User:Djakk/new tagging scheme for roads

Hello !

I see some limitation about the current tagging scheme for roads, paths, cycleways and footways : the famous key highway=*

Here are 4 images from Mapillary, 3 highway=trunk and 1 highway=motorway : -images removed as mapillary mandates attribution in its license and it was missing -

The motorway is the *last* picture, the 3 first pictures are trunk roads. I would have expected the first road be rendered not like the 3 last roads, those last 3 roads should have been rendered the same as they look the same.

For example :

• highway=trunk is not the same between countries, in England it means administrative class, meanwhile in France it means dual carriage motorway-like road or motorroad (there is even conflicts there). (https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/176299444 / https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/41235170 / https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/24408729)
• there is no way to make distinction between the pedestrian Main Street, heavily walked, and a "decorative" footway in a city park. (https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/8065180 / https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22811168)
• a big road that goes through a town is highway=primary but could be also residential (there used to be abutters=* for that) (https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/314717666)
• a service road can be either quiet at any time or heavily used by buses (psv roads) (https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/25771651)
• administrative classification sometimes changes but the road looks the same (https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/61957875 / https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/71371740)

To pass those limitations and to get a better map, I think we should split the highway=* tag into several tags :

• the administrative class : road_level=*, values from 1 to 8 like admin_level=* (M1 -> road_level=1)
• the administrative rights (access rights, advertisement not allowed along the road …) : road_class=*, values motorroad or motorway (M1 -> road_class=UK_motorway)
• the importance in the local road network (short travels of every day like commute) : importance_local=*, values from 1 to 6 (importance=* is already used for railways) (example : the Main Street of a town is importance_local=1) (local area could be as big as a big city's metropolitan area)
• the importance in the regional road network (long-distance travels) : importance_regional=*, values from 1 to 6 (example : a bypass is importance_regional=1 and importance_local=6) (regional area could be as big as a piece of a continent, like Western Europe)
• the physical characteristics (motorway-like, half-motorway-like, mottoroad-like, residential, bidirectional with two large lanes, one-way link) : lanes=*, oneway=*, width=*, abutters=*, link=yes, looks_like=* (A86 -> looks_like=FR_urban_motorway)
• the amount of traffic : traffic=*

This applies for cars, but we can also have that for hgv, psv, foot, bike or motorcycle. Example : a residential street (for cars) that is importance_local=6 can have a importance:bike=1 tag if it is part of a bicycle network.

Examples

https://www.mapillary.com/app/?lat=47.32978454&lng=-2.12555595&z=17&pKey=xcQtjM71RybR9yY6TdnWkw&focus=photo : looks like a motorway with a bicycle lane (this is really a bicycle lane !)

• ref=N 171 : "N" for national road in France -> road_level=2
• Road (virtually) opened to any kind of user -> road_class=no
• If we consider Saint-Nazaire part of the metropolitan area of Nantes (https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=10/47.3048/-1.8306), importance_local=1
• This road desserves "only" Saint-Nazaire and la Baule and Pornic (https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=9/47.2969/-1.4337) from the rest of France, so this is a importance_regional=3
• looks_like=FR_Rural_motorway
• As this looks_like=FR_Rural_motorway, there may be little cyclists to pass there, so importance:bike=6 :O

https://www.mapillary.com/app/?lat=48.082902&lng=-1.017262&z=15.5&focus=photo&pKey=wRqwUGAnWNcKQo3mjlD8Uw&x=0.48506465338711&y=0.5911685589751972&zoom=0 : a regular French motorway

• ref=A 81 : "A" for motorway -> road_level=1
• road_class=FR_motorway
• No metropolitan area there (https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=12/48.0566/-0.9204), no importance_local=* tag.
• This road links Brittany to Paris, so this is a importance_regional=1
• looks_like=FR_Rural_motorway

https://www.mapillary.com/app/?lat=48.122773055555555&lng=-1.68426&z=17.289456974140986&focus=photo&pKey=phs5K5nx1I-Aw2eLX-v3fg : a regular French street with a lot of local traffic and no regional traffic (the city of Rennes is surrounded by a bypass)

• this street is managed by the city -> road_level=6
• neither a motorway nor a motorroad -> road_class=no
• Lot of local trafic -> importance_local=1
• No regional traffic, so no importance_regional=* tag
• looks_like=FR_urban_street