It started innocently when I noticed a local transit shelter had been moved to the other side of the highway but that wasn't showing up in Open Street Maps. When I looked deeper, I found OSM had 1 shelter and 3 bus stop like nodes where the bus formerly stopped.
Because I was inexperienced at using OSM for public transport routing as opposed to vehicle directions, I knew I should be careful making edits less valid data or relationships be lost or confusing to others.
It later dawned on me that this wasn't 1 stop being removed, or moved, it was 2 stops replaced by one nearby. So I chose to delete the 3 bogons, and move the leftover down the road. I think I did it right and am waiting for various map sites to get these updates and see how they look.
But like pulling a loose thread that turns into an unravel-fest, I found more "errors and omissions" on other stops beyond where I started. Primary bugs:
- Same bus stop ID number on 2 or more nodes. Should not happen.
- Some stops had a route identifier; some did not.
- Some stops had links/routes showing line numbers/names; some did not.
- Nodes were classified as "bus" "bus stop" "bus station" willy-nilly
- Multiple routes at one stop were mis-keyed as unseparated values
- A new route is not on the map; does it exist?
Whispering Woods transit stop, in the area now known as Hopkins Point.
fix check:
https://overpass-api.de/api/sketch-line?network=BaltimoreLink&ref=59&operator=
The above is one view of the metro bus routes, showing the phantom (new) route #40.
It's ARCGIS, with Maryland State as the client/portal.
Another view:
https://www.mta.maryland.gov/schedule/stops/40
The MTA has a not-quite-current list of all bus stops, from a non-GUI menu path:
https://geodata.md.gov/imap/rest/services/Transportation/MD_Transit/FeatureServer/9/query
Simple-enough query-by-example fill-in-the boxes:
which returns columnar date in separate rows, plus coordinates.
e.g.
Routes_Served: OR, 59, 62
Shelter: No
stop_id: 4522
Point:
X: -8511670.83
Y: 4766621.937700003
Routes_Served: OR, 59, 62, 160
Shelter: No
stop_id: 4524
Point:
X: -8511141.9511
Y: 4766737.762000002
The coordinate reference system I found worked with QGIS is "ESRI meters", also known as:
ID["ESRI",102100]]
I used the findings of the duplicate stop search to check location and routes, as well as naming standards (which someone took care of 99.4% not too many years ago).
Next steps:
- Add the missing 40 bus to OpenStreetMaps as a blank spot on the canvas.
- Find duplicate stops by checking how close together they are, that aren't headed in opposite directions.
- Figure out what to do about the majority of missing routes (as relations) for nodes.
- Other errors and omissions as they appear, i.e. quality assurance.
- Share timetable/schedule/interval info. See: chaos.social/@jspath55/114659131418285869
- Compare recorded comfort features (benches/shelters) with ground conditions.