Transportation

Transportation: Junctions

2008-07-14T05:08:01.0005Z

I noticed major junctions are hidden in the road schema. Does this mean we shouldn't create them, or do you just not want them displayed at the moment?

Bridge: Structure as Included Type.

2008-06-24T18:07:34.0005Z

It does include the Structure type; if you see an instance of the Bridge type that doesn't also have the Structure type, please feel free to add it.

Bridge: Structure as Included Type.

2008-06-24T05:58:25.0005Z

All bridges are a type of structure, and should include the 'Structure' type of the Architecture domain.

Transportation: Strange hierarchy

2008-06-21T17:50:05.0000Z

A Route is part of the Transport Domain.
A Road inherits from a Route.
Notable individual structures, e.g. bridges, that compose the Route are part of the Architecture Domain.
I see 'trip' as the process of undertaking a journey, and so belongs in the Travel domain.

For example a road that is never used (for any reason - unfinished, baricaded off, isolated etc.) will never be part of a 'trip', as nothing will ever travel upon it, yet it is still Infrastructure and part of a Transport network, albeit a white elephant of a network.

As a further example, say there is a flight route between London and New York. The actual flight path does not have any infrastructure (it is through the sky), it is just an abstract connection of two distant points, and so is not part of the Architecture Domain (although the Airport buildings at either end may be).

The flight path (Route) is part of the Transportation Domain. However the act of taking the 11:32 am LHR-JFK flight would be the Travel Domain.

The only criteria for a Route in the Transportation domain is that the connected points have physical locations, e.g. a town or city. (to differentiate it from a Graph - see Graph Theory)

Transportation: Routes, Route network and Route Nodes

2008-06-21T17:21:11.0005Z

I am starting to develop Rail Lines and feel there is a huge overlap with Roads.

I think it best if the common features are placed in a generic type, and Road and Rail Lines inherit from it (and tram lines, air routes, sea lanes etc. etc. ). I suggest the generic type be named Route.

I suggest that Road and Rail Line inherit from Route.

Road Junction, Rail Junction inherit from Route Node.

Road End also inherits from Route Node.

Highway System and Rail Network inherit from Route Network.

Any comments?

Road: Inherit from a 'Transport route' type

2008-06-21T17:07:48.0005Z

As the majority of Road properties are common to Rail Line type (length, end points etc. ) it would make more sense to have a Transport Route type of which Road and Rail Line are subtypes.

Any comments?

Georgia State Route 246 & North Carolina Highway 106: yep

2008-05-30T07:19:22.0014Z

wow

Road junction: Junctions

2007-12-01T22:14:39.0005Z

I see this type's unpublished but thought I'd comment anyway, since I can now see it :) If we have a junction type, I think it should allow an arbitrary number of roads to meet there. See for example this junction near where I grew up, which we call Camberwell Junction.

Road: Road/Highway/Street confusion?

2007-05-17T03:28:09.0011Z

Considering most roads/streets don't have highway names would it make more sense to have some supertype that contains most of the values and then to make highway something that depends upon it which has the highway number?

Transportation: Airports and Train/Bus/Ferry Stations

2007-04-27T23:59:47.0012Z

If this type is sort of a placeholder for transportation infrastructure entities, wouldn't airports train stations and other such also fall into this type as opposed to aviation, etc.

AM

Transportation: Vehicles

2007-04-14T00:12:50.0006Z

P.S. I just noticed that another Freebase user (ken) is working on an automobile type as well. You might want to take a look at what he's done and post something on that type's discussion thread if you have thoughts or suggestions.

Transportation: Vehicles

2007-04-14T00:10:33.0006Z

Welcome Jon!

I can see how the categories might be a little confusing. I'm sure there will be some shifting around as more data types are developed, and we may well end up with something along the lines of what you propose.

In the meantime, if you want to work on an automobile type, you should develop it in your private domain first. Once it's fleshed out and you have some instances associated with it, drop a note in one of the discussion threads to alert the domain administrators so they can take a look at it. You might want to work on sandbox.freebase.com as you're getting going, as explained here:

http://www.freebase.com/view/helptopic?id=%239202a8c04000641f8000000004531a91

The sandbox is a good place for experimentation. If you just signed up today, your sandbox account should be working by the end of the day on Monday.

I hope that helps!

Transportation: Vehicles

2007-04-13T20:02:32.0012Z

Hi, I'm new here, so please bear with me.

I'm confused about Transportion being under "Time and Space" and Aviation under "Travel and Dining".

I'm looking for a place to put Automobile and it's not clear to me. Maybe there should be a type of "Vehicle" somewhere under which Boat, Automobile, Bicycle, Aircraft could live.

Again, I'm brand new, so please set me straight, if necessary.

Thanks,
-Jon

Transportation: OK, I'll try make a Trip type

2007-03-19T03:58:34.0000Z

To clarify a little more -- properties are very versatile. Unless a property is marked 'restrict to one value' in the type editor page, it can be a collection. In fact, very few properties have the restriction, so collections like this are very common.

Also -- to order a property list, you need to select "view all" from the menu for the property (found to the right of the property name". Then select "reorder list". You can then move the items to the correct ordering and save your changes.

Transportation: OK, I'll try make a Trip type

2007-03-19T03:49:44.0000Z

A property can contain an arbitrary number of items and the items can be ordered. For instance the "tracks" property on a Musical Release has the order that the tracks appear on the album.

For a trip, you could have a property called "locations visited" that expects type "location". You add all of the locations and set the ordering.

See my mockup of this:

http://www.freebase.com/view?id=%239202a8c04000641f80000000042b7f19#NO_GO

Transportation: OK, I'll try make a Trip type

2007-03-17T21:21:23.0006Z

But, I haven't understood how properties works. I'm a Java programmer, so I have a pre-configured notion of what a property is, and was a bit lost when I noticed that there didn't seem to be a way to specify a List. For example, to me, a Trip would consist of a list of Legs. A leg would consist of a start location and an end location. Is there a way to hack such types by hand, in a plain vanilla editor?

Mats

Transportation: Strange hierarchy

2007-03-17T18:10:54.0006Z

Mats -

We actually thought that roads (and bridges) should go under something called "infrastructure", and indeed that could happen. At the time, we were at a loss as to what other types would go in there (given the Architecture domain).

Domains are not intended to ontologically significant. They are intended to define a community of administrators who understand the breadth of the domain well enough to competently control the types within it. Domains are not hierarchical, although our 'all types' page does have categorizations that suggest that there is some deeper nesting, but this is just a visual crutch until that presentation is crushed under its own weight as the number of domains increases.

As for your 'travel' type example, I think the name 'trip' is right. A type should define a very concrete collection of topics that have properties (fields) in common. A trip has properties -- a starting location, ending location, intermediate locations, etc.

My point is that what's in domains need not be so charged -- there will undoubtedly be disagreements, but the stakes are much lower than people realize (and what's suggested by our type page). I believe that in the very near future, most types will be found not through that type page, but more organically through search and 'lateral' discovery through the links on topic pages.

I encourage you to model the trip type in your private domain. After you've done so, this type could be one of the first types in a 'travel' domain, which might also include hotels, etc.

Transportation: Strange hierarchy

2007-03-16T22:09:59.0012Z

Hi!

Isn't it a bit weird to find roads under the Transportation type? I would put roads under "Infrastructure", or something. In the Transportation type I would put "Train", "Bus", "Plane", etc, i.e. MEANS of transportation. But I can see where the grouping came from. But "Bridges"?

Well, I assume what we really need is a way to tag types, i.e. "Roads" could be tagged with the words "Connection", "Infrastructure", "Car", etc. I'm not sure, but aren't hierarchies pretty dated for grouping stuff?

Anyway, I would appreciate a type for Travel, i.e. if someone could spec up what "Travel" is (or perhaps "Trip" fits better). It would be something along the lines of:

1. Involves one or more persons (it wouldn't be travel if it was a letter, for example)
2. A Travel would consist of one or several Legs.
3. Each Leg is between 2 Locations, a start location and an end location.
4. A Trip Leg involves the moving of the persons listed under 1 between the start and end points of the Leg.
5. In each location, the persons can stay, perhaps in a Hotel
6. Rent car at the location
7. The transportation between the start and end of a Leg is with one (or several?) means of transportation (i.e. Bus, Car, Train, etc)

See, this is a can of worms, unless you know the domain, or at least know the lingo of the domain.

I'm surprised this hasn't been done yet in freebase, since booking travel is one of the poster childs of the semantic web, right?

Best regards,

Mats Henricson