Road types

[achuman]

All these new editors are becoming frustrating now...

I fixed up the N1 between Bloem and Joburg in April and I could actually route all the way to Kimberley via the N1.

Now I see somebody has gone and split a big chunk of the N1 and made the one side a Freeway and the other a Major Highway, whats worse is that both are marked as "Two Way". Link

It's really annoying spending hours fixing up a route only to see its completely stuffed up a couple of months later...

//Rant Over

[Adventurer]

With the impending SANRAL toll gantries and Waze's non-support of toll roads, I question the naming type conventions as stated in this forumn. If a user wishes to miss the gantries in the greater JHB area, he could tick the "Avoid Highways" box in his client. Except that this would route him away from the major roads as well like William Nicol Dr (R511), because according to the convention, they've been markes as "Minor Highways". In fact, I doubt very much if routing would work at all considering how many "R" road criss cross the nothern JHB region.

Could we not re-look at this "Standard".

Craig

[Adventurer]

I noticed that somebody designated the R55 as a Minor Highway. There's no way that this two lane pot-holed, shoulder less black-top could be called a "Highway". The standard definitely needs work.

[Adventurer]

All suggestions are welcome!

At this moment Waze is making things a bit difficult for us.

In Midrand "R" and "M" roads are Primary Roads except when they're clearly freeways. http://world.waze.com/cartouche/?zoom=1 ... n=28.12009. This would be my suggestion.

I suspect that "Highway" is an American term applied the their "I" or interstate roads. These are almost always dual carriageways but do have intersections. Our equivalent would be the "N" roads, except that they deteriorate to a "tweespoor" in places.

[mohag]

Please post comments / your views if you disagree below.

This seem to be the current standard: viewtopic.php?f=141&t=3466&start=10#p26947 refer to it primarily.

This was my suggestion and it seem to differ in some places. (Major highway vs freeway in may cases)

In some cases it might make sense to classify parts of roads as a different type for consistancy (e.g. the R21 between the Hans Strijdom offramp and the fountains circle - keeping it freeway, rather than major highway might make the map easier to read)

Something that should eventually become a wiki page as well (like road naming)...

We should probably agree on the road types used....

The main types are: (and what I think should be classified under those)
Freeway
Speed restriction of between 80 and 120 (mostly 120)
Any piece of road without junctions and traffic lights, with a speed restriction of mostly 120 km/h
Default level for N roads.
All roads marked with signs GDS-4 and GDS-5 (see "Promotion" in zarf's post)
Examples
In Gauteng: M1 (most / all?), N1, N14 between Krugersdorp and Eeufees offramp, most of the R21 between Boksburg and Pretoria, N4 between hartbeespoort and Witbank
Large parts of the N1 (around Kroonstad, Bloemfontein)
Major Highway
Speed restriction of between 80 and 120 (mostly 100 / 120)
Default level for Rxx roads
Large parts of M-roads might also be classified here (NOT parts going through town at 60)
Minor Highway
Speed restriction of between 80 and 120 (mostly 100 / 120) (and possibly slower for short distances)
Most roads between towns
Default level for R100-R999
Ramp
Ramp onto / off / between highways / freeways
Primary street
Must be in populated area - otherwise probably Minor highway
Major road
Speed limit typically 60 - 80
Anything with a route number (probably M) assigned and not classified above
Roads running through small towns
Main streets of towns
Most dual-carriagways in town
Street
Smaller roads in town
Roads in office parks / estates / complexes (complexes might debatable, possibly private roads)
Roads in enclosed neigbourhoods
Service road
???
Private road
Long access roads to houses / bussinesses
Dirt / 4x4 road
See name
Any dirt road, even a major one (4x4 trails should be separate and the surface should be a property of the road) (Several dirt roads should be minor highways in South Africa)
Parking lot road
Roads in parking lots. For roads within limited-access company parking, private road might want to be used
(Unedited road)
Roads recorded and not edited. Nothing added to this manually

<edit>26 Sept: updated freeway definition to more closely match that in previous thread</edit>

[mohag]

Other things to consider:
Does minor highways in towns make sense in some cases? (For really major roads / for minor highways running through a town) Otherwise withing populated areas, there is mostly only 2 road types available - street and primary street

[mohag]

I haven't seen the classification suggestions (it is on the second page of an unrelated thread)... I think the Road traffic regulations give better guidelines as to what is classified as freeways... (Large parts of the N12 are NOT freeway...)

[mohag]

Large stretches of freeway in Gauteng is marked as Major Highway (Parts of Ben Schoeman N1 / N14)

There is also large parts of freeway containing freeway in the name that is not marked as freeway. (R59 between Alberton and (almost) Sasolburg)

At least all roads indicated to be Class A-1 freeways with the sign GDS-4 and possibly the Class B-2 freeways indicated with sign GDS-5 should be marked as freeway....

Sign list: http://www.arrivealive.co.za/downloads/ ... rt%203.pdf
Key: http://www.arrivealive.co.za/downloads/ ... rt%205.pdf

There is several parts of N roads which I can not see how they can be classified as freeways. See here for an example: http://goo.gl/maps/FHTh

A major factor in what the proper classification should be, is how Waze uses it, especially for routing... (If classifying some roads as freeway will make Waze prefer above a similar road, much more careful consideration need to be given...) (E.g. If Waze suggests the N12 between Jhb and Cape Town because it is somewhat shorter than the N1 and both roads are designead freeway for their entire length, the classification needs work)

(The Blyss / zarf suggestions mostly make sense)

(Toll roads are something else that Waze seem to need quite urgently)

(One of the problems with improperly marking roads as freeways, is that the defaults speed limit on freeways is 120, while on other roads in unpopulated areas it is 100)

[rorygren]

Have you had a look at the suggestions made by zarf and blyzz in the main South Africa forum?

[rorygren]

That's cool, but you also have to remember that a lot of folk have been recording tracks and then editing them according to those suggestions for a long time - I, for example, have hundreds, maybe thousands of kilometres of edited road and would hate to have to go back and change everything .... I've been going for almost a year and have edited plenty of those tracks, but there's still plenty of kms for me to edit. There's not much chance I'll go over everything I've done in the past year and redo it.

It takes a heck of a long time to edit a stretch of freeway from Durban to Ladysmith, for example.

I suggest you read the suggestions on the Naming Standards thread and post your suggestions there and see what response you get.