@iuvi
What does exist is OSM Relatify, but its README lists creating new relations as planned rather than fully supported.
this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2026
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@thomas
You can create a dummy route in iD with just the start and endpoints and a single bit of way and then improve it from there with Relatify.
I do find Relatify frustrating though. It only lets you save things that are perfect and unless you're copying from an official source you're unlikely to have every last detail at your fingertips.
Thanks, i tryed it , and it was unsucessful. Maybe developers find a time to do smth like Relatify in Web-editor of their version
The workflow of creating bus routes is very similar to what you discribe in JOSM.
Personal opinion: I think we shouldn't map bus routes manually for multiple reasons:
- Modern public transport companies publish their GTFS feeds usually with a compatible license. There are projects going on to import them to OSM or to combine them in end user applications. There are a lot of usable examples for the latter already, e.g. https://transitous.org/
- They are hard to verify on the ground, you have to travel on the bus in question to make sure it actually uses that street, not the next one, if there is no bus stop nearby.
- Long relations are prone to bork themself. Just check the invalid bus routes on osmi, most of them have a gap, they are hard to fix and maintain. Just zoom in anywhere: https://tools.geofabrik.de/osmi/?view=pubtrans_routes&lon=16.33692&lat=39.75409&zoom=2&baselayer=Geofabrik+Standard&overlays=ptv2_routes_invalid%2Cptv2_error_ways%2Cptv2_error_nodes copy patste the link if it's not working:
https://tools.geofabrik.de/osmi/?view=pubtrans_routes&lon=16.33692&lat=39.75409&zoom=2&baselayer=Geofabrik+Standard&overlays=ptv2_routes_invalid%2Cptv2_error_ways%2Cptv2_error_nodes
If you are speaking about "West world" countrys - yes, maybe there they provide info, but there are other part of planet where it needed to be done manualy
Another project collecting GTFS feeds is transit.land. You can find a lot of non-Western countries there: https://www.transit.land/places
The point is, nowadays everywhere in the world they already use some software for the management of public transport. It would help more if you would write to the local public transport companies and ask them to publish their timetables in the standard, machine readable format.
IMHO PTv1 is much more practical. If you see a bus or a bus stop on a road then you know you can add it to the relation and the whole route will gradually get completed over time.
With 'v2 you have to guess which of the (at least) two different relations you need to add it to unless you can get close enough to the stop to read the tiny text on the timetable (if it even has one), so you can't even do both sides of the road at once.