[Talk-GB] Public Rights of Way - legal vs reality

[Robert Whittaker (OSM lists)]

On Mon, 4 May 2020 at 14:13, nathan case <nathancase at outlook.com> wrote:
> Thanks for your input Robert, the approach taken for routes not following the definitive line makes sense - though does this lead to two paths being rendered? Or does highway=no prevent this? I will also add the fixme as Tony suggests.

I'd be surprised if any map renders this as a highway. But the
presence of a designation tag may result in a UK outdoor style adding
some indication of the right of way there (perhaps like the green or
pink dashes that OS uses on its maps).

> > are you adding prow_ref=* tags to the Rights of Way, and if so what format are you using?
>
> I am. However, I can spot two issues:
>
> 1. (my fault) I'd not been including "LA" prefix to the prow_ref number. I had assumed it stood for Lancashire but now realise it is actually for Lancaster. I will do so from now on and will try and go back and edit my edits (though there are a lot of them), unless there is another way?

I think you were probably right about the "LA" the first time. It
could well be the "LA" that's used by rowmaps.com as its county prefix
for Lancashire. If any bulk corrections are needed, I may have some
tools to be able to do them more efficiently -- do ask before spending
lots of time on repetitive stuff like that.

> 2. (kinda my fault) the map data I'd been using (the Mapbox overlay) does not contain the public right of way type (i.e. the prow ref is simply given as LA |1-2| 3). Tony's email has pointed me to the county's right of way map which does contain this information (i.e 1-2-FP 3) so I will have to cross check the data as I copy it over (an annoying additional step!).

The format of the Right of Way numbers seems to depend on what
map/data you look at. I think it would be highly desirable if we could
agree on a single format to use throughout the whole of Lancashire in
OpenStreetMap.

I think the Lancashire online map at
https://www.lancashire.gov.uk/roads-parking-and-travel/public-rights-of-way/public-rights-of-way-map/
is a relatively recent innovation. (By the way, you shouldn't use that
map for OSM mapping, as there's an OS-copyrighted backdrop, which you
might inadvertently take information from, or use relative positioning
information from.) The Council's online map uses "1-2-FP 3", while
mapthepaths uses "1-2 3" (which comes from older GIS data Lancashire
released and was given to rowmaps.com). On my tool, I've currently
adopted the "[parish name] [type] [number]" format, which is the
default if I don't select anything else.

So what to standardise on? The "1-2" part in the numbers above is a
parish code, which I think is probably an internal GIS thing within
the council, rather than what the official legal documents use to
refer to the paths. If you look at how they actually refer to the
paths, e.g. in the DMMO register at
http://www3.lancashire.gov.uk/corporate/dmmoview/index.asp you'll see
they almost always refer to them by the parish name, type and number.
There's some discrepancy over whether a Public Footpath is PF or FP
(or occasionally PFP). But on the computer-generated order maps, it's
always FP, with BW used for Bridleway and BOAT for Byways Open to All
Traffic. I couldn't find a Restricted Byway on a map. The parish names
(rather than ID numbers) are also a lot easier for humans to deal with
when mapping.

Based on the above, my preference would be to agree to use the
"[parish name] [type] [number]" format. But if it's decided to use
something else, I'll happily change my tool to whatever is decided.
(Although I can only set one format per county, so it will need to be
county-wide.) Hopefully Nick will be able / willing to do the same on
mapthepaths.

Best wishes,

Robert.

-- 
Robert Whittaker