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

I'm in a sort of conflict with another user about the classification of certain roads in Germany, near the dutch border. This user insists that only the German roadnumber is leading in classifying the roads as primary, secondary, etc. In my opinion, one should also look at the (international) network. For example: the dutch road N274 from Schinveld to Koningsbosch is partly on German territory and has the number L410. So this user removes the primary status and replaces it with a secondary status. For the B56 between the L410 and the dutch border it goes the other way round: from secondary it is upgraded to primary. Now the roads don't match anymore at the border.

What should I do to get this right again? Just changing it back will not work...

asked 23 Jul '11, 19:45

Seat%20Ibiza's gravatar image

Seat Ibiza
61123
accept rate: 0%


Do not go ahead and start a edit war and instead start a healthy discussion around the subject. Get other mappers involved in the discussion and enter with an open mind. It is equaly possible that you are wrong and that others take another view on the matter.

For this kind of discussion it is better to send a mail to the openstreetmap.org">dutch and the lists.openstreetmap.de">bremen mailing list and possibly the openstreetmap.org">german list.

The classification is based on the importance of the road and the local goverments classification usualy follows the importance as well.

permanent link

answered 23 Jul '11, 22:37

Gnonthgol's gravatar image

Gnonthgol ♦
13.8k16103198
accept rate: 16%

Agreed - an edit war doesn't help anyone and is annoying. It is also important to remember that a road may change class on an international border - for example there are several across the Pyrenees where the Spanish have upgraded to their side of the border and treat it as a more major route than at the French side, where they become single track lanes down the other side.

Another question is - do road classifications on OSM in your locality get allocated by status, or by quality of the road irrespective of the number/governmental classification? What about the country you are joining to?

(24 Jul '11, 16:17) c2r
1

@c2r : road classification in OSM, like Gnonthgol stated above, is based on the importance of the road in the road grid. While government classification usually/often follows the same logics, there might also be exceptions (e.g. for historic reasons, or because maintenance costs for a specific road are moved from one body (e.g. nation) to another (e.g. region). So generally road classification in OSM is irrespective of the governmental classification. This was also voted on some time ago with one of the highest voting contribution ever.

(24 Jul '11, 18:33) dieterdreist

What you write makes sense in some countries, but perhaps not in others - which is part of the problem.

While in Germany and France for instance, there are obvious hierarchies according to quality, which are broadly followed by the classification system. French national routes replaced by motorway are downgraded to departmental and so it shouldn't matter which system is chosen.

Looking at Spain, the classification system is a mess anyway, and this extends to the OSM implementation. National roads are not routinely downgraded when parallel motorways...

(24 Jul '11, 19:44) c2r

....are built or where the local area builds a bypass - which makes for poor navigation; hence a system of OSM mapping based on type of road makes sense.

I would venture that the UK also is different, because principle routes have often not been upgraded, while some unclassified routes are easily equal or better quality. Add to this that different colours are signed on the ground, which makes a visual survey easy to put the colours onto the map, as it were. If the system of assigning OSM road status based on route quality in the UK was put into practice, it really wouldn't help navigation.

(24 Jul '11, 19:51) c2r
1

see above: "road classification in OSM is irrespective of the governmental classification". It does not matter, which country.

(25 Jul '11, 01:03) dieterdreist

You should adhere to the guidelines set by the local mapping community of the country within which borders you are editing. Then you'll notice that indeed the Dutch N-road and the German L-road should be valued differently. The same goes for the Bundesstrasse you mentioned.

If you don't like the customs of another country, try to convince the local mapping community that your way of doing things is the right way and that they have been doing things so very, very wrong for years on end (good luck with that). In the meantime, don't start any further conflicts when a user brings your edits in line with local customs.

permanent link

answered 26 Jul '11, 15:54

Arie%20Scheffer's gravatar image

Arie Scheffer
132237
accept rate: 0%

@Arie Scheffer: please take a look at the map before giving an answer. The L410 was built as a dutch road on German territory. A couple of years ago it was handed over to the German authorities and got a new number. The road didn't change that much (there were added some roundabouts) and the importance of the road didn't change at all. It's still a primary route for traffic from Brunssum to the north. But I guesss you're too focused on your "perfect" system, that you won't see that exceptions on a system should be possible...

(26 Jul '11, 18:51) Seat Ibiza
1

@Arie Scheffer: your first answer is put in a negative way. With my first question I just wanted to ask if looking further than just a road number would be possible. If you see such questions as starting conflicts, than I guess asking questions is wasted time over here.

(27 Jul '11, 09:13) Seat Ibiza

Follow this question

By Email:

Once you sign in you will be able to subscribe for any updates here

By RSS:

Answers

Answers and Comments

Markdown Basics

  • *italic* or _italic_
  • **bold** or __bold__
  • link:[text](http://url.com/ "title")
  • image?![alt text](/path/img.jpg "title")
  • numbered list: 1. Foo 2. Bar
  • to add a line break simply add two spaces to where you would like the new line to be.
  • basic HTML tags are also supported

Question tags:

×16

question asked: 23 Jul '11, 19:45

question was seen: 8,439 times

last updated: 27 Jul '11, 09:13

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