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Suppose I wished to add detailed lane geometry to OpenStreetMap, like (1) lane centerlines, or (2) lane boundaries, (3) variable lane width (4) lane predecessors/successors.

Currently, all I see are:

(1) how many marked lanes are there on a highway, e.g. <tag k="lanes" v="4"/>

(2) which lanes on a two way road are not distributed evenly between the driving directions <tag k="lanes:forward" v="3"/>, <tag k="lanes:backward" v="1"/>

(3) turn=* key, specifying the indicated direction in which a way or a lane will lead for turning or merging, e.g. <tag k="turn:lanes" v="reverse|through|through;right|right"/> <tag k="turn:lanes" v="left|left||||right"/>

I also saw that a proposed feature is street area (area:highway), where a Way would depict the polygon area of a street. Have you seen any use of this feature, or do you know if/when the feature will be adopted?

My understanding, however, is that this proposed feature will only allow the enumeration of drivable road areas, and not per-lane width/boundaries. I've seen the figure here.

asked 02 Aug '18, 07:14

johnwl1000's gravatar image

johnwl1000
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accept rate: 0%


There is no reason that the current lane model could not be extended to include lane widths (actually this would be trivial). Adding explicit lane centerlines does not fit well into the current model, and is unlikely to find much support (not the least because that is how we used to model lanes, a model that was discarded).

But in general before embarking on whatever project somebody is asking you to do with OSM, you should familiarize yourself with how things actually work in practical terms.

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answered 02 Aug '18, 08:51

SimonPoole's gravatar image

SimonPoole ♦
44.7k13326701
accept rate: 18%

Thank you very much for the response Simon.

You are right about the lane widths, these can already be specified as I see.

Could you point me to that previous model of lane centerlines that was discarded?

It seems like we would need a "Way" to describe each lane's centerline. My understanding is that it is not permitted to add an extra "Way" ID to a specific lane tag currently. Would the OSM server reject such an upload?

Would a line width have to be uniform across an entire "Way," or can different line widths be expressed for each separate chunk of the Way?

Thanks so much.

Best wishes, John

(02 Aug '18, 19:36) johnwl1000

whenever road attributes change, you have to split the OSM way into multiple OSM ways.

(02 Aug '18, 19:45) escada

@johnw1000 there is essentially no such thing as "not permitted" in OSM, as I pointed out in my answer you need to familiarize yourself with how OSM works. The individual mapping of lanes was never a specifically documented way of mapping lanes AFAIK and always had issues in modelling.

(03 Aug '18, 10:50) SimonPoole ♦

there are already +5000 width:lanes, width:lanes:forward and width:lanes:backward according to taginfo

More information on how to tag properties of individual lanes (maxspeed, surfaces, widths, etc.) can be found on the wiki

There is a proposal for change lanes as well, which is more "in use" than proposed imho.

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answered 02 Aug '18, 09:23

escada's gravatar image

escada
19.0k16166302
accept rate: 21%

edited 02 Aug '18, 09:23

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question asked: 02 Aug '18, 07:14

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last updated: 03 Aug '18, 10:50

NOTICE: help.openstreetmap.org is no longer in use from 1st March 2024. Please use the OpenStreetMap Community Forum