Nepal/Roads

National Highways (new Numbering)

• National Highways(new numbering)

Road Classification

According to the Department of Roads, Nepal, the administrative calssification of roads in Nepal have been done as follows:

1. National Highway (NH)
2. Feeder Roads (FR)
3. District Roads (DR)
4. City Roads / Streets (CR)

National Highway (NH)

These are the major roads running east to west & north to south of the country.

Official Class	Id ref=*	OSM tag	Description	Tagging guidelines	Photo
National Highways	H	highway=trunk	Highways which have heavy traffic intensity and connect different cities, regions and tourist centers. Example includes the primary highways: Mahendra Highway, Tribhuvan Highway, Arniko Highway, Siddhartha Highway, Prithvi Highway

Name	Relation	Status	Length(OSM/DoR)	route	Remarks
H01	339449 339449	100 %	1026/1026km	MAHENDRA RAJMARGA:Kakarbhitta-Dhalkebar-Pathlaiya-Hetauda-Narayangadh-Butwal-Kohalpur-Banbasa	trunk
H02	4655407 4655407	100 %	187/188km	TRIBHUVAN RAJPATH: Sirsiya Boarder-Pathlaiya-Bhainse-Naubise-Nagdhunga-Tripureswor	trunk
H03	4655593 4655593	100 %	117/117km	ARNIKO RAJMARGA:Maitighar-Suryabinayak-Dhulikhel-Dolalghat-Barabise-Kodari	trunk
H04	339982 339982	100 %	172/172km	PRITHIVI RAJMARGA:Naubise- Mugling-Pokhara	trunk
H05	4655609 4655609	100 %	36/36km	Narayanghat-Mugling	trunk
H06	4655642 4655642	100 %	159/159km	SINDHULI RAJMARGA:Bhittamod-Dhalkebar-Sindhuli-Khurkot-Nepalthok-Dhulikhel	primary
H07	4655655 4655655	100 %	237/?km	MECHI RAJMARGA:Kechna-Charali-Maikhola-Ilam-Phidim-Taplejung	primary,secondary,unclassified
H08	4655659 4655659	100 %	111/111km	KOSHI RAJMARGA,Rani-Itahari-Dharan-Dhankuta-Hile	primary
H09	4655682 4655682	100 %	124/124km	SAGARMATHA RAJMARGA:Kadmaha-Gaighat-Lamidanda	secondary
H10	4655736 4655736	100 %	183/183km	SIDHARTHA RAJMARGA:Belhiya-Butwal-Bartung-Syangjha-Pokhara	trunk
H11	4655755 4655755	100 %	171/171km	RAPTI RAJMARGA:Ameliya-Tulsipur-Salyan-Musikot	primary,secondary
H12	4655803 4655803	100 %	113/113km	RATNA RAJMARGA:Jamunia-Kohalpur-Chisapani-Birendranagar	trunk,primary
H13	4655825 4655825	100 %	237/237km	KARNALI RAJMARGA:Birendranagar-Manma-Jumla	secondary
H14	4655828 4655828	100 %	318/316km	MAHAKALI RAJMARGA:Mohana Bridge-Ataria-Syule-Dadeldhura-Satbanj-Darchula	primary,secondary,tertiary,unclassified
H15	4655852 4655852	100 %	54/54km	SETI RAJMARGA:Syaule-Doti/Silgadi	secondary
H16	4659866 4659866	100 %	27/27km	Kathmandu Ring Road	trunk
H17	4655869 4655869	100 %	582/456km		secondary,tertiary,unclassified
H18	4655920 4655920	100 %	955/798km	MIDHILL:Sanfebagar-Mangalsen; Kudu-Begelung;Khurkot-Hile	primary,tertiary,unclassified
H19	Relation not defined yet	0 %	13km	Shabha( MRM)-Bramhadev	planned
H20	Relation not defined yet	0 %	82km	Kathmandu (Outer Ring Road)–Chhaimale-Kulekhani-Budune-Shreepur–Jaspal-Nijgadh	planned
H21	Relation not defined yet	0 %	72km	Bhutkhel-Tokha-Changunarayan-Suryabinyak-Lubhu-Lubhu-Thaiba-Bhutkhel(KTM Outer Ringroad)	planned

Feeder Roads (FR)

These are the roads connecting the district headquarters, major economic centers & tourism centers to national highways or other feeder roads.

• Here is a list of the Feeder Roads

District Roads (DR)

These are the small roads usually in villages that provide access to abutting (lie adjacent to) land with no movement. Usually, they give access to one or more villages to the District Headquarters.

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Nepal/District_Roads

City Roads (CR)

Urban Roads

The following roads forms the road network in urban areas like cities and towns. Sections of these roads carrying very high density are usually oneway (oneway=yes) and intersections are restricted by having a parallel highway=service road to collect local traffic. Major intersections are usually grade separated or are regulated using highway=traffic_signals. For all practical purpose the roads in an urban area can be considered as those roads that are enclosed within designated ring roads or bypass roads.

• Wikipedia - Hierarchy of Roads

Class	OSM tag	Description	Tagging guidelines	Photo
Primary Collector or Sub-arterial Roads	highway=primary	Road corridors that carries a huge volume of traffic between arterial roads and has a high density of public transport services. e.g. Maitighar to New Baneshwor, Tripureshwor to Kalimati, Thapathali to Jawlakhel etc. These roads often connect two relatively distant localities in urban areas. The lanes=* key should be used to specify the total number of traffic lanes.
Secondary Collector Roads	highway=secondary	Collector roads that carry lower volume of traffic and has either no public transport service or a lower density of public transport service. e.g. New Road to Basantapur, Mangalbazaar to Gwarko, New Baneshwor to Sankhamul, etc. These roads often connect two neighboring/nearby localities in urban areas. The lanes=* key should be used to specify the total number of traffic lanes. NOTE: This roads are often named as a सडक, e.g. बत्तीसपुतली सडक.

Local Roads

These roads are usually in the cities. They provide access to abutting residential or industrial properties.

The following roads cater to local traffic movement over short distances and feed traffic into bigger roads. Speed is usually restricted due to narrow widths, high number of intersections or by traffic calming devices like traffic_calming=bump. Access restrictions can be indicated by using the access=* tag.

Class	OSM tag	Description	Tagging guidelines	Photo
Unknown or unverified road	highway=road	Roads traced from satellite imagery for which a classification has not been determined yet. This is a temporary tag indicating further ground survey work is required.
Residential road	highway=residential	General residential roads in a planned locality. Wide enough to carry slow moving residential traffic. Wider residential roads with access to two cars at the same time will have lanes=2 key. Narrower residential roads through which only one car can pass at a time will have lanes=1 key. NOTE: A road name ending with the word "मार्ग" is a good indication that a road is residential.
Service ways	highway=service	Generally for access to (or inside) a building, industrial estate, universities, parks, etc. This is also commonly used for access to parking, driveways, and alleys.
Pedestrian	highway=pedestrian	Roads that are almost exclusively used by pedestrians and are out of bounds of motor vehicles in normal conditions, such as plazas and squares. e.g. Roads around Durbar squares, Ason etc. If motorcycles are allowed, it will be tagged motorcycle=yes.
Unpaved motorable tracks	highway=track +tracktype=*	Rough roads, often with unpaved/unsealed surfaces and normally for agricultural or forestry uses etc. Also used for unpaved roads in rural areas through which motorized vehicles such as tractors can pass. Use tracktype=* for tagging to describe the surface.

Pedestrian Paths

These roads are meant for pedestrians and cannot be used by motorized transport. Use bicycle=yes and access=* to specify restrictions.

Class	OSM tag	Description	Tagging guidelines	Photo
Footpaths	highway=footway	Paths designated for pedestrian use in residential areas. Should be used along with galli=yes for narrow 'galli' which cannot be accessed by vehicles (a taxi or bigger). Most of the time, a bicycle or a motorcycle will regularly pass through these streets, but they will still be called galli. For wider pedestrian roads, please use highway=pedestrian. NOTE: A road name ending with the word "गल्ली" is a good indication that the tags highway=footway and galli=yes should be used.
Multi-use paths	highway=path	'Kachcha' tracks or dirt paths not intended for motorized vehicles. Also used by stock/mules/yaks and suitable for mountain biking and hiking along with sac_scale=*

Highways in Rural & Mountainous Areas

In many parts of Nepal access by 4-wheeled vehicles may be very difficult or impossible. In those places the largest vehicle in use may be a motorcycle. Although a path may be clear on the imagery, it is often difficult to establish for certain whether it is used by vehicles with axles or not. However, it is important to try, as such information is highly useful for on-going humanitarian relief efforts.

Determining a path's highway type from imagery

The following rules of thumb can be used to decide whether a path can be used by 4-wheeled vehicles:

• Examine the path for changes in direction. Frequent 'kick-backs' indicate a pedestrian path.
• Examine the path for alternative paths. Pedestrian paths will often have many small divergent paths in places which get muddy or are liable to erosion. Similar places with vehicular traffic do not show clear divergent paths, but rather broaden out.
• Tracks and gravel roads will often show clear signs of the presence of 4-wheeled vehicles.
• Consider access. All highways upstream of a foot suspension bridge are very likely to be paths for pedestrians.
• Gradient. Estimate gradient of highways. OpenCycleMap will help. A gradient over 7% is unlikely to be a road regularly used by vehicles.
• River and stream crossings. The way in which a highway crosses rivers and streams can often provide useful cues as to the type of traffic using the highway. Pedestrian routes tend to try and avoid height loss so will contour upstream, whereas powered vehicles need a steady gradient and broad crossing place.

Good rural road (F123)

Tagging rural vehicular highways

In practice highway=unclassified is usually the best choice. Villagers in rural areas of a poor country are unlikely to be able to afford motor vehicles, and thus the primary functions of the roads are access from the main road network. Longer roads serving several villages may need a highway=tertiary to reflect a more important position in the road network. But often the initial tagging can only be refined once the rest of the highway network has been traced for context.

Sometimes highway=track is used, but in Nepal's classification scheme, it is typically used for agricultural roads. highway=road is sometimes used in OSM to indicate that more data are needed to correctly classify the road, but this is not appropriate when the data is likely to be needed in the short term, as in current 2015 Earthquake.

It is also important to tag unpaved roads as surface=unpaved and to identify river and stream crossings and mark these ford=yes, either as a node intersecting the waterway or as a section of the highway that crosses the waterway.

Good rural path

Tagging rural pedestrian paths

Generally highway=path is appropriate.

Pedestrian suspension bridges are commonly found. Add bridge=yes + bridge:structure=suspension + layer=1.