RailwayData

This repository is for raw data used by the Travel Mapping project.

Please help us improve our data by reporting any problems you notice with the data in the project forum.

In general, the project's data is in plain text files in two formats: CSV using semicolon separators, and WPT or "waypoint" files. WPT files are required to contain only plain ASCII text. Some CSV files can include non-ASCII characters, but should always use a UTF-8 encoding when such characters are used.

The project's data is organized herein as follows:

Several CSV files at the top level are used to describe some project-wide information.

• continents.csv, countries.csv, regions.csv, and regions_countries_continents.csv are used to define the lists, names, abbreviations, and hierarchies for the geographic entities and governmental subdivisions used by the project.

• datacheckfps.csv contains a list of false positives that will be detected in the "datacheck" list of possible errors in the data. Entries listed here will be shown only in the "crossed off" list on the datacheck error page.

• systems.csv contains a list of the highway systems included in the project.

• systemupdates.csv lists the system-level changes being made to the project, such as highway system activations.

• updates.csv lists the railway-level changes being made to routes in active systems within the project that could affect users. Minor changes such as point relabelings or recenterings that do not require users to make any changes to their list files are not included here. Please keep this file sorted by region (ascending) and the by date (descending) within each region.

The boundaries directory contains descriptions of shorelines and borders that can be used to render certain types of maps. Travel Mapping does not currently use these.

The graphs directory contains CSV files that guide the creation of some of the graphs generated for use by the METAL project.

The hwy_data directory contains all of the information about which routes are in each system and the points that make up each route.

Most directories within rail_data are names of countries or regions. Each country or region's directory will have one or more subdirectories, one for each highway system that includes at least one route in that country or region. Within those directories are WPT files that list the waypoints of a route. Each line in a WPT file has two parts: one or more labels (only the first of which will be considered primary) and an OpenStreetMap-style URL that includes the latitude and longitude of the point.

There is also a special directory inside rail_data.

• The _systems directory contains two CSV files for each highway system listed in the top-level systems.csv file. For a hypothetical system called "usaza", the file usaza.csv would contain a list of highways within the system, and the file usaza_con.csv would contain a list of "connected" routes. For example, I-90 is made up of WPT files in the usai system under regions WA, ID, MT, SD, MN, WI, IL, IN, OH, PA, NY, and MA, so its entry in usai_con.csv describes which files make up the entire route and in which order they come.