[Tagging] Proposal of new tag for technicality of trails for running

[Daniel Westergren]

Hi there,

I would like to discuss the possibility of a new tag, trail_technicality,
to be used on ways with highway=path.

One way this can be used is aid in finding trails to run on and to get
suggested routes with tools like Trail Router (www.trailrouter.com), Komoot
(www.komoot.com) or Open Route Service (https://maps.openrouteservice.org/).

*What tags are already available?*
*sac_scale *is the obvious choice to determine trail difficulty. But it's
geared towards mountain trails and I doubt it's being used much outside of
mountain trails.

*mtb:scale* is closer to what I'm proposing, but geared towards
single-trail technicality for MTB, not for running (or hiking).

Then there's *surface*, *width*, *trail_visibility*, *smoothness *(for
wheeled vehicles) that can all be used to determine what kind of path it
is, but they don't really tell anything about the technicality of
single-trails.

*How to use the tag?*
It would only be used for single-trails, that is in ways with highway=path.
I don't have a set suggestion of values, but I'm thinking something similar
to mtb:scale, basically with runnability as the determining factor. It
would obviously leave room for subjective judgement, just like smoothness
and trail_visibility. But with image examples and clear factors describing
each value it would still give a lot of useful information to route
planners and renderers.

Some factors to determine values: stability/softness of surface, obstacles
(rocks, roots etc.), running rhythm (short ups/downs, sharp turns etc.) and
attention required.

*Use-cases*
As mentioned, trail_technicality could be used together with other values
in route planners and renderers, to suggest routes based on user preference
(technical trails <-> road running), but also to roughly estimate running
time (in addition to elevation/slopes).


What do you think?

/Daniel Westergren
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