Topographic Place
- Benno Schmid
A TOPOGRAPHIC PLACE is a geographical settlement which provides topographical context when searching for or presenting travel information, for example as the origin or destination of a trip. It may be of varying size (e.g. County, City, Town, Village) and of different specificity e.g. ‘Greater London’, ‘London’, ‘West End’, ‘Westminster’, ‘St James’s’.
TopographicPlace – XML Element
Classification | Name | Type | Cardinality | Description |
::> | ::> | Place | ::> | TOPOGRAPHIC PLACE inherits from PLACE. |
«PK» | id | TopographicalPlaceIdType | 1:1 | Identifier of a TOPOGRAPHIC PLACE. |
| IsoCode | IsoSubdvisionCodeType | 0:1 | ISO code for a TOPOGRAPHIC PLACE. |
«cntd» | Descriptor | TopographicPlaceDescriptor | 1:1 | Descriptive elements for a TOPOGRAPHIC PLACE. Field remains unpopulatet in Austria NeTEx Profile |
«cntd» | alternativeDescriptors | TopographicPlaceDescriptor | 0:* | Alternative descriptors for TOPOGRAPHIC PLACE. Can be used to provide translations of the fully qualified name |
«enum» | TopographicPlaceType | TopographicTypeEnum | 0:1 | Type of a TOPOGRAPHIC PLACE. |
| PlaceCentre | xsd:boolean | 0:1 | Whether TOPOGRAPHIC PLACE lies at centre of the settlement. |
| PostCode | xsd:normalizedString | 0:1 | Postcode or partial postcode associated with the area. Field remains unpopulatet in Austria NeTEx Profile |
«FK» | CountryRef | CountryRef | 0:1 | Reference to COUNTRY of a TOPOGRAPHIC PLACE. |
«cntd» | otherCountries | CountryRef | 0:* | For TOPOGRAPHIC PLACEs that span borders, references to additional COUNTRY or COUNTRies that place lies in. Field remains unpopulatet in Austria NeTEx Profile |
«FK» | ParentTopographicPlaceRef | TopographicPlaceRef | 0:1 | Reference to a parent TOPOGRAPHIC PLACE that contains the TOPOGRAPHIC PLACE. |
| containedIn | TopographicPlaceRef | 0:* | References to other TOPOGRAPHIC PLACEs within which the TOPOGRAPHIC PLACE is contained. |
Example from the Austrian NeTEx Profile
TopographicPlaceDescriptor (Subcomponent)
A TOPOGRAPHICAL PLACE shall always have a name. It is not unusual for there to be several places with the same name in a country (for example, there are twelve settlements called “Hausen” in Germany, and eight “Newports”in the UK, etc.), or in different countries (there are also several “Hausen” in Switzerland and even “Paris, Texas”).
In order to distinguish between the different instances in a consistent way, a qualifier name may be specified for a TOPOGRAPHIC PLACE using a TopographicPlaceDescriptor element (E.g. “Newport, Gwent”, “Newport, Salop”, etc.). The qualifier is only needed in certain presentation contexts, so is held separately (and may be derived from the name of another place). So, for example a user in “Newport, Gwent” looking up stop departures would simply “Newport”, (since the context is already established) , while a user looking for “Newport” in a Journey Planner for the whole of Britain (or wider), will see the fully qualified name so as to distinguish it from the other homonyms.
If a full translation of the qualified name into other languages name is needed (as is the case in particular in areas where the language of place names is a political issue), alternative TopographicPlaceDescriptor instances can be specified (thus a TopographicPlaceDescriptor is in effect a special type of ALTERNATIVE NAME for TOPOGRAPHIC PLACEs).
TopographicPlaceDescriptor – XML Element
Classification | Name | Type | Cardinality | Description |
::> | ::> | VersionedChild | ::> | TOPOGRAPHIC PLACE DESCRIPTOR inherits from VERSIONED CHILD. |
«PK» | id | TopographicalPlaceIdDescriptorType | 1:1 | Identifier of a TOPOGRAPHIC PLACE DESCRIPTOR. Only needed for alternative descriptors. |
| Name | MultilingualString | 1:1 | Name of a TOPOGRAPHIC PLACE DESCRIPTOR. |
| ShortName | MultilingualString | 0:1 | Short Name of a TOPOGRAPHIC PLACE DESCRIPTOR. |
| QualifierName | MultilingualString | 0:1 | Name used to distinguish TOPOGRAPHIC PLACE from other similar named TOPOGRAPHIC PLACEs. This should not be included in the name but may be added by applications in context. The Qualifier should be in the same language as the Name. |
Currently this XML Element is not in use in the Austrian NeTEx Profile