Pedestrian routing starts at underground platform

Hi ORS team,

the Stadtvermessungsamt Frankfurt is testing the ORS in cooperation with the Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie BKG und the Masterportal projekt. It shall be used by the educational authority for routing of pupils the school.
During testing we discovered a strange route at Frankfurt Hauptwache from the entrance of “Katharinenkirche” to the “Mainova Trinkbrunnen”.

Start: underground platform “Hauptwache”, level -4

footways indoor, level -4
underground platform “Hauptwache”, level -4
footways indoor, level -4
footways indoor, level -2
stairway, level -1
footway
pedestrian street “Zeil”
pedestrian street “Liebfrauenstraße”

Unfortunately the routing starts at underground platform “Hauptwache” at level -4 and not in the pedestrian street “An der Hauptwache” or “Zeil”.

The Hauptwache is certainly an extreme example.
Above ground: Square “An der Hauptwache”
B level: “Hauptwache Passage”
level -2: S-Bahn and U-Bahn
level -3: underground

Thanks in advance!

Hey,

the ORS currently doesn’t include any sort of open space routing. Thus, any coordinate used as a start- or endpoint that is not directly on any way will need to get snapped to the closest existing way.

This happens to be an underground platform in this case. Note, however, that if you move the Point inside of “Katharinenkirche”, the route actually changes a lot - moving it southwest a bit makes the route go south first, moving it southeast makes the route start at the backside of the building.

I hope that explains why this is happening. Do you have any suggestions on what could be improved?

Best regards

Hey, yes, you are right, if the point inside of “Katharinenkirche” is somewhat moved the routes are quite different.
My suggestion is to create a condition that all routes get snapped to the closest existing way on the earths surface and not at an underground level. I think it is rather seldom, that someone wants to start a routing at level -1 or beneath.
Best regards