Clarification of scope of status changes re: warehouses

[rgangopadhya]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

There is some ambiguity in the spec about what the scope of the status changes endpoint is. From the spec:

The status of the inventory of vehicles available for customer use.

It is not rare for providers to include devices that are in one of their warehouses in the status changes endpoint, which adds noise that all consumers of this endpoint need to deal with individually.

Describe the solution you'd like

I think it is worth clarifying what exactly we mean by "available for customer use" in the spec. For example a device that is in a warehouse doesn't count as "available for customer use," but the language could be clearer about that.

Is this a breaking change

• No, not breaking

Provider or agency

For which API is this feature being requested:

• provider

[hunterowens]

I think is is probably fine to add to docs. @rgangopadhya do you have an PR that you can add?

[hunterowens]

not blocking for 0.4.0 vs 0.4.1, so changing milestone given release schedule

[thekaveman]

@rgangopadhya this hasn't seen any recent activity - still something you are interested in working on for an upcoming release?

[thekaveman]

Continuing to punt this as we haven't heard anything in a while.

[schnuerle]

I believe the new API changes in #271 makes these vehicle state events more clear, and provides more options for providers. I think there is adequate variety for providers to correctly communicate their device transitions.

However, the initial language you point out ("The status of the inventory of vehicles available for customer use.") is still there, and may be confusing, since many vehicle states are not available for customer use.

Recommend changing this to "The status changes of provider vehicles available for consumers, in and out of the public right of way, and/or unavailable or in an unknown state." Or some similar wording.

[schnuerle]

I think we have this covered with the removed state now. Will reopen if you disagree. https://github.com/openmobilityfoundation/mobility-data-specification/blob/main/general-information.md#vehicle-states