Greek Road Relations discussion

This is my plan on how to structure to the road relations, as it is possible for relations to belong to a parent relation. I am experimenting on Provincial roads and will come up with a proposal.

The lack of a dedicated thread to the road relations is why we could not agree properly on how to use relations.

I propose that one relation represents each unbroken section of National Road. I do not think that single relations for roads like ΕΟ7 will make any difference to how the road network is portrayed.

Basic Structure

Greek National Road Network (network relation)
↳ National Road 1 (Athens - Oinofyta section) (partial road relation)
↳ National Road 1 (Longos - Thermopylae section) (partial road relation)
↳ etc…
↳ National Road 7 (uninterrupted road relation)
↳ etc…

Greek National Road Network
int_name=Greek National Road Network
name:en=Greek National Road Network
name=Εθνική Οδικό Δίκτυο
network=GR:national
type=network

National Road (without interruptions, such as ΕΟ7)
int_name=National Road 7
name:en=National Road 7
name=Εθνική Οδός 7
network=GR:national
official_name=Κόρινθος - Νεμέα - Άργος - Τρίπολις - Μεγαλόπολις - Καλαμάτα
ref=ΕΟ7
type=road

National Road (with interruptions, such as ΕΟ1)
int_name=National Road 1 (Athens - Oinofyta section)
name:en=National Road 1 (Athens - Oinofyta section)
name=Εθνική Οδός 1 (ενότητα Αθήνα - Οινόφυτα)
network=GR:national
official_name=Αθήνα - Τατόι - Μαλακάσα - Οινόφυτα
ref=ΕΟ1
type=road

More info about “network”: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Relation:route#Road_routes

We should also start using “name” and “name:en” together.

i have thought of parent relations too: e.g. one parent relation for a whole prefecture provincial network or primary/secondary provincial and national network so someone can see the whole network at once

i think is right to have uninterrupted road relations, thats why i made separate relations for EO1

about the names i vote for something simple, anyway these relations are only for us editors.

i believe int_name is better than name:en (the latter is only for places there is an english word for)

some roads official names could be huge

I plan to merge some relations that are un-interrupted regardless of classification, such as EO7, but I would not worry about the official name as they are unsurprisingly long: tags can hold up to 255 characters, if longer, we can simply “abridge” the destinations so that it fits.

I am open to using both int_name and name:eng together, but using destinations only as names makes identification difficult.

  1. I don’t think that a super-relation like a network relation can serve any purpose or help us in any way. Tools and analyzers (like the OSM Relation Analyzer etc) don’t support super-relations (except OSM Route Manager). It just adds more work to us because we will must add each road relation in to the network relation.

  2. What is the purpose of using name=Εθνική Οδός 1 when there is already a ref tag (ref=ΕΟ1) that says the same thing? I cant see why you keep insisting on that. I disagree that using destinations only as names makes identification difficult, because we have the ref tag as a helper.

  3. Names like name:en, name:fr, name:de etc, appear according to language setting on each device. If these devices cant find a name:xx tag they display the default name tag (in Greek in our case) and not the int_name tag.
    I dont know when and where int_name tag appears on any device. If i am wrong please correct me. I think that name:en is the way to go in most cases.

For names that are known internationally as english names like Corfu, Athens, Piraeus, Zante etc, maybe we can use an int_name tag additionally, int_name like Kerkyra, Athina, Pireas, Zakynthos etc (useless to me). But in most cases, just the name:en tag will do fine (as transliteration).

Exceptions of tansliteration can be only the properties of an object like lakes, squares etc. but not names.
For example Limni Plastira should be name:en=Plastira Lake, Plateia Omonoias should be name:en= Omonoia Square and Plateia Dimokrateias should be name:en=Dimokrateias Square (not Democracy Square).

i have discussed this in the irc channel where more experienced users exist, most of them told me to use the official language for the name tag and only use name:en if there is a word in english for that place (e.g. Corfu is an existing english name for Κέρκυρα) and use int_name for transliterations (name:en for transliterations is simply wrong)

an other thing they told me was not to care for the renderer, because many sites using openstreet maps provide translations/transliterations of the names

our responsibility is to use the correct tags, it is the renderers job to dedide how to use them (we can not think of every software/OS/device)

Hi, I am a busy person now, but in my opinion I feel that my experience with foreign countries such as India and others could do a lot to make the Greek road network not only more robust, but also a lot more accessible. I would not choose such tags for no reason, especially when Greece also uses the E-road network.

I have stated on numerous occasion that a need to make a turn at a junction, such as http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/37.79062/22.74472, does not justify splitting a relation there: if a national road required a lot of turns in short succession, such as in Athens, we would end up with a lot of meaningless sections, and there are many countries where you have to make junction turns to continue on a said national route of equivalent.

you are a little confused, i did not say to split relations every time there is a turn…i said names should be changed when there is an obstruction and change of direction (these places happen to be major intersections)

i think Κόρινθος - ΣΣ Νεμέας and ΣΣ Νεμέας - Άργος is more accurate and more helpful for the users of the map

long national highways like EO2, EO3 etc are often interrupted so we need to choose: we want one huge relation broken in pieces or smaller unbroken relations

about EO7 in the city of Argos: i think there is not a clear path of the relation thought the city and should be splitted
so EO7 would have 2 relations: Korinthos - Argos and Argos - Kalamata

Hi,

I am confident that we will be fine with full and unabridged relations for unbroken highways like EO7, EO8 and EO9 (and of course, not EO1), as these roads are national-level: we are not dealing something as massive as the European Road Network, and a single relation, where possible (unlike EO1), will make the task of mapping the roads a lot simpler. If you have any issues about the alignment, I can resolve it easily.

As for Argos, the EO7 would go via the old station and through the ring road.

To be honest, what we really need is Alexis Tsipras to fix this whole system, without those “wish-list” entries, so that we do not have to do this complex guesswork. :stuck_out_tongue:

Hi,

In respect of the name of the relation, do not choose “(Prefecture) Επαρχιακή Οδός #/Εθνική Οδός #” instead of “(Destination A) - (Destination B)” without a good reason, which I do have one.

Using only the destinations for “name” will confuse relation-orientated data users as to what the ΕΠ or ΕΟ stands for, even if enhanced by the “network” values. This is quite a critical problem, given the complexity of the road network which means that the latter (ΕΟ) now uses three classifications. There is also the question of making the data understandable, and not how long or short the name is.

Furthermore, giving them a clear and descriptive name like name=(Prefecture) Επαρχιακή Οδός # makes it easier for future editors to locate and update the relation. We may know what they are now, but not everyone does.

While I understand that some users are desperate for a resolution, I do not know if the IRC channels record conversations: if they do not, then we do not have any proof of decisions that purport to come from IRC.

as we talked about, road relation names are not that important as they dont render

i propose the use of network=GR:provincial:01 after discussing with amaroussi and consulting the osm wiki about networks

some feedback would be nice

I totally agree on using the tag network=GR:provincial or national:XX (XX=ISO code) as it is a more standard tag and it doesn’t involve names unlike the is_in tag, so mistakes are less likely to occur.
Maybe we should use that on ways too.

From my experience, GR:provincial:01 and GR:national are for relations only, so I would not be able to tag these on ways.

Here http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:network , on the right side, where it says “Used on these elements”, you can see where you can use this key. Of course, the most common usage is on relations, but it’s apllicable on ways too.

I think it’s enough to use this key only on relations, there is no need to use this on ways too. But i think that is useful to use the network key on ways too because it will distinguish national and provincial networks. Read my post here too.

Hi, I ran an overpass query on “type:way and highway~”^(motorway|trunk|primary|secondary|tertiary)." and network=" in major cities and I have not seen any widespread use of such an idea.

It is a very new idea so we probably need more feedback on this. I will be neutral for now.

hello…i think you should change the title to road relations in general to include national and provincial

about provincial road relations i think is better to use the 4-digit okxe numbers in ref…it would make finding them much easier!
you could find all provincial roads in Greece with network=GR:provincial, all the provincial roads in Aetoloakarnania with network=GR:provincial:01 and specific provincial roads by their unique 4-digit ref

I have the title changed, but I do not think that 4-digit okxe numbers in ref would make any difference when you already know the network, so I would leave ref as EPxx. Also, Attica’s code is A1, which may cause Attica provincial roads to be mistaken for motorways.

as before, we are discussing about provincial road relations and you go and name them as you like…

the official names are already covered in the wiki, i dont understand why you have to use Αιτωλοακαρνανία + Επαρχιακή Οδός 1 + official name etc in OSM name (we made this column for the actual names of the ways)

i think the best scheme about provincial road relations is ref=xxxx (okxe numbers), it is clean, specific, easy to search and it is supported by official sources…

of course okxe also has some minor glitches (easy to figure out and fix)…provincial roads in Attica would be A1xx, not Axx (ΕΠ12 would be A112, not A12)…so no conflict with motorways there

Hi, I have only gone by what has already been done with the National Road relations in such style: for example, https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6112882. I have said before that only using the destinations for “name” will make it hard for JOSM editors and data users to sort and find them. There are many types of data users of the OSM data, not just drivers, editors or road fans.

I still make provision for the official name by suggesting we use “official_name” or “description” for that (I must admit I do not know if you wanted “official_name” or “description”, but that can easily be changed).

I only just recently started to see that a number of A1xx motorways on Wikipedia don’t really exist at all, after busting the “A581”. We’ll implement the 4-digit code for “ref”.

I think these A1xx numbers in Thessloniki and Northern Greece are yet another example of reckless over-ambition by the Greek government.

relation refs are on topic, if you put it in ref discussion, people may think we are talking about way refs

about road relation names, i don’t care about the name as long as they belong to a network (GR:national, GR:provincial:xx)

just don’t use it in way names and “osm name” column in the wiki

the official name was given 50 years ago, many place names have changed or they do not exist

it is easier now to agree on a scheme, provincial road relations are few, later it could be difficult to change 250 relation names and wiki tables

Hi,

I have already stopped using Αιτωλοακαρνανία + Επαρχιακή Οδός 1 + official name etc on ways, but I did not know at the time if “OSM name” on the table referred to the name for the relations or the name for the ways.

At the time, I thought that the OSM name on the table referred to the name for the relation. Maybe that column on the wiki could be clearer, maybe with an icon for the intended element (way or relation).