[OSM-talk] Highway=trunk : harmonization between countries ?

Fri Feb 23 19:01:10 UTC 2018

On Fri, Feb 23, 2018 at 3:31 PM, Fernando Trebien
<fernando.trebien at gmail.com> wrote:
> Assuming the map is correctly classified in Europe, I'm seeing many
> fragments of motorways and trunks all over the map. Is this an
> artifact of local definitions? Or is it intentional and desirable?

I should note that I don't see such artifacts in England, Australia,
South Africa, Russia, Japan, among others.

> On Fri, Feb 23, 2018 at 2:32 PM, Matej Lieskovský
> <lieskovsky.matej at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Don't get me wrong, this system might work well for countries without an
>> official system, but what do you expect to happen in the EU?
>> Will we have "highway=primary" + "class=tertiary" because some random road
>> happens to be a shortcut? Or do you expect us in Czechia to use "class=II"
>> while germans use "class=S" so that it actually matches the signage? Will
>> the renderer parse ref numbers (and ignore the main tag) or will we receive
>> hundreds of complaints about some section of the road having (what every
>> local resident will consider to be) the wrong class?
>>
>> How do you determine "important cities" when even the line between towns and
>> cities is country-dependant? Or is using administrative differences only not
>> OK for roads?
>>
>> Even Waze actually follows local administration.
>>
>>
>> Long story short: I am strongly against deploying this system in countries
>> with a functioning official classification system.
>>
>> On 23 February 2018 at 18:06, Fernando Trebien <fernando.trebien at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> +1
>>>
>>> Administrative classification is not strictly related everywhere to
>>> signage, structure and access rights.
>>>
>>> On Fri, Feb 23, 2018 at 1:12 PM, djakk djakk <djakk.djakk at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> > I know that « trunk »  is country-dependent but why not moving it to a
>>> > worldwide definition ? Administrative classification could be moved to
>>> > other
>>> > tags :)
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > djakk
>>> >
>>> > Le ven. 23 févr. 2018 à 16:06, Matej Lieskovský
>>> > <lieskovsky.matej at gmail.com>
>>> > a écrit :
>>> >>
>>> >> Greetings
>>> >> I'd like to caution against using this system globally. In Czechia,
>>> >> roads
>>> >> are formally classified into classes, which influence signage, ref
>>> >> numbers
>>> >> and so on. Deploying this system here would make the tag
>>> >> confusing/useless
>>> >> and would likely face enormous backlash. I have no problems with using
>>> >> this
>>> >> system in countries without a clearly defined road classification, but
>>> >> please don't touch the countries where there is no doubt about what
>>> >> class
>>> >> any given road is.
>>> >> Happy mapping!
>>> >>
>>> >> On 22 February 2018 at 16:20, djakk djakk <djakk.djakk at gmail.com>
>>> >> wrote:
>>> >>>
>>> >>> Hello,
>>> >>>
>>> >>> I totally agree with you, the definition you provide,
>>> >>> administrative-free, tends to the same osm map between countries.
>>> >>>
>>> >>> djakk
>>> >>>
>>> >>> Le jeu. 15 févr. 2018 à 19:18, Fernando Trebien
>>> >>> <fernando.trebien at gmail.com> a écrit :
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> Landing on this discussion several months late. I've just heard of it
>>> >>>> by reading a wiki talk page [1].
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> Since 13 February 2009, the wiki [2] criticises highway
>>> >>>> classification
>>> >>>> as problematic/unverifiable. This has also been subject to a lot of
>>> >>>> controversy (and edit wars) in my local community (Brazil),
>>> >>>> especially
>>> >>>> regarding the effect of (lack of) pavement.
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> In trying to achieve greater consensus some years ago, I decided to
>>> >>>> seek opinions elsewhere and finally I arrived at this scheme [3]
>>> >>>> which
>>> >>>> I think is very useful, if not perfect yet. It can be easily
>>> >>>> summarised like this:
>>> >>>> - trunk: best routes between large/important cities
>>> >>>> - primary: best routes between cities and above
>>> >>>> - secondary: best routes between towns/suburbs and above
>>> >>>> - tertiary: best routes between villages/neighbourhoods and above
>>> >>>> - unclassified: best routes between other place=* and above
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> For example, the best route between two villages would be at least
>>> >>>> tertiary. So would be the best route between a village and a town or
>>> >>>> a
>>> >>>> city. Parts of this route might have a higher class in case they are
>>> >>>> part of a route between more important places.
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> It surely raises the problem of determining optimal routes. Maybe a
>>> >>>> sensible criterion would be average travel time without traffic
>>> >>>> congestion. A number of vehicles may be selected for this average -
>>> >>>> could be motorcycle+car+bus+truck, or simply car+truck.
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> Early results in my area [4, in Portuguese] seem promising and have
>>> >>>> produced more consensus than any previous proposals. To me, this
>>> >>>> method seems to:
>>> >>>> - resist alternations in classification along the same road
>>> >>>> - work across borders (where classification discontinuities are
>>> >>>> expected because each country is using different classification
>>> >>>> criteria)
>>> >>>> - account for road network topology
>>> >>>> - work in countries with mostly precarious/unpaved roads or
>>> >>>> without/unknown official highway classes
>>> >>>> - work between settlements as well as within settlements
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> Borderline cases are probably inescapable in any system that does not
>>> >>>> use solely criteria that are directly verifiable - from the ground,
>>> >>>> or
>>> >>>> from the law. Maybe, in certain developed countries, the system is so
>>> >>>> well organized that merely checking signs/laws is sufficient. That
>>> >>>> does not mean it is like that everywhere on the planet.
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> OSM has so far received a lot of input from communities in developed
>>> >>>> countries (mostly Europe, North America and Australia) and hasn't
>>> >>>> given much attention to less developed/organized countries. What
>>> >>>> comes
>>> >>>> closest to this is what the HOT Team does, but the judgment of road
>>> >>>> classification one can do from satellite images in a foreign country
>>> >>>> is much more limited than the criteria that have been raised in this
>>> >>>> thread so far.
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> I wouldn't endorse tags such as maxspeed:practical due to lack of
>>> >>>> verifiability (it should be obvious that different types of vehicles
>>> >>>> would achieve different practical speeds). It is better to use the
>>> >>>> legal speed in maxspeed=* and describe the practical reason for a
>>> >>>> lower speed using surface=*, smoothness=*, and, who knows, maybe the
>>> >>>> not yet approved hazard=* [5] (though that is intended for signed
>>> >>>> hazards, not subjective/opinionated hazards).
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> For the sake of long-term sanity, I also wouldn't mix the purpose of
>>> >>>> one tag with the purpose of other tags. To describe the surface,
>>> >>>> there
>>> >>>> is surface=*, smoothness=* and tracktype=*. To describe access
>>> >>>> rights,
>>> >>>> there is access=*, foot=*, bicycle=*, motor_vehicle=*, etc. To
>>> >>>> describe legal speed, maxspeed=*. To describe curves, there's
>>> >>>> geometry.
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> Purpose, perhaps, is the main issue. What is the purpose of highway
>>> >>>> classification? Is it to save us the work of adding extra tags? Is it
>>> >>>> to allow the renderer to produce a cleaner output at low zoom levels?
>>> >>>> Is it to allow routers to assume default speeds? Maybe to guide their
>>> >>>> routing heuristics? Is it to express some sort of importance? If so,
>>> >>>> by which perspective - urbanistic, traffic engineering, movement,
>>> >>>> commercial value, cultural/fame, historic, some combination of those?
>>> >>>> Should the purpose be the same in every country?
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> It may be interesting to also discuss the classification adopted by
>>> >>>> other maps. I don't have a reference for Google (originally
>>> >>>> TeleAtlas)
>>> >>>> or Here.com (originally Navteq), but Waze publishes its per-country
>>> >>>> road classification criteria in its wiki. [6-16]
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> [1]
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Tag:highway%3Dtrunk#change_.22high_performance.22_to_.22high_importance.22
>>> >>>> [2]
>>> >>>> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Verifiability#Problematic_tags
>>> >>>> [3]
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Ftrebien/Drafts/Generic_highway_classification_principles#Schematic_diagram_and_general_comments
>>> >>>> [4] https://forum.openstreetmap.org/viewtopic.php?pid=674296#p674296
>>> >>>> [5] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/hazard
>>> >>>> [6] https://wazeopedia.waze.com/wiki/USA/Road_types
>>> >>>> [7] https://wazeopedia.waze.com/wiki/UnitedKingdom/Roads#Road_types
>>> >>>> [8] https://wazeopedia.waze.com/wiki/Canada/Main_Page#Road_Types
>>> >>>> [9] https://wazeopedia.waze.com/wiki/Commons/Road_Types/India
>>> >>>> [10]
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> https://wazeopedia.waze.com/wiki/Brazil/Como_categorizar_e_nomear_vias
>>> >>>> [11]
>>> >>>> https://wazeopedia.waze.com/wiki/Germany/Kartenlegende_(Deutschland)
>>> >>>> [12] https://wazeopedia.waze.com/wiki/France/Classification_France
>>> >>>> [13] https://wazeopedia.waze.com/wiki/Italy/Tipologia_delle_strade
>>> >>>> [14] https://wazeopedia.waze.com/wiki/Indonesia/Panduan_Tipe_Jalan
>>> >>>> [15] https://wiki.waze.com/wiki/%E9%81%93%E8%B7%AF%E7%B1%BB%E5%9E%8B
>>> >>>> [16]
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> https://wiki.waze.com/wiki/%E3%80%8C%E9%81%93%E8%B7%AF%E7%A8%AE%E5%88%A5%E3%80%8D
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> --
>>> >>>> Fernando Trebien
>>> >>>> +55 (51) 99962-5409
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> "Nullius in verba."
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> _______________________________________________
>>> >>>> talk mailing list
>>> >>>> talk at openstreetmap.org
>>> >>>> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
>>> >>>
>>> >>>
>>> >>> _______________________________________________
>>> >>> talk mailing list
>>> >>> talk at openstreetmap.org
>>> >>> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
>>> >>>
>>> >>
>>> >
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>> > talk mailing list
>>> > talk at openstreetmap.org
>>> > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
>>> >
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Fernando Trebien
>>> +55 (51) 9962-5409
>>>
>>> "Nullius in verba."
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Fernando Trebien
> +55 (51) 9962-5409
>
> "Nullius in verba."

-- 
Fernando Trebien
+55 (51) 9962-5409

"Nullius in verba."