Should train station names be suffixed with the word 'Station'?

[JohnScolaro]

When browsing through local train stations on Google Maps in Brisbane, Australia, I noticed that there is no consistent naming convention of train stations. Three stations in a row are called: “Taringa”, “Toowong station” and “Auchenflower Station”. The first is missing the word station entirely, and the second two have inconsistent capitalization. I personally would prefer adding “Station” to the end of all stations. If nothing is added, there will be two locations named “Taringa”, the suburb and the station and I’m not a fan of this doubling up.

What are your opinions? Is this the correct place to be posting this question?

[Silvi]

Hi @JohnScolaro Welcome to Connect! Yes, you’re in the right place with your question. Although when adding a train station you must select the category “train station” for me it is also correct to place the word station in the name of it. What do you think about it @JanVanHaver ?

John as you’re new here these post can help you very much Your Guide to Connect 14 helpful tips for using Connect

Greetings.

Silvy.

[ErmesT]

A real “train station” categorised as “train station” should not be editable, @JohnScolaro , because it is part of the transit layer, managed directly by the transportation companies.

In fact, even if the category exists, it is not in the list of categories.

So probably the place you are mentioning is not the “train station” but a building with the same name added by some local guide, most probably during the Map Maker period.

Can you please share a link of the place?

[JohnScolaro]

Hey @ErmesT , I believe the train stations are correctly labelled as “Train Stations”. Possibly the transportation company has the inconsistent naming? Here are links to the stations that I was referring to:

1: https://goo.gl/maps/fdCnqoZ62tDYTPDg9

2: https://goo.gl/maps/iX1Vj3PLL8LH7dSE9

3: https://goo.gl/maps/dp9hitFFXU99wuR96

Thanks for the help!

[MortenCopenhagen]

Hi @JohnScolaro

Examples 2 and 3 have the word station in their name. The first one does not.

Is your concern that the word train should also be in the names? Or is the problem that the word station is not mentioned in the first example?

Changing any of these names can only be done by reaching out to the transport company. They proabably thought about the naming already.

Around here the naming of statiins is also not super consistent. I believe it depends if the first part of the name is used for other places also so the station word is added only when needed.

All the best

Morten

[AdamGT]

Hi @JohnScolaro

I differ somewhat from @SilvyC 's feelings and believe it should bot be added for the reasons mentioned by others but also when you think about it, if this was the rule then you would it not lead to Banks and Supermarkets etc adding the category to their name!!! Personally I favor the shortest possible names on Maps and avoiding unnecessary suffixes is best. We live in a mobile world and my smartphone real-estate is limited! Again, is this a personal view.

[JanVanHaver]

Thanks @SilvyC for tagging me.

@JohnScolaro inconsistencies on Maps is a topic I have ranted about on several occasions already. But fixing them is, let’s say “not the highest priority” for the Google Maps team (yes, that’s meant as understatement ). Also where I live (Belgium) it’s a mess: some train and bus stations have an additional ‘Station’ in front of the place name, others behind the place name, and still others not at all…

So I definitely understand your point and agree that it should be acted upon, but as @ErmesT already mentioned: we as local guides can’t make any changes to railway stations, only the company/organization in charge of it can do that.

And my view on whether or not the word ‘station’ should be added: the blue train icon on Maps makes it quite clear that it is a train station, so in my view it’s not needed.

[ErmesT]

Well, the weird thing is that the transit POIs are editable, @JanVanHaver , even if the “transit categories” are not available to the local guides.

I never tried to make an edit in there, as I believe it can be dangerous, even if most probably the edit would be rejected.

I submitted an idea times ago about this subject: Makes “Not editable” the Transit Related POIs

[JanVanHaver]

Now that you mention it @ErmesT , I indeed remember from my early LG days that I tried to correct the location of some bus stops, but all of them were Not Applied quite quickly. That’s when I learned about the transit layer, if I remember correctly.

I upvoted your idea, as that definitely makes sense.

[ErmesT]

Thanks @JanVanHaver

Yeah, it doesn’t make any sense to have the possibility for editing something knowing that your edit it will always be rejected.

On the meantime, I hope Transit will develop some more detailed rule (and some verification) about the name of the transit related POIs

Just to show you a crazy example, just found now:

This one is Venice Train Station: https://goo.gl/maps/FGef547CcuwwfLqh9

This one is the duplicate: a touristic attraction: https://goo.gl/maps/VvKGrfoqpL5PNyEz7. While I can find that indeed a Train station “attract” a lot of tourist, I think it should be removed, but I can’t flag it as a duplicate, because I cannot change the category to “train station”, and Maps will never suggest a Train Station as possible original place, because it is related to transit (trust me, I’ve just tried)

[JanVanHaver]

In such cases @ErmesT in my view the correct thing to do is remove this POI with reason ‘Doesn’t exist’, as from Maps perspective there should not be a POI but a Transit-layer entry. But obviously with such an amount of reviews and pics that’s also not something you would want to do…

[ErmesT]

Of course, @JanVanHaver , especially because a lot of businesses are located inside the fake train station

[Silvi]

Sorry guys @ErmesT @JanVanHaver @MortenCopenhagen I had not idea about the Not possibility to change categories of Train Stations, now I know! I tried to change some bus stop before and of course those editions were rejected, sadly because I wasted my time in some of those fake bus stop

Greetings.

Silvy.

[JohnScolaro]

Hey again guys: @ermest @JanVanHaver @MortenCopenhagen

Thanks for all the useful information on this topic. What I’m gathering is that if any sort of naming convention is to be applied (regardless of what it actually is) it needs to be done by the transport authority of the local area. Sounds like maybe I’ll direct a little nagging in their direction to see if anything can be done. I don’t really mind what it ends up being, I’d like to see some consistency.

Let me motivate my reasoning for creating such a post, however:

I am a huge sucker for updating my Google timeline. I like to constantly correct it and keep it up to date. It’s like a journal that mostly auto-fills itself, and I enjoy it. I catch the train from Taringa Station on my commute (this train station is called: “Taringa” in maps. Not “Taringa Station”.) Sometimes my timeline will automatically snap to the suburb rather than the train station:

Snapping to the suburb looks like this:

Snapping to the train station looks like this:

The names are the same which is a little confusing, but you get the little train icon to see that it’s a station, so that’s nice.

However things get a little more confusing again if you get snapped to the suburb and have to search for the station in order to correct it. When searching for a new place in your timeline to replace a stop, if I simply type in “Taringa” then this comes up.

Now there is no way to distinguish between the suburb and the station. No icon difference and no name difference. This annoyance is what initially prompted me to make this ticket. As @AdamGT mentioned, if a bunch of stations, shopping centers, suburbs, etc, are all named the same and the only difference is the category of place, this is fine on the maps layer because you can see the difference fairly clearly. But in this specific search pane, it isn’t clear.

I know this is starting to get pretty far away from the local guides, but maybe this can spur on some discussion, or generate a low-priority ticket for the maps team to work on if they get around to it. Maybe the Maps team could hire me and I could try to fix it myself

[JohnScolaro]

Also just while I’m out here generating bug reports:

The resize handle in the corner of the window I’m writing this message in doesn’t seem to be working either. Even when the reply text is far longer than the height of the box. Is this working for anyone else?

See the image for the resize handle I’m talking about: