[HOT] Thank you from MSF!

Sun Apr 7 16:59:15 UTC 2019

 Dear all, I am new to this HOT interface on OSM, but joined last week, and interested in road classification in OSM. This is my first posting, and first time I have engaged with anyone on OSM, so am still getting up to speed.

"Road Classification" is an important topic for roads agencies, it helps define the funding and prioritisation for development and maintenance of the road network in a country.
With regards to OSM, one issue is that the <highway> tag in OSM is never quite the same as the official definition of the country. For example, the highway tag:

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:highway
uses "Motorway", "Trunk", "Primary", "Secondary" etc. while a national roads agency might use other terminology such as "Main", "District", "Local" etc. 

What this means is that the road network classification in OSM is never quite the same as that used by the Roads Agency, and there are discrepancies between the "official" data of the roads agency, and the OSM definition. This causes confusion to anyone who wants accurate mapping.

As part of my work, I am trying to encourage Roads Agencies to review OSM mapping, to compare with their official definitions, and to update OSM based on their own records. However, the differences in the classification terminologies are a barrier to this. Every country potentially has a different classification system. We have been discussing internally that an extra "layer" on top of OSM might be a way forward, but that is an overhead and requires extra cost and administration.
Would be grateful for anyone's views on this.
Regards, Kevin McPherson

    On Saturday, April 6, 2019, 3:34:19 PM GMT+1, Ralf Bernhardt <raabee at gmx.de> wrote:  

My point this time is not the classification of a few roads. What I learn from this, is that our data is processed and reviewed again. If a mapping error is detected by local staff, it will most likely only be reported to their own mapping department. It will also only be fixed locally. We as mappers or validators will never learn from this process. All errors will remain in the OSM Database. That might be understandable in an emergency situation like now.  But without direct feedback from map users we will never improve. We should also demand that more local knowledge will be shared with OSM. A simple thank you is not enough.

Ralf

 On 06.04.19 13:29, John Whelan wrote:

There is another wiki guide 

 https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Highway_Tag_Africa

 both get updated from time to time.  As a general rule of thumb I tag highways between settlements as unclassified not track, I leave it to the local mappers to say if it is a higher classification.  Occasionally I'll tag as high as tertiary. Normally I leave the tags alone but have been known to retag motorways between two small settlements as unclassified.

 I think step one is to get something mapped.  Step two is correct it and with lots of new mappers with different ideas we'll always see some problems.

 Cheerio John 

 Frans Schutz wrote on 2019-04-06 6:27 AM:

Hello Ralf 

 you pinpoint to a situation which is not always clear. 
 First of all. we ty to keep ourselves to the East African Highway tagging wiki 
 https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/East_Africa_Tagging_Guidelines 

 Different mappers judge different how to tag a highway. Out of my own experience lots of mappers (and validators) struggle with how to tag a highway.  Looking to the importance, the routing, and the width of the highway, which is hard to measure from a satellite image, we have to decide. A big number of new mappers are joining us and have different ideas (nor no idea at all) how to tag a highway. I've seen taggings as secondary highway as a connection to 2 hamlets and so on. So we try to tag as good as possible, but often it is a (calculated)guess which tag is relevant. Take also in account that there is a huge time pressure on these disaster mapping projects, so sometimes you accept the tagging as they were made. When there is no time pressure you can take a look to each highway and decide. 
 I hope you get an understanding how we have to deal with this subject. 
 Best regards 
 Frans Schutz 
 Validator 

 Op 5-4-2019 om 20:10 schreef Ralf Bernhardt: 

Interesting when compared to the openstreetmap data. 

 There are many POIs I would like to see on Openstreetmap too, also 
 boundarys and place names. 

 I also noticed a different tagging scheme: Car, Moto and Foot. I would 
 guess that Roads not passable for a car but by foot and moto should be 
 highway=path in OSM. 

 But most of them are still tagged as unclassified or residential. Is 
 there a reason for that or will you change them later? 

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