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

Fri Feb 23 19:08:04 UTC 2018

@djakk: I'd rather not rely on some global algorithm coming to the exact
same conclusion. Making the classification not match the algorithm
perfectly (because it forgot to look at number of lanes or traffic light
priorities or whatever) seems to me whole lot better than randomly getting
roads with classification that matches neither the signage, other maps nor
reality. We have a good local system - if it ain't broken, don't fix it.

@Fernando:
Borders are tricky - Czech roads are markedly worse than equivalent German
roads, so harmonisation by "quality" fails. Austria is far faster than us
at building better roads, so you can end up with a motorway ending at the
border because our government hasn't gotten around to actually building the
part on our side. If you convince the EU to agree on a definition of an
important city, you deserve a Nobel peace prize - so good luck classifying
by "importance".
Trunks are (at least here in Prague) either the (incomplete) inner city
circuit, the main "radial" roads that usually connect the centre with
motorways, or other random sections that would be a motorway if they met
the standard. Knowing Czech roads, you can get a reasonable estimate for
what the road is like from class alone.
I'd guess that the fragments are a result of problems with coordinating
road construction. Between states its quite obvious, but even different
regions might have a problem to coordinate perfectly and motorways tend to
get built in pieces according to how well the planning for each of them
goes.

On 23 February 2018 at 20:01, Fernando Trebien <fernando.trebien at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 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."
>
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