User:Giopera/Variable signs

Current State

The current state of the traffic_sign=variable_message is quite bad, it just provides enough information to tell that a sign might be displaying something in that area, while there are a lot of types of variable signs and they might have real repercussions on traffic and on navigation around cities and major arteries, like in Germany where there are many variable traffic signs that dictate velocity in a road and closures.
Currently the tag has no other tag and information about what the sign might have in it, for all you know a variable message sign might have in it a speed limits, a message appealing to caution on the road or the number of parking in a parking lot.
Currently I have two things in mind that could be done, one with a new tag and one without.

Use of a new tag

To fix this my proposal was to create and use the tag variable_message=* to identify what type of information gets displayed on this traffic sign, there are various values that could be used in relation to most of the variable signs display that are out there, here some values that I believe could be suitable for this:

• variable_message=speed_limit: This tag tells the user that this board is used to display variable speed limits and thus he might need to pay attention to them, usually this type of boards have a smaller display and there might be multiple based on the number of lanes.
• variable_message=directions: This is a type of variable message that might indicate directions and other information about exits, usually these have rotating prisms to show some predefined text and to close exits that may not be available at the moment.
• variable_message=parking: This type of signs is usually used to indicate the number of spots free in a, or many, parking lots in a city.
• variable_message=information: This type of displays are usually used to give information about congestion and other information about traffic status like work in progress, dangers on the road and other information about a road that might impact a journey
• variable_message=eta: This type of sign gives ETA information to various locations and usually toll booths of specific exits on motorways.
  

This tag could have multiple of them based on the messages that are displayed on this type of screen appending values separating them with ;, like variable_message=eta;information.

Use of a subordinate tag to traffic_sign

The other option is to use the tag traffic_sign:message=* to describe this type of messages.
In this tag, like the one described before, can have the various values described and multiple of them based on the messages that are displayed on this type of screen.
Optionally this type of tag could be used to describe the text that's used in other traffic signs that might have variable text in them, to make them renderable for navigator apps and others, or with other values to describe the content of something, even if this type wouldn't be really aligned with the other idea since it would mix the two types of data that's inserted into said tag.

Considerations

I'm currently still thinking about the name of the tags, content or message were quite good candidates but there are already uses that I personally don't want to mix together.