We are proposing to amend the NaPTAN viewer to display the stop name in the same way as for the Portal All Stops Gazetteer (or Station/airport Gazetteer for stop types 9100 & 9200), when stop details are displayed on the Viewer using the 'ID NaPTAN' functionality.
In the above example, the stop record includes the following data:-
| Locality | (Banners Gate) |
| Street | (Bakers Lane) |
| Common Name | (Sutton Oak Corner) |
| Identifier | (bey) |
| SMS Number | (nwmgtmdp) |
In the All Stops Gazetteer, this translates to:-
Banners Gate, Bakers Lane, Sutton Oak Corner, Bey (SMS:nwmgtmpd)
At present, we only show the CommonName on the map for all stops when the scale is 1:2000 up to 1:10000. If the stop is selected using the Id NAPTAN function, we show in the messages panel a lot more than CommonName under the ID NaPTAN functionality, and users do not see the name as it appears on the Portal. We propose changing this to have an additional field on the NaPTAN Viewer that shows the "Portal Name". (It is accepted that the 'Portal Name' differs from the EBSR (Electronic Bus Service Registration) standardisation).
In the display of the stop details under the 'ID NaPTAN' functionality, we propose adding the name of the locality that the point is associated with to the display of the NatGazID number. In the above example, this would become:
NatGazID: N0072576 - Banners Gate
Currently this is displayed as NatGazID: N0072576
At present, the stop names appear on the map display (common name and
SMS number) at scales of 1:2000 - 1:10000. Where there are a number of stops in an area, map displays can become congested and users may need to zoom in a number of times to be able to clearly see an individual stop. We are therefore proposing a new facility to toggle on/off the display of stop names.
There are currently almost 400,000 records held on the NaPTAN database. Of these, around 24,000 have the status of deleted (DEL) records. NaPTANs are given the status of DELeted when the stop is no longer required for services and the decision to mark a stop as DELeted rests with the authority "owning" that NaPTAN.
Since NaPTANs were originally created, there has been a need to tidy up the records in a number of authorities, which has resulted in a large number of updates being made to NaPTANs in those areas. Since a NaPTAN record cannot be removed from the system once it has been created, the only option for the owning authority has been to mark that record as DELeted, and replace it with a new one. In some circumstances however, that has led to authorities owning large numbers of DEL records that simply confuse their data, especially when that data is displayed on systems such as the NaPTAN Viewer. Although there is now a new classification of ARChive, which should address this problem to some extent, there will still be an ongoing issue with DEL stops.
One of the prime examples of this problem is in Warrington, where all the stops were renumbered and replaced with new records that were the same as the previous ones in all respects, except for the AtcoCode. The end result is that Warrington's NaPTANs appear as in the map below:
DEL stops appear in the Viewer as triangles overlaid with an X. Although the records appear to show lots of such stops, in virtually every case the DEL stop simply hides an active (ACT) record, because both records have the same OSGR.
We are therefore proposing to change the deleted record symbol to be an "open" version of the relevant shape, in which a small red cross is displayed (similar to the "no image available" symbol on Internet Explorer).
Where two or more NaPTAN records have the same OSGR, whether DEL or ACT status, then one ACT record would occupy that location. The second and subsequent records would be displaced slightly (but avoiding conflict with other records) as appropriate to the scale of the map on which they are being displayed. Overlaps would be allowed; deleted records would overlay active records to ensure their notation is visible. ACT records are solid fill, and therefore can be recognised without being completely visible.
For clarity of display, there will also be an option to view only ACTive records (i.e. do not display ones with a DEL status).
The NaPTAN viewer is a very quick and simple way of identifying the precise position of stops against the map and of defining a grid reference to 1m accuracy. At present, all of the centrally maintained stops data can be viewed in the NaPTAN viewer, with the exception of the 9000s - the Coach Exchange Points. We are therefore proposing to change the viewer to display 9000s in the same way as it caters for the 9100, 9200, 9300 and 9400 stops.
We are proposing to update the viewer to display the date when the last NaPTAN load took place. Whilst in theory, a build should take place every two weeks, there are occasions when this happens weekly, or exceptionally, there may be a gap of three weeks between loads. If a user of the viewer is expecting to see a data change that does not appear to have taken effect, by clearly showing the date of last data upload to the viewer, they can see if there has been a delay in the data upload to the Portal.
At present, the text display shows BCT/BCS/RLY, but for BCT stops it does not indicate if it is Marked stop, Hail and Ride, or Custom and Practice. We are therefore proposing to change this to add bus stop type code to ID results as shown below:
BCT - HAR
BCT - MKD
BCT - CUS
BCT - FLX
It will be possible to add more categories such as code for a private stop if required.
We are proposing to change the sequence of information displayed in the message panel, so we get the standard name components in the right order (Winslow, Seven Gables, adj) and bring the stop-type and record status together, e.g.:
| NaPTAN ID: | 040000004059 |
| NatGazID: | E0044050 - Winslow |
| Common Name: | Seven Gables |
| Identifier: | adj |
| Direction: | NW |
| X,Y: | 475893,228645 |
| Stop Type: | BCT - MKD |
| Record Status: | ACT |
| Street: | Buckingham Road |
| Landmark: | Five Gables |
| SMS Number: | bucdtgtg |
Please note that we will also be changing the field names in the message panel to ensure they show the correct names for NaPTAN version 2 (i.e. NaPTAN ID will become Atco Code, Identifier will become Indicator, etc).