[Talk-scotland] [Talk-GB] Inconsistency in the classification of roads on OSM across the UK

[Michael Booth]

Hi, - not sure what you mean by "noticed an inconsistency", unless you 
are referring to my email from last month which mentioned the Transport 
Scotland trunk roads list? 
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-gb/2023-January/029919.html

If so, I should probably clarify what I meant in that message. I've not 
checked but nowadays I think the OSM and TS trunk roads basically match 
each other. This is due to deferring to the TS trunk roads list where 
there is inconsistent green/white signage on the ground. So the green 
sign rule still applies, but on the A697 for example, there's both green 
and (newer) white signs so this is highway=primary in OSM as it's not on 
the TS trunk roads list.

As for your second paragraph, sorry I don't really understand what you 
mean (and there's no question) so you might want to explain further or 
provide some examples?

On 26/02/2023 19:34, yasslay wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> As the title says, I've noticed an inconsistency of how roads are 
> classified on OSM across the UK. For example, the criteria for the 
> highway=trunk tag is different for roads in England and Wales (primary 
> A roads) than Scotland (actual trunk roads). I also find this to be 
> quite an issue as the OSM Wiki page 
> (https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Roads_in_the_United_Kingdom) for 
> the topic says that "A-roads with primary status (signed yellow on 
> green)" should be tagged such highway=trunk, and I couldn't find any 
> relevant documentation which excludes Scotland from this rule. I'm not 
> sure if this was discussed previously either, however I think this 
> should be discussed.
>
> Another issue I have with this is that the highway tags we use in OSM 
> for roads conflict with the official definitions of roads in the UK, 
> i.e. primary A/B roads are mapped as trunk roads on OSM and secondary 
> A/B roads are mapped as primary/secondary respectively. While I 
> imagine that this is to represent the higher importance that secondary 
> A roads have, it just feels weird to tag roads like this. *This isn't 
> as pressing as an issue and is more of a question if anything, but 
> something which I think could be discussed.*
> *
> *
> Finally, another small issue I have is the lack of distinction on what 
> the road hierarchy is like when a non-motorway road, i.e. a primary A 
> road becomes a secondary A road after a junction, i.e. this road by 
> Hull (https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/78374769) and this junction 
> near Liverpool (https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/878439064). While I 
> think that these transitions should be mapped like the former, this is 
> again not as important an issue as many other things, but something I 
> feel could be discussed.
>
> Kind regards
> yasslay
>
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