[talk-au] When is a Road a Track

Sat Feb 11 06:34:01 UTC 2017

On 11/02/17 12:21, Warin wrote:
> On 11-Feb-17 11:28 AM, Ross Scanlon wrote:
>>
>> On 11/02/17 07:00, Warin wrote:
>>> The NSW LPT base map is particularly helpful for road 
>>> classifications .. tracks, unclassified, tertiary and paths.
>>> It is in some ways better than a survey as it looks to take into 
>>> account the importance to the community and that is very hard to 
>>> determine by simply travelling the road.
>>>
>>> Where a 'track' travels a long distance .. say over 50 km I would 
>>> argue that it is 'unclassified' as that length suggests it is not a 
>>> simple service/maintenance track but a connection between distant 
>>> points.
>>> As far as seeking out the 'interesting/adventure' roads .. I first 
>>> look for unpaved, then connecting. The old 'Tracks for Australia' 
>>> garmin map is helpful but well out of date.
>>
>> So your saying above that a track like the Canning Stock Route should 
>> be an unclassified road?  It's about 1800kms and is definitely a 
>> track not a road.  There are some sections you could possibly call an 
>> unclassified road but they are not maintained.  For the majority of 
>> it's length it is two wheel tracks through the scrub and sand dunes.
>>
>> I'd suggest everyone have a read of the wiki pages for track and 
>> unclassified.
>
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:highway%3Dtrack
> "roads for mostly agricultural use, forest tracks"
> "classify them as usual 
> <http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Highways#Classification> according 
> to the conventions in your country,"

You conveniently left out the rest of this sentence:

" Do not use tracks to represent public unpaved roads in *built-up 
areas*[1] 
<https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/110>, that 
would be consideredtagging for the renderer 
<http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tagging_for_the_renderer>. In this 
situation,classify them as usual 
<http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Highways#Classification>according to 
the conventions in your country, and also provide asurface 
<http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:surface>=*tag."

My bolding.

> "vehicular use is dominated by field access or forest management, but 
> not any heavier sort of industry. "
>
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:highway%3Dunclassified*
> "*used for minor public roads typically at the lowest level of the 
> interconnecting grid *"
> "*The least important sort of minor roads which are either a) proper 
> signposted formal parts of the public road network, or b) nominally 
> private or just unsignposted but the locals use them anyway. The idea 
> is that "4"-wheel vehicular use by the general public is possible, the 
> general public use dominates other uses, and no single specific 
> purpose dominates.*"
>
> * These are not clear and there is suggestions to refer to the country 
> guidelines
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Australian_Tagging_Guidelines#Unsealed_and_4wd_Roads_.28Dirt.2C_Gravel.2C_Formed.2C_etc.29
>
> and that is not clear either.
>
>> I've always tagged them by looking to see if they are 
>> maintained/graded.  If they are graded, and that's generally pretty 
>> obvious from aerial imagery as well, then they are minimum 
>> unclassified.  If not then they are tracks.
>
> How frequently are they graded? Sections of the Canning are graded. A 
> track locally to me was recently graded .. last grading was probably 
> done 20 years ago ...but I'd not call it 'unclassified' as it is not 
> important enough. It is in quite good condition now.
>
As I said sections of the CSR are probably unclassified, but the 
remainder is definitely a track.  There's always exceptions, so the "a 
track longer than 50kms" really does not apply to tracks like the CSR.   
And the CSR can

I'm talking about well maintained roads by council or state governments, 
graded at least once a year and could be sealed easily with spray pave 
if needed it's just an example of what is a road and not a track.  There 
are lots of these in WA in particular that are tagged as track but 
should really be unclassified surface=gravel/ground.

Tracks are like the image on the highway=track wiki page.  The actual 
track is only maintained by the passage of vehicles along it.

>>
>> Have a look at this area in josm, with bing imagery
>>
>> http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/-30.0090/116.8188
>>
>>
>> or here it is on bing maps:
>>
>> https://binged.it/2kcYMV6
>>
>> and where it's unsealed
>>
>> https://binged.it/2kd8irh
>>
>>
>> Looking at the road that comes up from the south east and then 
>> according to MRWA it continues to the north west.
>> MRWA classifies the south east part as osm tertiary and the north 
>> west part as unclassified.
>>
>> However I'd tag the north west part as track as it's little more than 
>> two wheel tracks through the scrub and the further you go along it 
>> the more it deteriorates.
>>
>>>
>>> The condition/difficulty of the road is best determined by 
>>> travelling the road, I don't add that detail unless I have travelled 
>>> it. I do add surface=unpaved/paved ...
>>> on some bridges I remove the surface tag as I cannot be certain what 
>>> is there, on a few I change it to concrete.
>>>
>>> On 10-Feb-17 05:55 PM, David Bannon wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Do you mean without seeing them yourself Warren ?  I personally 
>>>> think that you should only correct another mapper's work if you 
>>>> have personally seen something that needs correction. I am sure 
>>>> there are some exceptions. But here, in particular, you seem to 
>>>> have "negative" information.
>>>>
>>>> Its also worth remembering that highway= indicates the purpose of 
>>>> the road or track, a number of other tags indicate its condition. 
>>>> In theory ....
>>>>
>>>> David
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 10/02/17 10:51, Warren wrote:
>>>>> I have asked this question before but did not really get a clear 
>>>>> answer.
>>>>>
>>>>> I am working off the Western Australian Main Roads data checking 
>>>>> against the OSM road attributes.  Occasionally I come across lines 
>>>>> that are classed in OSM as highway:unclassified or 
>>>>> highway:residential that do not appear on the Main Roads data base.
>>>>>
>>>>> I would argue that these are named tracks rather than roads but I 
>>>>> wanted to check others opinion.
>>>>>
>>>>> Do I leave them alone or change the classification to highway:track?
>>>>>
>>>>>
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