On Nov 20, 2022, at 1:22 AM, Warin <61sundow...@gmail.com> wrote: > Technically energy = power x time, so related things but not the same.
Thank you; that’s the simple answer to clear up any potentially remaining confusion. Whether it does or not... > Utilities would not only be energy/power (electric, gas, oil, coal and wood) > providers but also garbage collection, sewage, water, phone, cable TV and > internet. Yes, this is well-stated. And this varies a great deal around the world. Some municipalities / jurisdictions offer zero, one, multiple or “all available” such utilities, others allow a competitive marketplace that allows a choice of things for, say, Internet (or wired telephone), but there may or may not be a choice of water, sewage or garbage. A municipality may offer one or some services via a “franchise” agreement (with a cable TV operator, for example), There is a big universe of possibilities, and it is folly for OSM to try to cram all of these into a “one size fits all” tagging scheme. This is true even for the “office” where, say, payments are taken, service is established, equipment is furnished / exchanged (e.g. a cable TV box), etc. > So a second tag of > utility=electric/gas/oil/coal/wood/garbage_collection/sewage/water/phone/cable_tv/internet/* > semi colin delimited for multiple values... ??? In fact, I can imagine a variety of tags that describe much (approaching or even achieving?) all of this: office=utility utility=water;sewer;garbage utility=accepts_payment utility=cable_tv utility=allows_equipment_exchange utility=furnishes_service_equipment utility:payment=in_person_only utility:payment=kiosk utility:payment=cash_only utility:payment=accepts_checks Those aren’t necessarily the exact tags OSM might eventually settle upon, but they do indicate what’s possible. Again, it’s a pretty big universe, as “utilities” encompass more than power / energy, and there are a vast number of ways to “deal with customers at an office.” (There’s the office itself, what sort of services are available, when/whether it is staffed (it may be simply a drop-box for payment), what sort of services and payments are exchanged…). > On 20/11/22 10:49, Martin Koppenhoefer wrote: >>> On 18 Nov 2022, at 22:35, Mike Thompson <miketh...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> In a nearby city to where I live, the city owned utility provides >>> electricity, water, sewer, and internet. >> >> yes, it is also common in areas I know to have a single provider for water, >> sewer, waste disposal and even local public transport. Maybe we should have >> a generic term for these kinds of offices and specify with additional tags >> the kind of services? > > office=government??? Sometimes it is a government office (often at a municipal level, or, say admin_level=6,7,8), sometimes not. These might be “monopoly” providers, and there doesn’t seem anything wrong with that: I mean, how many different companies/jurisdictions are really needed to manage sewage in a given area? Sometimes it is a private company (like one mobile phone service vs. another). Without going too broad and beyond “power” (energy), this missive attempts to sketch the outline of a possible tagging scheme for “utilities” in general. This would be a fairly rich (complex) scheme if/as it were to encompass all of the sorts of “utility offices” there are around the world. It would logically be sensible to broaden from simply “utility office” to encompass both the “office” component, the “utility” component and perhaps more. But those two are rich enough to provide both a good start and much food for thought of a big tagging scheme. _______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
