[OSM-talk] Aussie tagging

[Wollschaf]

On Sun, 30 Jul 2006 19:31:16 +0100, Etienne wrote:

> A tagging scheme that is suitable for the UK is totally inappropriate
> for other countries.  Unless the whole world is going to be mapped by
> people from here then we had better start making it easier for people
> with different native languages, different systems of road
> classification and different cultures to tag their own areas their own
> way.

I totally agree with that.

Why don't we just describe the roads as what they are, and not what they
are classified into? Such a scheme is by definition universal for every
country, as a road is a pretty simple object to describe. There are only
three important properties:

a) Road width (see [1]: Way_Type proposal) 
b) Road paving (mainly if tarmac or gravel, tarmac as default) 
c) allowed driving direction

Speed limits vary by country and should not be implied by a highway tag.

Political and administrative descriptions vary, too, and are only useful
for advanced rendering purposes (primary roads in a different color etc.)

After rendering is only dependent of said three properties, and perhaps
another tag that describes the importance of the road - if it's suitable
for travel or not, for us a primary road, in another country perhaps a
road that is not paved at all... something like travel=primary or
secondary to indicate what road should be taken to reach another (far
away) place.

I've seen places where the primary road is rather small, and a secondary
road nearby far, far bigger. While it makes sense to give the primary road
another color, the secondary road would be the primary choice to travel on.

Local tags may still be introduced that give a better description of the
(political) road type.

I think of this as a very important topic. It just doesn't make sense to
have only a mainly political, europe-centered road classification scheme.

Wollschaf

[1] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Proposed_features/Way_Type