[OSM-talk] Issue from IRC last night.... UK rights of way andaccess keys

Nick Whitelegg Nick.Whitelegg at solent.ac.uk
Wed Aug 9 13:50:20 BST 2006


Sent by:        talk-bounces at openstreetmap.org
To:     "Nick Whitelegg" <nick at hogweed.org>
cc:     talk at openstreetmap.org 
Subject:        Re: [OSM-talk] Issue from IRC last night.... UK rights of 
way     andaccess keys

On 8/9/06, Nick Whitelegg <nick at hogweed.org> wrote:
Etienne,

> Nick
> This seems more complex than needed.  It is certainly not easy for the
> casual user to understand.

The trouble is, UK countryside rights of way, and other routes in common 
use 
*are* complex. However, If the editors hide the complexity, and present 
the
user with a range of pre-defined types (the conversion going on under the
hood) this shouldn't matter too much.

>>There is various meta-data associated with a right of way or other 
route. 
>>Firstly, the type of track (which corresponds to the "highway" tag) - 
e.g. is
>>it a narrow path, wide path, track or metalled road? Secondly, the
>>permissions - foot, horse, bike and car.

>There was another thread recently about the distinction between 
administrative classification and physical classification.  Physical 
>classifications are fairly universal (width=2m, surface=paved), but 
administrative classifications are very locale specific.  I got the 
>feeling that the consensus from that thread was that the highway tag is 
really describing UK specific administrative classifications >(Primary 
roads, Trunk roads, etc). 

I think I must have missed that one. In that case, the 
'highway=footway|bridleway|byway' etc does sound sensible. Most cases are 
covered under this scheme, however there are still a couple of issues:

Firstly permissive bridleways generally do not have bike access, but some 
do. How would one distinguish between the two?
Secondly permissive tracks in general have a wide range of different 
permissions e.g foot+horse, foot+bike, foot+bike+horse, horse only. How 
would these be dealt with?

I still don't think it matters too much if the tags are complex, it's 
better for them to be sufficiently descriptive. As long as the editors 
hide those details, it doesn't matter too much.

Nick







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