Why would the connecting way not have the same name as the road? I don’t say it is necessary to tag the name but if I wanted to I’d take the same name and ref of the main carriageways. I think I only once have come across a situation where the two carriageways had different names.
I am preparing a list of affected way ids. Is there a better approach than to scan the city visually, panning around in the OSM editor?
Does the search box understand filter commands? I.e. can I select all service roads with less than 5 node elements and display them in the editor for me to scan?
EDIT: Lists of things under discussion might generally be a good idea. Do you use lists of elements for your editing purposes?
For finding and filtering you can use Overpass Turbo. It has a powerful albeit not too intuitive query syntax. I guess you could so something along: find all secondary highways, get the nodes of these highways, find all service roads that share one of these nodes. But I am no expert on Overpass Turbo queries. You need to figure it out by yourself or wait for more help here.
Sounds good. Will post results here.
I strongly disagree with tagging an asphalt widening e.g. between the left and the right secondary carriageway as a secondary carriageway. They do not have names, and they do not have refs. There is no “B1” in Berlin that connects the “B1” eastbound and the “B1” westbound. Not in my list of Bundesstrassen. There is an official Strassenverzeichnis for Berlin, and those turning points are not in it. As said, they are not ramps, and not even roads. You need a linear connection between the two nodes for navigable connectivity in graph theory. They need a highway tag that is accepted by routing engines.
You might consider highway=service not being ideal for this auxiliary connection, but it is better the other options. Please consider that a routing engine weighs the usability of a road by its rank, thus it would route major traffic through such turning point, which it is not built for. The turning point allows access to the property on the other carriageway, thus it fulfils the service meaning.
It’s totally new to me that carriageway get names at all in Germany. The roads are named and the roads consist of carriageways, separators, sidewalks etc. So in my opinion the connectors between the carriageways are clearly part of the same road and because of that it is totally acceptable to tag them alike.
I wrote an email to
Straßen- und Grünflächenamt
Straßenneubau, Planung und Entwurf
Bezirksamt Mitte von Berlin
asking about these parts of the road and what they are for. Here is the response:
So, the main purpose is to allow u-turns, but they are also sometimes used to give access to buildings on the other side of the road.
Fine. While it is difficult to interpret the answer without reading the question, it supports my position that:
- they are not road segments, in particular not ‘link’ roads nor ‘secondary’ roads
- they are just some asphalt on the median
- they are not named
- they are there to access a building on the other side (directly, or by making a u-turn)
The length of OSM-way segments is determined by connecting the OSM-ways which are a linear abstraction of the main carriageways; that positioned in the middle of the width of the carriageway. The way/node abstraction is a requirement of a major purpose of OSM, navigation. We do need the connection as a navigable way, for which I consider the lowest OSM highway category as suitable.
Anything else would go into the interest group of area:highway mappers.
I tried working with overpass but the query language is painfully difficult and I couldn’t find a solution. Finally I created a python script that reads the osm map of berlin and filters all ways that are service or unclassified and have both endpoints on a road with highway tag one of
["motorway", "trunk", "primary", "secondary", "tertiary", "residential", "motorway_link", "trunk_link", "primary_link", "secondary_link", "tertiary_link", "living_street"]
Of those roads I kept the ones of type service and unclassified. Finally I filtered by max length of 37m. Finally I found there are 402 of such road links in Berlin. Here are the ids:
[4446804, 4446805, 4474898, 4493352, 4570561, 4588814, 4588815, 4603596, 4674698, 4792166, 4804161, 4808080, 7956545, 8004061, 8008915, 8036572, 8039956, 8639449, 10742770, 13863064, 18830954, 19605972, 20134140, 22375562, 22375635, 22495063, 22996272, 22996291, 23046980, 23153460, 23153461, 24205292, 24258932, 24340273, 24561171, 24736779, 24743591, 24851963, 24909562, 24909586, 24909632, 24918387, 24954142, 24955768, 25020268, 25040367, 25040368, 25212774, 25538630, 25747798, 25770726, 26310230, 26414224, 26457884, 26545782, 26828719, 26832457, 27075128, 27156866, 27168531, 27623003, 27651712, 27730313, 27850034, 27852645, 27958575, 28077011, 28163470, 28273446, 28335666, 28405315, 28506724, 29239605, 31065216, 31116137, 31473268, 31611164, 31815293, 31815294, 31815295, 32765955, 34835386, 35465046, 36337929, 36338285, 36878113, 36942049, 37573646, 37815473, 37815474, 38329761, 38329762, 38725489, 38762417, 38763673, 38763676, 38763877, 40459892, 40667367, 40667790, 41292627, 41673714, 41764796, 42265707, 43036659, 43087006, 43394508, 44034147, 44524549, 44527383, 45339923, 45399418, 45869054, 46424277, 47427183, 47973247, 47973303, 47975006, 48015706, 48475976, 48477910, 48477911, 48792899, 48792902, 48873001, 49163432, 49163435, 49163437, 49163613, 49163614, 49166247, 49182373, 49438009, 49708150, 49748059, 51033116, 51033123, 51033124, 51033125, 51095762, 52990075, 53256975, 53797886, 53835765, 57391841, 59038366, 59392588, 59392589, 60046361, 60065272, 60065274, 60065496, 60690958, 61408223, 61423392, 62164704, 62164705, 62318496, 62318507, 63972160, 65975817, 66420988, 66424587, 66424589, 72202415, 74507243, 75262673, 75262674, 75262676, 75262677, 78579768, 79422546, 80029218, 83589278, 83888670, 83888818, 85278288, 88535167, 88535168, 88535169, 88535170, 88655690, 90525624, 90525625, 90993871, 93478263, 95189654, 95920837, 96824634, 96824635, 98208743, 102780037, 102943813, 102943816, 105506956, 106346031, 106797560, 106997206, 108704294, 109813713, 110133878, 110863802, 110899738, 111048867, 111812578, 112428001, 112428002, 112882899, 112882900, 112886551, 113780783, 115481679, 115481681, 115481701, 115481703, 115481707, 115484601, 115484607, 115484613, 115942561, 117322684, 117913907, 118199577, 118199578, 123002412, 124810762, 125520158, 126290784, 129207716, 130518509, 130518981, 130518984, 130518985, 131981024, 136699501, 137728433, 137728434, 137728435, 137728436, 137728437, 137728438, 137728439, 137728440, 137728441, 137728442, 137728443, 138147743, 138147744, 138147745, 138160564, 138556915, 141233526, 141233530, 143624379, 144021180, 147972697, 148888655, 148930580, 148930581, 148930866, 148930870, 152264782, 152264783, 154837291, 164955117, 165329543, 166973640, 168944479, 171095996, 176229664, 179652279, 181317533, 182674121, 183240212, 183256451, 190928928, 191278543, 191288219, 191806106, 193768734, 195075090, 197917666, 197917669, 199574478, 201686826, 210447761, 211153084, 212698443, 212700584, 214553469, 216025821, 216025822, 216206771, 216973995, 216974031, 220943181, 222152934, 223013765, 225142957, 236853029, 236955398, 237460084, 239336054, 239336055, 239620580, 240803994, 246044829, 246044833, 259433185, 267402930, 270669508, 279142400, 284232568, 284527347, 287142083, 289213495, 303548053, 303548054, 303548055, 303548056, 303548057, 303548058, 303548059, 306866895, 310386887, 310895756, 313099349, 313099708, 313803586, 317863876, 318665523, 319605609, 329869882, 329983271, 332164872, 333626092, 335384453, 335558813, 340606579, 347986368, 354073052, 361178554, 361178555, 365734821, 365734829, 365734845, 365734858, 368311664, 376269516, 376269517, 377570611, 377994687, 380651337, 381497914, 381646899, 391264985, 405607378, 406852132, 409126924, 412910073, 415424130, 420112516, 424956806, 425378222, 425378223, 426104484, 426168819, 426414158, 429439381, 429488377, 435358674, 436928320, 438254411, 438254412, 448025885, 450115388, 450126670, 453373586, 453803669, 454561097, 454730461, 457462518, 461146901, 461214810, 472040401, 482743526, 485464013, 485464014, 485468357, 485468359, 485468360, 492567356, 493400123, 500506545, 501806768, 520275223, 534118066, 547372892, 553017451, 640288269, 642669456, 666930105]
If anyone want to change the unclassified roads to service roads, so that they are labelled consistently, here are the 48 way ids of Berlin:
[4588815, 4603596, 4804161, 4808080, 8036572, 10742770, 13863064, 19605972, 24205292, 24561171, 27168531, 27730313, 31116137, 35465046, 42265707, 46424277, 57391841, 59392588, 59392589, 60046361, 60065272, 60065274, 66424587, 66424589, 111812578, 112886551, 118199577, 126290784, 129207716, 136699501, 143624379, 154837291, 166973640, 168944479, 183256451, 191806106, 211153084, 223013765, 259433185, 270669508, 317863876, 333626092, 335384453, 354073052, 435358674, 450115388, 453373586, 547372892]