[Talk-GB] trunk roads

[SteveC]

Without prejudice :-)

looking at the wiki and wikipedia... do people really route via trunk roads?

The Phillips map I have seems to show trunk roads the same as A roads. 
We show them fundamentally different. Why is that?

Does the highways agency magically decide that they're 'trunk' or do 
they have some fundamental real-world feature like more money spent on 
them, more policing or anything like that?

Seperately,

The reason I ask some of this is that I took 'A' roads (like Baker 
Street) through London at the weekend and it is of course damn slow 
compared to the A57 out of Sheffield despite being wider. So, 
openstreetmap is redefining how we make and share maps... should we not 
also redefine what we represent? Of course, showing what the government 
tells us is an A road is a Good Thing... but if there were a route that 
we knew was better... should we show what some government agency says is 
'the route' or should we show another route as an 'A' road (eg deep red) 
to suggest to drivers that route if we know its better?

I can't actually think of such a route for A roads or even B roads but I 
assume they exist?

Actually I can think of such a route, but it's dependent on where you 
are coming from and to. That is, if you're at a certain place then you 
should follow the 'obvious' route on the A road and M25, but if you're 
in a set of other places then there is a much quicker way down a one-way 
country lane. A routing algorithm may pick this up magically in any case.

have fun,

SteveC steve at asklater.com http://www.asklater.com/steve/