[Talk-GB] Unfit for motors - tagging for routing

cotswolds mapper osmcotswolds at gmail.com
Mon Dec 17 14:35:12 GMT 2012


[I'm a bit confused about replying to the group, hope this goes to the
right destination]

Belated thanks for the various comments, I've been away.

Of the various views, I tend to like highway=service +
designation=unclassified_highway as the most useful. There are a lot of
these signs in the Cotswolds - I could probably go out now and find 100
before it gets dark. They include 'Unfit for HGVs' (or sometimes lorries),
'Unfit for wide vehicles'/'Unfit for long vehicles' (but no length/width
given), 'Unfit for long and wide vehicles' (but presumably your short and
narrow heavy vehicle is OK), etc, etc.  'Unsuitable' is sometimes used, but
I think 'Unfit' is more common, I suspect because it avoids a wider sign on
a narrow road..

I've been ignoring these signs as too difficult to deal with until now, but
I thought there ought to be a solution to the 'Unfit for motors' one.  The
legal definition is obviously important, but I think something more is
needed to make the map useful (IMO, usefulness of the map is as important
as accuracy).

Many of the Unfit for motors signs are for roads that you would happily
drive along as one way streets, it's the lack of passing places that makes
them problematic. The same sign is used for a narrow but decent tarmac road
with no passing places for 400 yards and a lane to a house that
disintegrates into an impassable ORPA (in OS terms) after the house.

More generally, there are lots of rural areas where all the roads are
minor, but some are more (or less) minor than others. It would be useful to
have tags that can distinguish between the useful minor roads and the ones
that really are best avoided.

I agree highway=service is unsatisfactory, but with
designation=unclassified_highway it seems the least worst route to a
helpful map.

Rob
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-gb/attachments/20121217/f6c90a7e/attachment-0001.html>


More information about the Talk-GB mailing list