[OSM-talk] Highway tagging in general around the world

[Jeffrey Martin]

After seeing the Australian post and making my own Korean post I started
reading
what I could find on the wiki.

I think it's obvious that we need to plan for a system that will work for
every
highway system around the world.

Am I correct in assuming that the OSM definition of highway means everything
from
a rabbit trail to a ten lane limited access highway?

There seems to be a few different categories of highway information.
Information
in some categories can be implied from some of the others but there does
not seem to be a direct meshing.

Also, for many highways it may not be practical to get some of the
information,
particularly the legal status. (I have no idea what the legal status is of
some
of the paths I rode on last Saturday and in a very rural area I don't think
it's an issue.)

1. Traffic capacity and use. A general idea of how important the road is.

2. Legal category. This comes down to how the road is represented on
the sign and may not be directly related to what the physical road is.
I'm thinking about the route numbers and various shields and shapes
used in Australia, the US, Canada, and Korea.

3. What is allowed legally. Are motorcycles allowed? Are pedestrians?
Do you need permission from the landowner?

4. What the path can physically handle if there are no police around
to enforce the law. I've driven my motor scooter on "no motorcycle"
expressways.
I drove my scooter on a 5m footpath to avoid traveling about 2km. I've
walked on private walkways without permission. I've traveled on paths
that I really don't know the legal status of.

5. The physical condition of the path. Is it gravel? Is it a 2km staircase?
There are some roads that might be legal to go on that you may not want
to travel on.

We can tag for each category, or we can try to imply information from
other categories. For example all Interstates in the US do not allow walking
animals or pedestrians. This would mean some kind of rule set. Tagging
for each category means more work.

-- 
http://bowlad.com
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