[Tagging] What classification for a connecting link?

[charlie at cferrero.net]

Nathan Edgars II (neroute2 at gmail.com) wrote:

> Charlie wrote:
>> Maybe you could think about it in terms of speed of travel - do cars
>> typically travel at high speeds, moderate speeds or residential speeds
>> - and is the road multi-lane, two-lane etc?
> That's not what highway classification is for:
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:highway
>
Quote from wiki:
"The highway tag is the primary tag used for highways. It is often the  
only tag.  It is a very general and sometimes vague description of the  
importance of the highway for the road grid. "

The term "importance" isn't defined, but it must have a general  
meaning of "size / connectivity / capacity".  I would have thought  
that typical road speed was a useful (though indirect) way of  
interpreting the importance of the highway for the road grid, in the  
lack of any other information.

Another consideration may, or may not (depending on your philosophy)  
be routing.  Routing software will take the tag you use to decide on  
routing decisions, and typically it will do that by using the tag you  
chose to allocate an average speed to the road segment.


-- 
Charlie