[Talk-il] conventions for tagging roads

[Yuri Magrisso]

Hi,

I started discussing with Baruch a new convention for tagging roads. I'll
rehash things to have it all in one place -

Currently the convention for tagging roads is based on the road numbers. A
more reasonable approach would be to tag roads based on their quality,
because then the coloring of the road would provide another useful bit of
information. I think we can judge the road quality by the speed limit,
number of lanes, types of intersections and their frequency. Here's a first
version for a conventions that follow this principle:

Intercity roads

The tag "highway=motorway" should be used on roads that have a speed limit
of 100 km/h or more, have at least two lanes in each direction and have
multi-level intersections (no traffic lights or unregulated intersections).
(I think traffic authorities give a speed limit of 100 or more only to roads
that meet the other two conditions, so they may be redundant).

The tag "highway=trunk" should be used on roads that have a speed limit of
90 km/h, have at least two lanes in each direction and have mostly
traffic-light or multi-level intersections.

The tag "highway=primary" should be used on roads that have a speed limit of
90 km/h, have one lane in each direction and a clearly marked side-lane.
The tag "highway=secondary" should be used on roads that have two clearly
separated lanes, one for each direction.

The tag "highway=tertiary" should be used on roads that do not meet any of
the above requirement sets (have only one lane), but at-least have asphalt
layer.


City roads

Inside a city the "motorway" and "trunk" tags can be used if the intercity
conditions are met, or if they are a continuation of a road having the same
tag and the speed limit difference is no more than 10 km/h.

The tag "highway=primary" should be used for roads that have a speed limit
of 60 km/h or more, have at least two lanes in each direction and have
mostly traffic-light crossroads, with no unregulated crossroads that cross
the lanes in both directions.

The tag "highway=secondary" should be used on roads that have a speed limit
of 60 km/h or more, and have at least two lanes in each direction.

The tag "highway=tertiary" should be used on roads with speed limit of 50
km/h, that have two lanes in each direction.

Roads with one lane in each direction should be tagged as
"highway=residential". Roads on which pedestrians are given right should be
tagged as "highway=living_street".

City roads can be tagged as "primary" or "secondary" based on how central
they are for the city even if they do not meet all the requirements. If you
are not a resident of the city you can probably judge the importance of a
road by the presence of important commercial or administrative buildings
like a mall or a municipality.

What do you think?
Yuri


>
> Hi Yuri,
>
> Baruch has sent you a message through OpenStreetMap with the subject "Re:
> road conventions":
>
> ==
> Hi,
>
> I agree about that, the road numbers are only good as a first degree
> approximation. I did notice road number 3 which is fine but not motorway
> quality and it was a worse road before that.
>
> If you can whip up a proposal we can flesh it out and offer it on talk-il.
> Better yet, email it to talk-il so that everyone can participate in the
> discussion.
>
> Baruch
>
> On Thu Oct 09 14:53:00 +0100 2008 Yuri wrote:
>
> > Hi Baruch,
> >
> > I have a few suggestions on how to tag roads. The basic idea is that the
> road type should represent the road quality so to say. If we tag roads
> according to their numbering we are not giving any additional useful
> information.
> >
> > I think that the primary factors for choosing the road type should be the
> speed limit, the number of lanes and the type of intersections on the road.
> > For example to qualify a road as 'motorway' it should have a speed limit
> of 100 or above, have at least two lanes and use multi-level intersections
> (no traffic lights). For trunk roads the speed limit should be 90, again at
> least two lanes, but you can have traffic light intersections.
> >
> > If you like the idea, we can ping-pong a more detailed convention - for
> intercity roads it is fairly easy. For city roads it will be more
> problematic, but we can set up some guidelines there too.
> >
> > You can email me at yumariso at gmail dot com.
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Yuri
> ==
>
>
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