[Talk-GB] highway_authority_ref vs official_ref

[Robert Whittaker (OSM lists)]

On Sat, 9 Apr 2022 at 16:43, Dave F via Talk-GB
<talk-gb at openstreetmap.org> wrote:
> official_ref is used for objects other than highways.
> It's is very vague, which is the main reason highway_authority_ref was
> chosen.
> In certain circumstances there maybe reasons for multiple 'official'
> refs. It's much better to provide detailed, specific tags.
>
> > Should we consider retiring highway_authority_ref and replacing with one of the more globally accepted tags?
>
> I see nothing wrong with country specific tags, when appropriate. I
> think the argument to keep it still stands.
> highway_authority_ref was chosen because it clarifies who created it.
> They're mostly used for internal accounting.

I agree that it's better to be more specific about what sort of ref
we're referring to. In particular, it makes life much easier for data
consumers. In the case of highways, there can potentially be multiple
official reference numbers, with different purposes. For example, if
the route is a Public Highway and a Public Right of Way, and it goes
over a bridge, each of those could have its own official reference
number. We have prow_ref and bridge_ref for the latter two. I think
it's better to use a specific rather than a generic tag for the first
one as well.

I do have one minor issue with highway_authority_ref though -- I think
it would be better if the key name refered to the reference itself
rather than the managing body. So I'd prefer highway_ref rather than
highway_authority_ref. The latter could be confused with a reference
number/code *of* the particular highway authority that manages the
road, rather than one that it's assigned to another object. More
generally, in other situations, it's possible that the same authority
might maintain multiple registers, and we'd want our key names to be
able to distinguish between them.

Robert.

-- 
Robert Whittaker