Now please think of the following situation: you have a platform edge spanning over at least two netElement objects. The netElement objects have different orientation. As the @lateralSide depends on the orientation of the netElement, you would have two different @lateralSide values to describe the lateral location of the platform edge. There would be no changes to @verticalSide though.

Regarding areaLocation: Think of an island platform between two tracks, which you want to locate in the network. This would be possible with an areaLocation linking the two netElement objects under these tracks. If the netElement objects are oriented the same way, you would have again different @lateralSide values - one for each netElement. Yes, you are right, there are better ways to model this scenario: use two platformEdge elements instead of (or additional to) one platform object.