[Tagging] [Talk-us] New MapRoulette Challenge - Add Surface to Highways

[Andy Townsend]

On 2/3/23 09:16, Walker Kosmidou-Bradley wrote:

> I use routing to measure accessibility to schools and health clinics 
> here in west Africa. I have to make sure that my models also work in 
> South Asia. Having the surface tag attributed makes processing 
> infinitely easier because I don’t have to adjust my default values 
> based on country.

(veering off from TomTom's MapRoulette challenge somewhat, but)

Unfortunately, you will have to adjust your default values based on 
country.  There are enough differences even between mapping approaches 
in nearby western European countries that a router will produce 
nonsensical results if it makes assumptions valid only in place A in 
place B as well.

Also, even if someone filled in all the values for an "obvious" tag 
(perhaps in response to a MapRoulette challenge such as this one), 
there's no guarantee that new motorways would have the same tag added in 
the future, or that the tag would remain as more detail is added.

That said - sometimes values that are "obvious" in one place aren't 
"obvious" in another, so it's definitely worth having the discussion 
about that if it's relevant (which as numerous people have said 
previously, it isn't for this challenge in the US.

Best Regards,

Andy