[Tagging] Current status of the key smoothness=*

[Eric Sibert]

> (I think of the roads we drove in Kenya), so any input is welcome even if it
> isn't perfect. We ran into some nasty surprises during our trip because the
> road quality wasn't tagged at all.

+1.

I also widely use smoothness=* in Madagascar. Indeed, I use it to  
describe practicability of roads or tracks for 4 wheels motor  
vehicles, in somehow to answer the question: what kind of vehicle do I  
need to use this road?

Despite using it often, I still have to check the wiki time to time to  
be sure about values definition. I even more dislike tracktype=gradeN  
that is using numerical values.

Maybe, it is time to define a new key/values. We already have  
mtb:scale and sac_scale.

For instance, practicability for cars:

practicability=*

practicability=no (damaged road)
practicability=tractor_only
practicability=fourwheeldrive_only (and not 4WD_only to avoid abbreviation)
practicability=highclearance_only
practicability=normal (default value)
practicability=lowclearance

Subjectivity still remains. One may consider a road as usable with a  
high clearance car because it is used by 404 taxi-brousse when another  
one may not want to use his Porche Cayenne SUV on it.

It doesn't really describe smoothness. A road usable with normal  
vehicles may be driven at 100 km/h or 20 km/h, depending on smoothness.

One may define some side scales like:

practicability:bicycle=mountainbike_only/trekkingbike_only/citybike/all(defaut)
practicability:motorcycle=*


My 0,02 €.

Eric