On Wed, December 7, 2011 22:03, Martin Koppenhoefer wrote: > 2011/12/7 Kate Chapman <k...@maploser.com>: > >> I wonder if custom presets could help with the road classification. >> We've had the same problem in parts of Indonesia, but that is because >> the road classifications are simply translated. Â Translating the word >> primary doesn't mean much for the type of road it is. Â Changing the >> word used in the preset to the specific known government classification >> could help. > > > That would be an interpretation though. Some time ago we voted about > the highway-classification and decided that it shouldn't necessarily > corrispond to the local government classification, that's why the presets > usually are translated and don't associate a certain road type to local > government classification (usually there is more then one > government-classification, the one visible at the road is (where I know > of) the one of the maintaining entity, which is not in every case the > classification of importance of the connection, as planning engineers see > it).
I thought this was foolish at the time, and it still is. highway=* should match the classification given by the government or roading authority, and should match whatever type of road is on the road sign. This is entirely objective. To do otherwise is subjective- if two mappers are presented with the same road one might say "This is a major road, it's highway=primary", but another might say "This is a fairly major road, but it's not very busy. It's highway=secondary". Instead, look at the badge on the sign. In the wiki should be a mapping from road designation (on a roadsign) to highway=* tag. After all, nobody disagrees what highway=motorway means, so why open the other types to interpretation? I don't know for sure, but I expect that the initial list of road classifications were derived from UK Ordnance Survey classifications: Motorway - motorway A road - primary B road - secondary 'yellow' road - tertiary 'white' road - unclassified dual-carriageway - trunk upgraded A road - primary + motorroad In my opinion highway=* should match the visible government classification. Next, if we add lanes=*, width=* and maxspeed=* then other people (or other people's software) can adjust the importance of any segment of the road based on objective data, not subjective interpretation. Best wishes, Andrew _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
