On Wed, Jul 2, 2014 at 2:05 PM, Martin Koppenhoefer <dieterdre...@gmail.com> wrote: > > 2014-07-02 18:32 GMT+02:00 John Packer <john.pack...@gmail.com>: > From previous discussions I think I remember that it isn't clear what an > "airport" is. Most if not all our "aerodromes" are probably airports, and > also the helipads are probably airports according to the wikipedia > definition of airport.
This may help: the Brazilian National Civil Aviation Agency of Brazil (ANAC) defines an airport as a "public aerodrome provided with facilities to support aircraft operations and the embarking and disembarking of passengers and cargo." [1] So in Brazil an aerodrome without public passenger terminals would be considered a regular aerodrome, but not an airport. > What does an airport make "international"? If there once has flewn an > aircraft into another country? Or must there be a scheduled flight into > another country? Or a certain amount of such scheduled flights? >From Wikipedia [2]: "Airports with international flights have customs and immigration facilities. However, as some countries have agreements that allow travel between them without customs and immigration, such facilities are not a definitive need for an international airport." So, if the aerodrome does have such facilities, it is definitely an international airport, even if it is not operating international flights at some particular point in time. Otherwise, the definition would depend (in my opinion) on existing advertisement of regular public flights to other countries. In Brazil this is easier to determine because official data sources do specify which airports are ready and authorized to operate international flights. But even if Brazil's situation is quite specific in the world, I think that international, domestic and regional airports can be rendered in the same way. But some visual distinction for the other types of airports (specially airfields, airstrips and private aerodromes). In essence, I think people need to be able to distinguish at least "major" from "minor" types of airports. Most people are only interested in using major airports. That doesn't mean that minor airports should not be rendered or not mapped, but only not given so much importance on general-purpose rendered maps and search engines. > is "private" about the ownership? Have a look at Fraport AG, the operator of > Frankfurt Airport (biggest German airport) and traded at Frankfurt Stock > Exchange. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraport it is both, publicly and > privately owned (majority is public ownership currently), would the > Frankfurt Airport become private in OSM if the government decided to sell a > bigger share of it? > "airport=international;private"? I believe "private" in this context means "not having regular flights that can be hired by formal means". [3] Obviously one can always "hire" a pilot, but this would be an informal arrangement which is probably not directly regulated by government agencies. > Previous discussions ended up with the conclusion that it would be better to > have the details mapped (e.g. number and size/shape of runways, encompassing > polygon (!) for the airport itself) so that you could elaborate this > information to estimate the importance. Unfortunately it seems quite > expensive to do this on the fly, hence the missing progress in airport > rendering at low zoom scales so far. That's why I agree with you that some > basic tags could help the renderer (e.g. osm-carto) to achieve better > rendering. Except for runway width at zoom level 14 on Mapnik/OSM-Carto, I do believe that current rendering is quite adequate, except for minor airports at low zoom levels, which are perhaps misleadingly evident (e.g.: an airstrip with no infrastructure in the middle of nowhere would be rendered the same way as a huge international airport in a metropolis). Here are the definitions that I assumed when reviewing the airports in my region in Brazil: - international: defined as international by ANAC [1] and officially so (other countries probably require their own definitions on this) - domestic: operating flights within the country but across states - regional: operating flights only within a state (probably doesn't make sense in countries with small area) - airsport: clubs (usually not "public" in the sense that "anybody can fly") where aircraft is used mostly for entertainment, and sometimes for informal teaching - airfield: not having sufficient infrastructure (e.g. not having a paved runway) - airstrip: not having ANY infrastructure besides the runway itself - military: used primarly for military operations - private: not fitting any of the previous definitions, usually owned by a company and often offering specialized flying services that are not intended for transportation (such as agricultural operations) I believe that "public" in this context would be a generic descriptor encompassing international, domestic and regional aerodromes (much like surface=paved encompasses various types of surface). Perhaps airfields and airstrips would be public in some countries but not in others. > Even a very simple metric (airports bigger than x and mapped as an area) > might already improve the current rendering situation. Definitely agree. [1] http://www.anac.gov.br/Area.aspx?ttCD_CHAVE=8 [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airport#Airport_structures [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_flight -- Fernando Trebien +55 (51) 9962-5409 "Nullius in verba." _______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
