OpenStreetMap
Finally got around to do a bus route. Why one in Quebec City? Easy: because the Montreal transport authority has no mapping at all on its website. Also, I ran that route for years over a longer distance than I do the routes here in MTL.
However, the current setup for bus routes is thoroughly inadequate. As currently defined, it is not even capable of handling a simpel case of opposite direction stops on different ways of a double-carriageway. Don't even get me started on loops with different number of stops in each directions!
ETA: ANybody knows how to make relations between relations??
Discussion
Comment from djo0012 on 14 October 2008 at 03:04
the STM actually as a quiet good map on it's web site but it's probably under copyright (the quebec one is probably too)
I still havent started mapping bus featur around hear but I agree that's will be a probleme I don't know how bus route work in osm thought
Comment from Circeus on 14 October 2008 at 03:07
I haven't found a map on the STM site that shows the stops. And I would be really surprised if someone could build a copyvio case from what is basically reproducing bus routes in OSM...
Comment from djo0012 on 14 October 2008 at 03:47
well you've got to look at the bus timetable and you will see all bus stop, it's not on a map but it's doing the same since bus stop are before the corner and you have the intersection
Comment from Circeus on 14 October 2008 at 03:54
I came to a decision that it was simpler to list very close-by stops as a single one instead of a pair of forward/backward stops. The major exception is whenever there is a traffic_signal tag on the intersection. For some reason, it will eliminate the bus_stop tag.
Comment from smsm1 on 15 October 2008 at 11:06
I use a bus stop node at the side of the way that the bus stop is on that way there isn't a problem with which side of the road the bus stop is on. There is currently no way to deal with loops in bus routes.
Comment from Circeus on 15 October 2008 at 17:33
I came up with an ad hoc system using the backward/forward tag already extant that is, IMHO both more functional and more intuitive. As far as I'm concerned, a bus route system that cannot handle loop/splitting route is virtually useless and should probably be rethought from scratches. (If I can't enter any route that goes along a double carriageway because of the formed loop, I'm virtually unable to enter ANY route in Quebec City, what would be the point??)