Proposal:Highway key voting importance

Highway key voting importance
Proposal status:	Approved (active)
Proposed by:	Dieterdreist
Tagging:	highway=* Data item
Applies to:	way
Definition:	Change the meaning of the highway tag
Statistics:
Rendered as:	Lines
Draft started:	2009-08-27
RFC start:	2009-09-16
Vote start:	2009-08-27
Vote end:	2009-09-30

Picture from Wikimedia Commons, taken by Jawed Karim, licensed cc-by-sa 3.0

Summary

In short the general definition of highway=* should be changed to importance for the road grid (hierarchical position in the interconnecting network) instead of physical attributes.

Longer Version

After continuous discussions on talk and talk-de about the general meaning of the Key highway=*, it was agreed, that the definition pasted onto the wiki in 2007, without discussion on the mailing lists (the main channel of communication within OSM), did not reflect the actual meaning of the key and is posing a lot of problems, especially in the context of a world-map.

Therefore the page was changed after discussions to reflect the common practise better and achieve a more generic definition appliable in all contexts.

In short the definition of highway=* should be changed to importance for the road grid/network instead of physical attributes. This does not mean not to tag physical attributes, they are very important for a lot of reasons. Therefore the proposed changes also include references to the most important physical attributes to add: lanes=*, surface=*, width=*.

Reasoning

This voting is set up because each of the members of the OSM 'family' deeply respects the opinions of her/his colleagues and so wouldn't want to make major changes to one of the most-used keys - especially changes that have proved controversial - without going through as 'democratic' and open a process as possible. For details see: history of Key:highway

The changes were following a discussion announced here: https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2009-July/039211.html (please see followups to keep track, continued also here: https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2009-August/039444.html )

Changes in detail

changes to Key:highway on 2009-08-06 by Dieterdreist

Discussion

please use the mailing lists and the discussion page

Voting

• Yes Peppo 20:44, 19 September 2009
• Yes This approach is already taken in Russia for quite long time. --Glebius 14:58, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• Yes. Its already like that in Norway after discussions on the norwegian mailing-list. Gorm 00:16, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
• Yes to classifying roads by importance, no to the idea that this page should be needed after the mailing list discussion. --Wynndale 16:43, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
• Yes we already do this in Sweden. Norpan 17:12, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
• Yes to classifying roads by importance, see discussion page. --HeikoE 19:18, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
• Yes because it is already practised in Germany and many other countries. --FK270673 20:48, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
• Yes because it doesn't matter. An attempt to define the highway tag in one sentence, which applies from Germany to Nigeria, is an epic fail anyway. --Bass 22:17, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
• Yes this is the best approach. Apo42 00:52, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
• No to change the general description, yes to improve the list of international equivalents (national definitions). --Skippern 00:49, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
• Yes to classifying roads by importance, no to giving up on the special meanings for motorway, living_street, track, etc. --Muir 03:24, 28 August 2009 [UTC]
• Yes to importance at least for trunk, primary, secondary, tertiary. (I don't know if this vote would ever count, but I'm putting it down here as a record of my preference.) --seav 04:59, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
• Yes to importance for trunk, primary, secondary, tertiary only, because these tags are so vague they are unlikely to be able to adequately describe the physical state of anything; yes to improve the list of regional equivalencies; and yes to greater emphasis on the physical/verifiable tags: lanes/surface/width/maxspeed/etc. --Waldo000000 06:16, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

The importance is generally defined by some local or national authority/government. Smsm1 07:48, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

• Yes and No I disagree with the need, at this stage, of this vote. I agree that it is rather unclear the meaning of trunk/primary/secondary/tertiary outside U.K., but we shoud clarify and agree, at internatonal level, how to define the "importance" of a road and then the rules to apply for the road tagging decision. The importance of a road should not be the feeling of a single person. This discussion should be done before the vote and the discussion should involve as many mappers as possible. --GPS-Marco. 28 August 2009 (UTC)
• Yes highway=* has always been about the importance of the road, and never about anything physical. --Hawke 12:27, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
• No The Highway tags match the road classification scheme in the UK. It fits there. In other country it does not fit and has been used differently. That is ok. But it is stupid to bring this back into the UK and change the original meaning. And yes to the necessity of a general discussion before changing something this basic. --Nop 12:38, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
• Yes We already do this in Italy, at least for primary, secondary, tertiary, unclassified and residential--Stemby 11:28, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
• Yes And is to clearly specify that importance is not necessarily correlated with administrative classification. We don't care about who pays to fill the holes in the asphalt. --Alessioz 16:37, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
• Yes --ilrobi 142:54, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
• No This change would invalidate existing data. Introduce new tagging scheme for importance. --Blaz 14:23, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
• No This is so far-reaching a proposal that I do not believe that the existing mechamisms of "voting" via the wiki etc. suffice. There are very major implications for existing tagging. Also the existing scheme is well-matured and works well in the UK - and I would have thought the equivalence tables would make it work equally well in most countries. And the whole discussion seems really only to concern certain values of highway=*. As I understand it, even the proposer states that the changes don't really apply to values other than =trunk, =primary, =secondary, =tertiary, =unclassified and =residential. So would it not be better to discuss modifications to these tags (if necessary - personally I think not much) rather than to change the whole key. If there really is a high participation in the vote - and an outcome that it is not close to unanimous one way or the other then I would prefer to see a working party or expert group - as previously discussed in the talk pages. Mikh43 16:01, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
• Yes Only because it seems less wrong than physical. I think a short paragraph summing up the factors involved and then points people to International equivalence and a separate page with what to do if your country isn't on there would be best. --Pobice 16:49, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
• Yes The established highway tag does not adequately imply build quality, but does map rather well to many countries' hierarchy of road "importances". Physical characteristics of roads as well as usage restrictions (and even smoothness...) can be catered for very well by other tags most of which are already established. An importance-driven presentation of roads furthermore corresponds well to how most existing road maps present roads and allows users to more readily visualise a long-distance route. --Mackerski 22:29, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
• Yes --tosky 15:09, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
• Yes I don't think "physical" matches what people do (for trunk/primary/secondary/tertiary/unclassified), so the main page should indeed be rewritten around "importance", but with appropriate reference to the fact that physical is relevant for other values, and that actual usage in each country is generally established in the international equivalence table. The main entry should set the scene, not try to give precise definitions of everything.--RichardMann 13:11, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. --Yuri Nazarov 12:47, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
• Yes --Ivan Komarov 08:54, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
• Yes --Aleksandr Dezhin 11:42, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
• Yes --Simone 14:25, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
• Yes --Diego.guidotti 16:38, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
• I veto this proposal -- Randomjunk 09:47, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
• Yes --Dieterdreist 07:42, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. we already do this in Spain --PerroVerd 07:57, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• Yes --D.s.e 08:08, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• Yes xylome 08:11, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• No: too unspecific an alternative. Ipofanes 08:13, 16 September 2009 (UTC)--
• Yes --Hanska 08:14, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• No I agree with Mikh43 -- Gustavf 08:21, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• Yes Snusmumriken 08:29, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• Yes DaveFX 08:36, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• No. This will invalidate a lot of existing data and the meaning of value under the new definition doesn't seem clear. In addition we have clearly defined motorways, trunk, primary and secondary in the UK which will be lost. I could support a new key to achieve this objective either via say "Importance" (to define importance) or "LegalDef" (to take over from highway for roads with a certain legal status thereby freeing up Highway for this purpose). --MarkS 08:51, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

No-one is suggesting changing established country based classifications, also the distinction between trunk, primary, secondary and tertiary roads in the UK is already effectively based on importance. --Wynndale 11:38, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I think a serious problem of both this proposal, and the existing text at the top of Key:highway, it that neither make this point clear. We actually use government classifications mostly -- Harry Wood 14:19, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

• Yes As long as there is no attempt to 'define' the importance of roads below secondary - they are all the same 'unclassified importance ( MarkS - NON of that is lost! ) Lsces 08:56, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• Yes --Lafriks 09:00, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• Yes --ck3d 09:27, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• No: a definition should not encourage tagging to be subjective. We have in most countries the governmental classification as a better option and should put bias on that. --User:Roland.olbricht 09:27, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• No --Coax 10:29, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• No A definition of the highway key must be valid for all values, not just primary ... unclassified. -- Cjw 11:03, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• Yes But we do need the governmental hierarchy in a separate key and not only in the ref=*-key, e.g. roadclass=* analogue to admin_level=*. This value could be added to all streets and should be the fallback if the physical or connection importance is not tagged. --Vsandre 11:58, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• Abstain - I like the picture :) --Thomas Wood 13:45, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• I am going to ignore this proposal - Jonathan Bennett 13:48, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• No I don't care what the importance of the road is. I care if I can drive vehicle X down it at speed Y. A per-country list of highway types that are tagged according to conventions and problems in that country is the logical way. This is an attempt to impose a global standard where one makes little sense. Tagging just so that routing engines or renderers don't have to look up per-country details is broken. --SpeedEvil 13:57, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. Socks 15:15, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. -- Zkir 15:56, 16 September 2009 (UTC). The importance classification is quite clear and useful. Physical attributes should be tagged using surface=*, width=* etc.
• I approve this proposal. -- Shurik 17:59, 16 September 2009 (UTC). Classification of roads must reflect their difference. Lots of roads in Russia should be secondary or tertiary if we shall use their physical characteristics. Siberian important federal road "Lena" partially has surface=unpaved. Current classification rules give us big blanks on map with no roads, and we really have some roads in Russia that defined with next class than based on their characteristics (e.g. 500 km P132 that should be secondary and not primary, but really more important that many other nearest secondary roads).
• I approve this proposal. - importance fits the tagging needs of my country. Physical stuff have separated tags already Ivansanchez 18:28, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. --Ksamples 18:35, 16 September 2009 (UTC). I'm a fan of the Highway Functional Classification System used in the US. And it seems general enough to be used worldwide.
• I approve this proposal. - Effectively it is already used like this in Spain. Juan Toledo 18:36, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. Alpha de 20:43, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. FedericoCozzi 21:00, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. Smal dirt roads can be main highways in some cases and wide smooth roads can be unimportant residential or tertiary roads Gnonthgol 21:02, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• Yes iiizio 23:21, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. Introduce new tags (like "highway priority") or at least new values. The words "motorway" "trunk" etc. used to classify importance will create misssunderstandings. A unsurfaced way (if it is important or not) can never be a motorway Hadhuey 21:31, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• No <edit: swearwords have been removed from this comment, see history if you really need to know> Why do you not inform us in the OSM Forum about a "importance" voting? --Edwin-ldbg 22:04, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• Yes --DimitriJunker 22:26, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. a different tag should be used. Deelkar (talk) 22:52, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. This fits better for most countries in the world than trying to shoehorn the UK classification system onto everywhere else. --Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 23:12, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• Nnnnnnnnnggggggggggh --Richard 23:13, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. ---jha- 23:18, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. --CMartin 01:21, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. --schulzibabe 03:47, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. Jrutila 04:38, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. Already done so here in Austria /al 06:23, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. Already done so here in Italy /salvaste 08:37, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. If this is to be used as a standard rule, I vote no. --Mdeen 06:41, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. -- Wamble 06:46, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. Geochang scribe 06:53, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. --Doctau 08:14, 17 September 2009 (UTC) -- Many countries already do this, and I believe the country-specific mapping table should be used
• I oppose this proposal. -- a different tag should be used to assign importance to a road.MichaH 08:
• I approve this proposal.29, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. for reasons already mentioned - Fips Schneider 09:07, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. but I agree to Edwin-ldbg: Why were forum-users not informed? At least I could find no info Christian Wirth 09:11, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. mostly done in Switzerland. Sarge 09:24, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. --Uboot 09:27, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• I'm a teapot. TomH 09:43, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. A clarification is much needed, and this is the direction I'd like to see (and what looks like standard practice anyway)
• Mikelima 09:45, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. --Bigshot 10:52, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. --Diego.guidotti 12:16, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. The meaning of there tags was so unclear, so there are many local tagging schemes. I think we need to have common principle. Any sort of physical based or official classification is unacceptable for such general use tag. Physical characteristics have to be entered as-is, through appropriate tags such as width, lanes, surface. For official categories special tags (country specific) must be used too. --Vovanium 12:19, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. Marcello 13:05, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. Bob 14:08, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. Sven Geggus 15:04, 17 September 2009 (UTC). This is common practice in Germany and on commercial maps anyway
• I approve this proposal. Seehundeführer 15:40, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. --Christian 16:23, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. Already done in Belgium. But each country should decide for themselves what to do with their road network. If a certain country wants to use physical descriptions only and it makes sense there, fine by me. But it doesn't make sense in large parts of the world. --Eimai 17:22, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. --Accelerix 19:34, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. Amai 17:41, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. --Nightdive 17:59, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. --Heinz 19:21, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. Current practice makes most of the roads invisible at low zoom level. --neutron 19:25, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. Adjuva 19:50, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. --Ilis 02:25, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. DINENISO 07:03, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. --fradeve11 07:49, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. --hesspet 11:16, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. Ferdi 11:26, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. Bellazambo 12:30, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. Tremlin 13:51, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. --Cartinus 13:52, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. Mink 13:57, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. --Brainhawk 19:06, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
• I just got out and map instead of wasting time wikifidling or voting on pointless things Smsm1 08:37, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. Benedikt.L 12:26, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. no need for a change, at least in Germany the definitions look adequate to me. fx99 15:26, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. to get a international working system --Balgofil 15:20, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. --ToniE 15:39, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
• This is a waste of time, whatever the outcome it will not change the way I map, or the way we render maps. It is wrong (and too simplistic) to try and stifle the underlying discussion by holding a vote. --Frederik Ramm 15:51, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. --Ulfm 21:59, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. --MarcusWolschon 03:16, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. --Bundesrainer 08:51, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
• NO --aeonesa The Highway tags match the road classification scheme in the UK. It fits there. In other country it does not fit and has been used differently. That is ok. But it is stupid to bring this back into the UK and change the original meaning. And by the way I am in the same opinion like Edwin-Ldbg
• I oppose this proposal. In my opinion, this has to be decided for ech country seperately. Snoopy88 09:13, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. PVitt 09:34, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. 08:41, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. --Alkab 17:53, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. Bomm 20:30, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. but please inform more users about the vote --Skyper 13:53, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. Lzhl 22:33, 23 September 2009 (UTC).
• I approve this proposal. --Shadowjack 12:29, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. When I look at a map I want to see, where I can travel the best way. For that purpose physical attributes much more important than the importance of a road. I also think that importance is a very abstract term, which can be seen very different by several mappers and the map data would become much more inconsistent. Classifying by physical attributes is a bit more unique. Last not least we are building a MAP not an art picture – it does not have to be beautiful, but it has to be functional! --Waldgraf 19:25, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
• veto Because this voting was not listet as a proposal on the proposal page--Lulu-Ann 10:44, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

I guess you are kidding? what else do you want? This page was linked from the highway page. There was announcements on the talk-list and I asked the readers to fwd. to their local mailing lists as well. Do you think I have nothing better to do than deal with your complaints? Why didn't YOU put it yourself to some other fancy wikipage? -- Dieterdreist 22:30, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Voting results

• 93 votes yes
• 35 votes different (no, yes and no, veto, abstain, teapot, ...)

(counted once, probably there is some mistake, but the overall result will not change)

Please note that voting was finished by 30th September 2009!