[OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap routing service

[Lambertus]

Please read carefully, I said *mainland* Europe. I know GB/Ireland and 
also Australia are different then mainland Europe(or the other way 
around, whatever suits you).

Also, I'm Dutch and aparently (from what you describe) the Dutch 
interpretation of 'trunk' is quite similar to the German.

But, as you noticed and this discussion also proves, OSM needs a central 
list of definitions for each country (or group of countries if they 
share the same rules) which the routing applications use to calculate 
their results. Luckily the generation process of this list has already 
begun.


Dermot McNally wrote:
> 2008/9/7 Lambertus <osm at na1400.info>:
>> I think it's fair to assume that a cyclist isn't allowed on that type of
>> road on mainland Europe anywhere...Anyway, global routing using only a
>> single definition for max (average actually) speeds and other properties
>>  for roads isn't optimal.
> 
> I agree with the second half of what you say here, and that's because
> I disagree with the first bit. I know that German tagging practice has
> evolved to consider "trunk" to refer to vehicle-only routes, but
> there's no reason to suppose that other countries will use the same
> reasoning. The term originates in the UK road classification system,
> where it's simply the highest category of non-motorway road. Within
> that category, quality can vary greatly between motorway-standard
> roads and glorified cart tracks.
> 
> This same situation applies next door in Ireland. Other countries are
> as likely to be like UK and Ireland as they are to follow German
> practice. Basically, it just shows that we can't trust the highway
> classification to give us any hints other than the following:
> 
> Vehicles only and high speed: motorway only
> max practical speed: where maxspeed is provided
> suitability for vehicles, bikes and pedestrians: where access is provided
> Interruptions to traffic flow, with the capacity to limit speed: where
> traffic signals, roundabouts, mini-roundabouts, crossings or
> non-*-link roads join a road.
> 
> Other inferences on road class, if you wished to draw them, would need
> to change from country to country, and that doesn't seem scalable.
> 
> Dermot
>