National Highway Mapping

Hi,

no it is not possible to do this with a script. It is not accepted inside the international community and mostly afterwards reverted by the OSM working groups. Furthermore in some regions are the new Highway Numbers in use. I could see some new numbers in Odisha.

Regards

Hi all,

As a part of improving the road coverage network in India, a trial run was carried out for the state of Manipur and a basic workflow developed for verifying and updating the National Highway coverage in OSM. The workflow and the basic discussions around the task has been put up in this Github repository . Also a diary has been published in OSM regarding the issue. It would be great to have the OSM community to look into this workflow and contributing towards any suggestions and discussions on improving it.

Regards,
Jothirnadh

I have added a lot of new NHs. So the statistic of NH-coverage now will look better.

The following problems have to be solved:

1. Shall all defined trunks (even the recently updated) be classified as trunks?
   Some mappers remap the trunks back to primaries…
   My proposal : yes and no exceptions

2. Actually we have constructions like ref=NH848;SH30;SH21.
   Shall we alter this to :
   ref=NH848 ; ref:old=SH30;SH21
   That means, trunks have only NH-ref-tags. Everything else in the ref:old-tag.
   The ref:old-tag is not rendered. So this informations are not to be seen in standard maps (Mapnik…)!

3. Old /new numbers :
   parambyte suggests to map ref=NH66/17
   Shall we map the trunks like this with ref=new number/old number?
   My proposal: old numbers in the ref:old-tag. It’s like this actually.

Dear all,

1. in my opinon is a NH a trunk and should have only one exception, in case of a much bigger Bypass road. A NH is also not an expressway, its an NH with motorroad=yes.

2)I am with you to copy the OLD NH Number to ref:old, but in my oppinion we should only use the realtions to define the numbers. In your case we have a relation with NH848, SH30 and SH21 on the same way. No ref number should be written on the way it self.

3. In my oppinion, we should only use the new numbers. Unfortunalty some of the numbers has changed some month back to the old one. e.g. NH8 was changed to NH48 and now back to NH8. http://morth.nic.in/showfile.asp?lid=366 Unfortunatly this causes that we have to check every NH again. (Iam not 100% whether this file is the latest version its a mix of new and old numbering)

Best regards

Nikhilprabhakar wrote in his blog:
„At Mapbox, we have been looking to improve the coverage of road network in India, which is among the lowest in the world on OSM in comparison to CIA world factbook.“

To prove the actual situation, I looked in
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/IN:National_Highways_%28new_numbering%29

The total length of National Highways, which are mapped in OSM, is 94 197 km.

Concerning the NHs, the situation is not so bad (94% coverage)!!!
The statistic mentioned in the blog of nikhilprabhakar count the NHs with 2 ways (both directions) twice. So there are coverage-values with more then 200%!!!

No other replays to my questions in post 37???

Actuall coverage of NH-mapping in India :

All defined NHs are listed in the Wiki.

NHs mapped in OSM : 96 000 km
Not mapped : 1 800 km
Without new number : 600 km

Sum = 98 400 km

total length (Morth list) : 100 087 km

We have about 1700 km difference between OSM and MORTH-list.

All NHs are now mapped as trunks.

In OSM we have mapped now 96 600km of NHs, 860km are not mapped (and/or don’t exist!?).

In addition about 700km are mapped as motorways.

MORTH says : 100 087km of NHs
NHAI says : 96 260km of NHs and 200km of expressways

The mapping of NH and NH with motorroad=yes is not consistent.

We need a decision which NHs according to OSM-rules shall be mapped as motorways.
Who makes a Wiki-page for motorways???

The annual report 2013/14 of MORTH says:
The total length of national highways and expressways in India is 92851km!!!
(http://morth.nic.in/writereaddata/linkimages/AR%20Eng%20Part%20A-2874692826.pdf)

So MORTH has lost about 15000km of NHs since 2011.

I have reverted the mapping with old NH-numbers (except NH183(220).

It seems, what I am writing or asking, is of no interest.
So I won’t disturb you any more with my monologues.

Heinz, some of us read your monologues! Even if like myself we are not particularly interested in NH mapping. For instance, in my case when I come here to see if anyone has replied to my own monologues.

Part of the problem is that many users seem to depend on the mailing list. It is a pity, as past discussions are much easier to keep track of here.

Hi Heinz,

MORTH data is most accurate.
It has been updated recently in August 2015.
Why we are seeing old NH numbers, bcoz MORTH is lazy to update.
I had a RTI on this.The plan is to go with new highway numbers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:National_Highway_1D_%28India%29%28old_numbering%29#Requested_moves

Thanks,
Naveen

Heinz, this is a pretty complex situation (just like Indian languages ) and thank you for doing all this hard work. For some more time we are going to see a mix of new and old numbers depending on where they update the road markings and signage and when they update their databases. All of this will be inconsistent and be very hard to keep track of, i’m sure even the govt folks get completely confused because someone did not update their spreadsheet or paper documents and did a poor copy paste job.

Its best we follow a simple logic:

• All NHs have been officially renumbered according to this gazette notification in 2010. This is official and for practical purpose be our foundation till an updated notification is released. Thus NH8 is now NH48 even if someone at NH forgot to update their spreadsheet
• As Oberaffe suggested, refs should be part of relations and not directly on the way. This allows any way to be part of multiple route relations with no conflict
• The new numbers will use the ref tag and old numbers the ref:old tag (This should probably be old_ref but we can do a mechanized edit later)
• The classification of the road will inherit the highest class of the route it belongs to
• Lets follow the definition of motorway strictly. If a bullock cart or cycle can go on the road, it is not a motorway.

Would these guidelines cover all issues we are facing?

The total length of national highways in OSM is different from the values of MORTH.

MORTH lists the NHs statewise. In order to compare with this list we should also calculate the length statewise.

My solution : for each NH in each state we create relations and list them all in a Wiki-page.
Then the length calculations will be easy.

But : it is a lot of work. I can start constructing the list.

PlaneMad:
All NHs defined 2010 are mapped, also nearly all NHs in the last official list from MORTH.
But there are other new NHs, which are not in OSM.
Yesterday I added the new NH216A and changed the NH16 as declared this year in Gazette…

ref:old or old_ref : i think that’s not soooo important.

Motorways : In the past mappers had declared trunks to motorways, which was definitly false.
So a Wiki-page which says which roads are motorways would be helpful.

Ref-tag : It is normal practise worldwide that the ref-tag is also added to the ways.
It would be better (as you said) to declare the ref in the relations.
In India mappers insist an the ref on the ways. Specially if they don’t like the new numbers (see NH183/220). The ref-tag on the ways is prominently rendered. And it is very easy to delete a whole relaltion!!!

Old/new numbers : I think it last years till all NH-signboards have the new numbers. So parambyte proposal „NH66/17“ instead od „NH66“ is not bad for the next years.

As per the year end review by MORTH, NH length has increased to 100475 Kms.
http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=133917

I have started the list of The NHs statewise

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/National_Highways_%28statewise%29

Now NH1 till NH343 is included.

Perhaps somebody can improve my poor English on this page.

Naveenpf : The new MORTH-publication is interesting (at least concerning expressways/motorways). But the rest are total values without details.

Let us not tag like this just for the rendering. In the custom India style on http://openstreetmap.in/ we can render both the ref and ref:old tags to give the same effect. Tracking this here: https://github.com/osm-in/openstreetmap.in/issues/8

Maintaining ref tags with both old and new numbers like NH66/17 will be a lot of headache.

I got a feedback from a customer saying that NH48(changed recently) is NH8. According to http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/National_Highways_%28statewise%29#Delhi, NH48 is the correct name, but according to MORTH NH8 is also correct. I’m confused with which one to follow.

Changing to the new ref may confuse users since the signs of the old ref still exist on the ground. We can follow this procedure to name the roads with multiple or changing names to render them on map. We can remove the old ref if new signs are installed.

I have changed the NH8 in Delhi back to NH48. Except old NH220; all NH numbers are changed back to new numbers now!

1. The government has declared 2010 that the old NH8 is now called NH48.
2. We cann’t have two different NHs with the same number. The NH8 is now in Tripura and Assam
3. The new NH148,NH248… start according to the new numbering system from the NH48. NH8 makes here no sense. And MORTH continues to declare a lot of new NHs; all according to the new system.
4. If we use NH8,NH48,NH8… according to the actual signboards, who will update this, if a new signbord appears on the road???

I don’t know why the government still uses a mix of old and new numbers.
We could do it like parambyte suggested.
But PlaneMad is right : I think, we should remain with the new numbers. And it’s a good solution if openstreetmap.in shows the old and new numbers. I hope this will be realized.

I have finished the Wiki-page with the statewise list of all Nhs.
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/National_Highways_%28statewise%29#National_Highways_.28statewise.29

Now I try to find the reasons, why there are differences to the MORTH-list.
In Andhra Pradesh, I think, all NHs are completely mapped in OSM.
Nevertheless compared to MORTH 356km are missing!?
MORTH list NHs in Andhra Pradesh, which definitely are in other states (old NH222, old NH16, NH150, NH202, old NH222, NH161, old NH326, NH353)!!!

Superb Heinz 97.7% mapped