[Talk-us] Using OSM for emergency routing?

[Anthony]

On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 9:37 PM, Richard Welty <rwelty at averillpark.net> wrote:
> On 6/3/11 8:51 PM, Anthony wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 10:17 PM, Ian Dees<ian.dees at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>>
>>> Has anyone used OSM for emergency routing with squad cars or ambulances?
>>
>> Sounds like a really terrible idea.
>>
>>> Are there any existing tags to specify "emergency-only" roads?
>>
>> access=no
>>
> access=emergency is preferable for at least one reason i can
> think of:
>
> if a bridge is closed as unsafe, but hasn't been taken down,
>
> access=no
>
> would be the natural way to indicate that.

Right, because access tags don't describe the safety of the road, only
the access permissions.

> emergency vehicles
> shouldn't be overriding this, usually these bridges really and truly
> are not usable.

Drivers of emergency vehicles shouldn't be using OSM for routing
purposes.  And people who don't know the area where they are driving
shouldn't be driving emergency vehicles.  Certainly not people who
don't even know what bridges are safe to drive on!

I don't know how it in other jurisdictions, but no one was allowed to
drive the ambulance or fire truck where I volunteered until they
filled out a blank map with all the street names.

What if a bridge is safe for a car, but not for a truck?  What if it's
safe for a truck, but not for rush hour traffic?  What if a road is
safe for any vehicles but is too bumpy for an ambulance?  Or what if
it's too bumpy for an ambulance, but will do if there's absolutely no
other route?  There are far too many possibilities to try to do this
in an automated fashion.

Drivers of emergency vehicles need to know the places where they drive
better than the mapping software.  There's no safe way around this.
Maybe, when OSM is much more advanced than it already is, data from it
can be used in an *interactive* mode to *suggest* routes to meet
strange scenarios (how do I get from A to B when the bridge from A to
B just collapsed).  But ignoring all access=no tags probably wouldn't
be a good idea then.

I sure hope this person on reddit has talked to his supervisor about
his plan to use a Garmin to help them get to their destination.  And I
sure hope he doesn't work where I live.