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smoothness is well-documented for roads and focuses mostly on the suitability of 4-wheel motor vehicles, but could the tag be also used for highway=path with a focus on 2-wheel motor vehicles?

A 4-wheel vehicle will find the smoothness tag sufficient to find out what road may or may not be suitable, so why not use smoothness on highway=path for motorcycle riders?

e.g. very_bad = high clearance (adventure), horrible = heavy-duty off-road (dual sport), very_horrible = specialized off-road (trial), impassable (on foot only)

Context: still looking for a better way to distinguish the suitability of paths for motorcycles in regions where motorcycles are the most common path users:

  • motorcycle:scale is too broad (includes on-road) and too alpine/European centric
  • mtb:scale could be a good fit for the first few levels but afraid my perception of surface conditions on a motorcycle will not match those of a mountain bike. Any off-road motorcycle riders relying on mtb:scale ?
  • want to reuse an existing tag supported by outdoor renderers (e.g. tracktype, mtb:scale, sac_scale, and possibly smoothness)

asked 10 Mar '22, 07:04

cmoffroad's gravatar image

cmoffroad
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accept rate: 0%


Of course you can do that. I do it all the time. And also the wiki encourages you to do so: The tag can be applied to all drivable ways and areas: highway=, parking areas, beaches, etc.*

Rating a path is of course very subjective but the guidelines on the wiki should give you a rough direction. Just make sure you apply the rules universally to all ways. Don't evaluate smoothly differently on a motorway and a forest trail.

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answered 10 Mar '22, 12:20

TZorn's gravatar image

TZorn
12.3k764225
accept rate: 15%

Great. how do you tag a path that is not passable by any 2-wheels? smoothness=impassable ?

(11 Mar '22, 07:59) cmoffroad
2

I agree that the wiki is not exactly clear about 2-wheels vehicles, but it does say smoothness=impassable : No wheeled vehicle.

(12 Mar '22, 16:22) H_mlet

I guess you can use smoothness=impassable for your need, but I'm not sure about the router support you'll get.

The default access page (which has no Thailand section, you might want to add one) says that by default motorcycle are not allowed on path. I'm not sure router will support routing motor_vehicles through highway=path in all cases.

Anyway, I feel you might want to invent a new tag, something like passable, with the same structure that of access tags. Of course it's quite a long process to get a new tag approved and then supported, but it might prove better in the long run.

It's always been a problem that the access tags only convey the legal restrictions and not also the physical IMHO. A new way around that would prove useful I think.

Best regards.

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answered 12 Mar '22, 16:32

H_mlet's gravatar image

H_mlet
5.4k1781
accept rate: 13%

Or a forest path used as bridleway, for a pedestrian it is bad but for horses, it does not matter.

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answered 10 Mar '22, 13:06

Teek's gravatar image

Teek
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accept rate: 0%

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question asked: 10 Mar '22, 07:04

question was seen: 999 times

last updated: 12 Mar '22, 16:32

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