Monday 14 September 2009

What button?

The NaPTAN load of bus stops has given us reasons to revisit Hull. The city was chock-a-block over the weekend as the Round the World Clipper race started from the marina. Today the city was back to normal and we went into the city centre to walk round some of the stops. The GPS reception was about the worse I've ever seen. Most of the time it had no position lock at all, and when it did, briefly here and there, it was so poor that I ignored it. I took lots of photos to position the bus stops on the streets.

The stops were very poor, many did not have the NaPTAN code on them, the postions were poor and there were extra ones and missing ones. So far the NaPTAN data has been pretty good, but in the city centre it's not been good at all. The absence of GPS locations didn't help when it came to editing, but I think it's pretty good.

One thing I did find was a placebo button on a crossing. The junction is controlled by traffic signals, the crossing is over a one-way street, so the traffic signals for the crossing are part of the junction signals. There used to be a button on the crossing, but now the button has been covered over. There looks like there is a button, but it doesn't do anything. It just makes you feel as though you have requested the lights to change to make you feel better, hence it is a placebo button.

1 comment:

- said...

After all my efforts importing this stuff, I'm only just getting around to surveying my local area.
I'd be interested to know how you are confirming the details of whats on the ground with what NaPTAN says.