The Scottish Bus Open Data Consultation
S3E The prescribed information - technical questions on bus stop information
Information about bus stops, the facilities available at bus stops and in particular features which enable access for a wide range of passengers, is held regionally, by local transport authorities.
In England, there is a legal requirement for local transport authorities to provide this information to the Department for Transport, who hold the UK wide database of public transport access points. This database holds details about all of the places where you can get on or off public transport.
In Scotland, this information is currently submitted voluntarily. We believe that the best option for Scotland is to make submission of this information mandatory, as it is in England, and to provide it in the same format and to the same database that is used in the wider UK, rather than running a parallel database which only contains information for Scotland. This would require local transport authorities to provide the following information as is currently done on a voluntary basis.
- the location of the stop
- the stop code or the nodes code taken from the National Public Transport Access Nodes database
- the area code, from an established list of area codes for NaPTAN
- the Ordnance Survey grid reference
- any relevant landmarks
- a topographic reference taken from the National Public Transport Gazetteer
- details of stop accessibility features