Subway systems are usually operated by a specific agency or are unified under a single network name. By mapping the railways stations in a system using a consistent network or operator tag, it is possible to provide a unique identity to those stations or lines on the map, just like a local person is used to.

The recent roll out of Mapbox Streets V7 included custom metro icons for 22 major subway networks based on these OpenStreetMap tags. This makes the map more usable by providing a familiar visual connection with their environment.

You can check out these customized icon on this style.

Adding missing operator and network tags

If your city has a major subway or transit system, you should consider checking the operator and network tags for consistency so that it can be supported for customized icons. To do this, you can follow this workflow that we use in our data team to identify stations that require these missing tags.

Inconsistencies in Barcelona

One of the major systems where we found tagging inconsistencies is Barcelona.

Overpass Query: Barcelona Metro Lines

As per Wikipedia of Barcelona Metro there are total of 180 subway stations, but from Overpass we get the following:

• station=subway with network or operator tag
  • network tag : 156
  • operator tag : 79
• station=subway without network or operator tag : 181

Note : The stats number from overpass is greater than official number as the metro entrance and the metro stations are not tagged seperately which lead to multiple occurence of railway=station and these multiple nodes which don’t count for the overall coverage. With the current mapping scheme in Barcelona it is not possible to get exact coverage of 180 station.

Update your city!

There are more cities around the world where these network and operator tag coverage is not good and need local mappers attention to tag them. Its important to keep in mind that the tagging of operator/network tag should be consistent throughout the system, please consult with your community or mailing list before making any large changes. This will allow us to support many more cities in the future.

Happy Mapping from the Mapbox data team!