Defining classifications below trunk

Consensus is important …I have been using the two letter Thai abbreviation, followed by a space, then the 4 digit road number.
Until now I have been cut & pasting from the site
http://tambon.blogspot.com/2010/04/changwat-abbreviations.html
I hope the Province abbreviations are the same as the DRR are using !

I am in agreement with adding a dot/period/full stop after the Province abbreviation, by my vote goes to omitting the space… not that it matters, but it allows for a marginally conciser display on the renderer and GPS.

Stephan - is there any way you can work your miracles and bring them all into line in one fell swoop, perhaps putting XX where a abbreviation does not exist. … which in turn could generate an exception list which we cud quickly correct.

Finally, that looks like a pretty useful document that Paul has provided a link to … as its in Thai I cant read it, and is it also copyrighted ? One bit looks like it might provide official start & end coordinates of the Rural Rds, which wud be very useful !

Rgds, Russ.

I can’t add the “xx.” where needed, but I can update the refs so they all follow the same standard. But what should the standard be?

a) xx.1234 (dot)
b) xx. 1234 (dot-space)
c) xx 1234 (space)
d) xx1234 (no dot, no space)
e) something else?

I personally vote for (a) for these reasons:

  • It is currently used the most
  • It is what is described in the wiki
  • It is what is used by other maps in Thailand: http://map.longdo.com
  • It seems to be the standard in at least one official looking document (Paul_012)

I don’t think it is hugely important what we choose as long as we can agree on something - if needed we can change the standard in the future, though it will be more confusing for people not following these discussions.

Hi Russ and Johnny,

are you saying that all 4-digit roads are actually maintained by the Department or Rural Roads?
I thought that only those with the code are done by them, while there exist other 4-digit highways which are maintained by the department of highways.

So either way I see no sense in adding a XX. in front of them. What would this help? In case something is missing it is easier to spot it missing if it’s actually missing.
And in case we can’t distinguish, we shouldn’t change it automated.

Stephan

I personally vote for (c)

A period is never seen in signs for an abbreviation in the US (and I’m guessing most other countries either), on road signs or postal addresses. It’s completely redundant and adds a character that takes extra space to display. I realize this is Thailand we’re talking about but I just wanted to add my 2 cents to the discussion.

Hi Stephan,

Absolutely not, I am saying I can’t do that. The reason being that there is no way for me to tell whether it is a 1234 for xx.1234 road. What I am offering is to make the roads that already have an been correctly marked as DRR consistent.

Option (b) has one more character than option (a) which you are arguing against. I think you mean option (c) which is just a space or (d) which has nothing?

OK, I did some further research and the Department of Rural Roads which names the roads uses option (a) as well:
http://gis1.drr.go.th/module/mng_report/rep_distance_road_sum_report_print.php?type_select=2&case_=3&prov_id=12&tmp_prov_name=

If these really are the official names of the road, isn’t that what we should use?

I’ll also support option (a), for the reasons given by Johnny Carlsen.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of cases where that’s not true. National highways in the North all begin with 1, but in the Northeastern, Central and Southern Regions, they begin with 2, 3 and 4, respectively, so your observation isn’t applicable in other regions. Moreover, rural roads (with their xx. prefixes) may begin with any number from 1 to 6, depending on the level of the roads they connect. ลป.1002, for example, begins with 1, as it branches off the one-digit Route 1. (Rural roads branching off two-digit national highways begin with 2, and so on.) The only conclusion we can make is that four-digit routes beginning with 5 or 6 should have an xx. prefix.

Thai government agencies generally do own copyright over works they create, but official reports are ineligible for copyright protection. I don’t know where exactly that leaves this document, but using it as a reference (comparing the coordinates to roads on the map) should be okay regardless, as no creative aspect of the work is being reproduced. (Yes, those are the start/end coordinates of each route. I’ve found that typos are unfortunately quite common, however.)

So in official publications it’s a dot without a space. On the signs it’s a dot without a space.
And we know that in written Thai there is quite little use of space characters as well.

Any good reason for **not **following that?

If Johnny is doing a mechanical edit to change it by removing the space, I’m fine with it.

Stephan

Well it sounds like most of us agree (a) is the way to go … a dot with no space.
And I do agree with Stephan that XX. can not be arbitrarily added, BUT can Johnny or Stephan at least take everything that currently has a province prefix, and convert it to the “nearly agreed upon” XX.??? format.
… At the very least, can you amend all of the ones I created if its still contentious ?
Russ

I have script ready that will update a little more than a thousand refs which were easy to recognize by the script - some incorrect entries may be missed, but I’d rather do scripted updates on too little than too much.

But before I run anything, I need to know that we can all agree on a format. I believe the current votes are as follows:

(a) Johnny Carlsen, Russ McD, stephankn, Paul_012
(b)
(c) AlaskaDave
(d)
(e)

Er, yes, I meant (c) :frowning:

Sorry for the delay. I’m in Phitsanulok, where my GPS routing has found many errors LOL. I will go along with the rest of you as far as the format is concerned.

If we’re all in agreement, let’s update the Wiki accordingly: “Roads having a provincial prefix in their ref tags should be tagged as XX.nnnn where XX is the provincial prefix in Thai characters, followed by a dot, followed by the numerical portion of the ref. There should be no spaces in the ref value.” This clarification could be added to the definition of highway=tertiary on the Thailand Wikiproject page at http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Thailand

Or words to that effect.

I can do the change if we’re all okay with that wording. Suggestions, refinements anyone?

Sounds good to me.

I have fixed more than a thousand roads now to follow the above standard.

Removed

I have updated the Wiki accordingly.

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Thailand

I’d also go with version a (if my vote counts… :wink: )

I have done a scripted update on most roads to follow version (a), xx.1234 – most roads should now be correct.

Johnny, I would like to see that script just for my own amusement and edification. I don’t know if it’s something that’s easily shareable or not but as a former database junkie, I’d love to dig into the details of “talking” to the OSM database.

And thanks very much for your work on this project.

Dave