[OSM-talk] [tagging] updated RFC: Highway administrative and physical descriptions

Alex Mauer hawke at hawkesnest.net
Tue Feb 19 20:31:13 GMT 2008


Lester Caine wrote:
>> Hmm, that's not what I was going for.  I was going for the 
>> "administrative designation" of the road (that is, M, A, B [I gather] in 
>> the UK, I-, US, [state abbrev] in the US) .  In the US this is closely 
>> tied to who maintains it.  In Europe it seems to be much more closely 
>> tied to its physical characteristics, and varies wildly from country to 
>> country.
> 
> The basic problem is the lack of any clarity between countries on road 
> definitions. The 'designation' of a road adds little to knowledge of its 
> structure in the UK some main A roads have single lane passing places and 10 
> MPH speed limits while others are much higher quality than most motorways. 
> Just keep the road designation as it reference number and then worry about 
> such things as 3 4 or 5 lanes each way without reference to 'different types 
> of motorway'.

But is there any easy/consistent way to determine whether a road is a
"national route", "regional route", "county route" or something similar
to that, in the UK?

based upon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain_road_numbering_scheme it
seems to me that A roads correspond with a national route, and B with a
regional route.

 From comments on the proposal, germany's "Bundesstrasse", 
"Staatsstrasse", "Kreisstrasse" (machine translation: "Federal street", 
"state street" and "circle street") -- at least the first two correspond 
very nicely, and the concept matches nicely overall.

And a polish commenter says "There are four categories:

     * state, classes A, S, GP and sometimes G
     * voivodship, classes G, Z, sometimes GP
     * powiat (county), classes G, Z, sometimes L
     * gmina (commune), classes L, D, sometimes Z"

Again, it fits very well (national/regional/county/local)

Specific terminology for the third level isn't important, and if a level 
between region and county is found to be necessary somewhere (China?), 
that can easily be added.

> 
> I don't think it applies so much elsewhere - but UK motorways have no 
> pedestrian access - does the same apply on any American routes?
> 

Yep, same thing for interstates in the US.  I'm not sure whether it's 
the case for the "almost motorway/interstate" situation.

-Alex Mauer "hawke"





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