google I think.
It would also mean for Google to have bus stops all over the street without marking the exact bus stop position.

I’d prefer to leave different stops as separate nodes. maybe slightly move them so the nodes will not have same position.

This could also be a option. Simply move them to just one position.
This way we would not loose any information and we could import again and skip all existing stop with existing refs.

I have been working on the GTFS route data, and now I have a .osm file with a large number of ways, each representing a bus route. Here is a screenshot in JOSM:

The question is how to incorporate this data into OSM. A bus route in OSM consists of a relation which contains all the street segments the bus travels on. However, my data is not relations but ways. Furthermore, we presumably want to use our pre-existing ways, rather than the ways I’m uploading, to represent streets. (Though we could update our ways if necessary to reflect information in my ways.)

Right now it looks like I should upload all my data as-is to OSM. It will not show on the rendered map (the only tags in each way are ref,name,operator,source). But when we edit, we will see a number of ways overlaid on our streets. One by one, these can then be manually deleted and relations created to hold the equivalent information.

That is a labor-intensive process. Also, we need to find a reliable way of uploading this 300MB file (35MB when bzipped). My relatively new computer basically grinds to a halt when the file is opened in JOSM. But there must be some smaller script that can do the upload, perhaps by breaking the file into pieces.

Any thoughts, or alternative suggestions?

I would suggest to split it to smaller chunks (by operator/area/city/…).
Also, may be an option to create many small files, such as we can get small piece of data, open in in josm, and create normal relation without uploading temporary data and then deleting it.

eric, can you share some example? any single route?

I agree with yrtimiD to have smaller chunks and to try not to upload everything and then delete it.
It’s better to do it slowly but with a focus to finish it together. You are welcome to add all routes to Israel by yourself :slight_smile:

You are preparing several OSM files with the data you have and split it to the smallest chunks we can do. Maybe bus route by bus route.
And then make it available to download. So everybody that wants to help needs to download the OSM file and add his name to the list at the route.
This way we would add route by route… will take a long time but better that “spaming” OSM with data that needs to be deleted afterwards.

Adding a bus route to osm is a very annoying process as a lot of streets needing to be cut into very small peaces to add the correct relation.
Doing it very slowly and with a system would really help.

Good ideas :slight_smile:

I started separating the data by operator, and when looking more closely in JOSM, I realized a portion of the data is wrong. Not sure yet if the problem is in my script or their data. But I’m glad I noticed before uploading…

I just found two interesting slides.

http://www.slideshare.net/shelef/the-advantages-of-gtfs-in-israel
http://www.slideshare.net/shelef/transit-information-services-in-israel-update-2012-v4

Very interesting that there is no word about Openstreetmap.
Maybe we should tell him how great the step was for Openstreetmap.

What do you think?

I was wondering why our imported bus stop refs always differs from the id printed in the real bus stop sign.
The original text files has two fields - stop_id and stop_code. As I understand, we used stop_code for ref field.
I think it’s better to use the actual ID printed on bus stop’s sign so we’ll be easier to confirm existing stops.

Anybody have other opinion?

I noticed that, too, but did not say anything because I am not familiar with the implementation details.

I agree; if stop_id is really what’s printed on the signs, then it would make much more sense to use those for physical cross-reference.

I just finished to upload a changeset (http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/changeset/14265835)
The new values as follows:


stop_id -> gtfs:id
stop_code -> ref

eric22, Important note for you: If you going to do further imports, please be sure you change your scripts.

I have chosen gtfs:id tag name, but if somebody have better idea for the name - it’s not a problem to change.

Also, I found 93 missed bus stops. Possible they recently have been added to the gtfs files, or were deleted by users.
IMHO, for future route imports we may not delete stops which isn’t exist phisically, but may mark them, for example, as proposed:


highway=proposed
proposed=bus_stop

I’m ready to upload this set of missed stops at any time.

I have no current plans to update the bus stops, but I’ve made a note to myself this.

Feel free to upload the missed stops.

Guys, I talked with owners of Moovit application http://www.moovit.co.il/.
It’s very nice application for public transport which also use data from GTFS and our map.

Asked them to work together on fixing and updating current GTFS data and they appear very cooperative and will be happy to sync bus stop info two way.

Here is a part of their answer:

Where can I find more information on specific GTFS IDs?

See my http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/changeset/14370035 from today.
I added some more information on th Hatzor bus terminal. There were some six stations scattered around it that seem to have been related. I’m not sure what they all mean.