Road Classification System (talk & poll)

I know about other topics, and I know that they end up nowhere. Besides that, I think it’s best to start all over again and try to clarify the basic issues.

Question 1.a says: A classification system that reflects (not necessary literally) our legal documents?
So we will discuss about names, refs etc in the next posts. Actually my next questions will be about that.
I am just trying to put some “boundaries” in this conversation so we can end up somewhere.

And as for EO44, section Chalkida – Lepoura, as you said connects Chalkida to towns like Eretria, Aliveri, Kymi and Karystos (all over 2000), not only one town, and if you add them up I am sure that are over 10000.
In fact, every driver that wants to go to South Evoia will go through section Chalkida – Lepoura. Think about it.

Thank you for your reply

So question 2 becomes:
Rule#2: Navigators must adapt to our map

I am taking the above occasion to point out another point of view.

Let’s ask ourselves, why Greek government has “labeled” those roads as national roads?
And why Greek government has “labeled” the above particular road (Chalkida – Lepoura) as a national road? Is this road so important?
(This road is just an example)

I think that when Greek government “labels” roads it has in mind the entire (geographical area) population that a particular road serves.
So, government, doesn’t see destinations separately. Please think about that too.

(I’m just putting this point of view too on the “negotiating table”)

National roads are registered in two legal documents (of 1963 and of 1998) that they almost agree with each other.
In fact 1998 document is based on 1963 document. That it’s already referenced in 1998 document.

So, next question is:

  1. National roads basically should be tagged as:
    a) Primary, according to the above documents (with exceptions of course)
    b) Primary or Secondary, according to their busyness and their destinations. (cities, towns, etc)
    (don’t confuse busyness with business :))

(All exceptions, of every rule, will be discussed later. At first let’s agree on the basic rules).

  1. I think it should be “3a” as the minimum: in detail, I desire that National Roads on E-roads should be trunk (since I think the definition of a motor-road is too vague for it to have its own category), and all other National Roads should be primary.

I will go with 3a too of course, because 3b its a matter of personal perception.

But I can’t understand the commitment that you are proposing. (National Roads on E-roads should be trunk).
E-roads are just routes, and they have nothing to do with if a road must be primary or secondary or trunk.
E-roads can go through any road as they are just routes.

I was wondering that if we were to tag all National Roads as primary (level 3), then what do you think would be trunk (level 2)?

i dont think 3b is a matter of personal perception…in fact in the first ever definition of national highways by the Greek state,a national highway is a road connecting cities, major airports/seaports/archaelogical sites and major military sites (the last one explains roads leading to military airports) source: Βασιλικό Διάταγμα 9-8-1955 “Περί Καθορισμού των Εθνικών Οδών κατά τις διατάξεις του Ν. 3155/1955”

a city is over 10000 or former prefecture capital (population doesnt change much, is updated only once in 10 years)
archaelogical sites dont go anywhere
major airports (international) are clearly defined

as for the total population a highway serves, thats hard to estimate (there is no need to complicate things)

about national highways spanning in 3 road types:there are in fact laws in effect (ΦΕΚ30Β/1996, ΦΕΚ735Β/1995, ΦΕΚ664Β/1995) that separate national highways in primary, secondary and tertiary

also ΦΕΚ293Β/1995 separates provincial roads in primary and secondary

i searched all the sources mentioned in ΦΕΚ253/2015 ΑΑΠ and i managed to download them from www.et.gr (αναζήτηση ΦΕΚ)
i think the 1995 documents could clarify the situation about what is primary/secondary etc

i believe this is the proper way to do it:

πρωτεύον εθνικό δίκτυο - trunk
δευτερεύον εθνικό δίκτυο - primary
τριτεύον εθνικό δίκτυο - secondary
πρωτεύον επαρχιακό δίκτυο - tertiary

While the following source is copyrighted by Egnatia Odos, I refer to this map of the Arcadia regional unit (on page 31) as an example why it is not a bad idea to split National Roads and Provincial Roads: http://www.egnatia.gr/Files/Adverts/5012_sow.pdf

Splitting the roads just adds a great layer of unnecessary complexity to the map, when for many years National and Provincial Roads were simply just that in common use.

amaroussi you are again out of sync…you wanted to go by official documents…i give you official government decisions about road classification and you are still against

Well, because i strongly suspect that this conversation will be toooo long, and in the end we will not end up on any conclusion (see other topics),
I say (declare) that it was wrong to have taken the initiative to try to bring this community into an agreement.

Consequently, and because all of these conflicts are becoming frustrating, henceforth I stop having a primary role in this convesation. From now on, my role will be secondary, and where is possible consultative
If someone else wants to regulate this discussion please feel free do it.

I will study thoroughly all the above ΦΕΚ documents, and then I will reply accordingly

Hi,

The future of the OSM Greek community is very much at stake here if we do not come to an agreement soon. I am tired right now, but can JayCBR please point out where I ever agreed to change from “ref” to “nat_ref”. I do not remember been shown the ΦΕΚ30Β/1996, ΦΕΚ735Β/1995, ΦΕΚ664Β/1995 documents before you pointed it out yesterday.

I am just a mere minion in the debate right now because I am no longer bothered to pick a side in any debate, let alone do anything more than local traffic flows and undiscovered local roads. I tried hard to make good use of what is available, only to end up in such a crippling deadlock.

However, I blame nobody because the entire road classification system was crippled long before OSM even existed. There is simply no certainty in the system that the government created, made far more complex with the multiple levels of national and provincial roads.

At first look on the above documents, that JayCBR posted, i am starting to see a hope of finding common ground. I will post more later.

it appears these documents could be the solution to any issue, it clearly says which national highways belong to primary. secondary and tertiary road networks, there is also ΦΕΚ 293Β/1995 about reassignment of provincial roads, i found all of them yesterday

OFF-TOPIC:
dont overcomplicate things, we wait until the end of February for other opinions…if there are not, we reach an agreement ourselves, with some compromise

about nat_ref we talked about it some months ago, when we decided to use the 1998 Registry of National Highways and found out there are problems (it looks like road operators never took these new numbers into account, so there are differences between the 1998 document and reality, so nat_ref for the 1998 numbers and ref for the actual numbers in use)

example 1: Northern Cretan Highway appears as ΕΟ90α in the 1998 Registry, but ΕΟ90 on the road (nat_ref=EO90α, ref=EO90)
example 2: section Chalastra - Polykastro of E75 appears as ΕΟ1α in the Registry, but EO1 on the road (nat_ref=EO1α, ref=EO1)

as i told nikospag in private…there is no need to step back…this is not a competition…this only works with cooperation

This is the first time I have seen such documents, but that still leaves the issue of trunk being unused if we were to take those literally (e.g. primary to primary), and I am not sure about the rural/urban separation (as it stands on International equivalence).

We’ll address how roads bypass towns and cities where there is one later.

well if you look carefully i already said my opinion (reply #15), i am also updating the wiki

i finished the primary and tertiary national network tables

a lot of primary national highways are already motorways, so no reason to mention them

most of the tertiary highways are those military airport roads, and other minor ones

about trunk i was thinking maybe to include roads that arent motorways yet but they are planned to be as ΦΕΚ253ΑΑΠ suggests

How about:

highway=trunk: Primary National Network
highway=primary: Secondary National Network
highway=secondary: Tertiary National Network

highway=primary: Primary Provincial Network
highway=secondary: Secondary Provincial Network

I prefer that some distinction be made between the lowest class of provincial road and high=tertiary for un-gazetted roads to villages and local roads with priority (is that the correct term?). I am quite late to this, though.

I am not as experienced as all of you are on this subject and therefore my input will be limited. Surely though, I will take some time to study all these documents later this week - and even find out if there are any others that we might be missing. Regardless, I will try to point out a few things and hopefully this would be helpful to all of you - if not just ignore me…

Even if I am not familiar (as a driver) with every road in Greece, I am quite aware of the significance of provincial AND primary municipal roads (κύριες δημοτικές οδοί) especially in the region of Cyclades. The first ones are surely “the most important ones” in the region. The second ones are the “next most important ones”. There is a clearly distinction between those two and at the same time they are both more important than unclassified or residential ones. I really don’t think that BOTH of them could be mapped as “tertiary” or “secondary” roads, so there has to be another way to do that. Let me put it this way: Provincial roads are the main arteries of a local road network and as a result, they get most of the traffic and also most of the attention (as in funds for maintenance). Main municipal roads are also important enough, as they are almost always connected directly to the provincial roads and they do reach a village. They are not unclassified, and they surely aren’t as unimportant as residential ones.

In other words, I completely agree with this:

Here’s an actual example:

According to ΦΕΚ 47Α/1956, the island of Mykonos has two provincial roads:

1: Ormos Agiou Ioannou - Mykonos - Agios Stefanos
2: Mykonos - Ano Meria

There are of course many other roads which connect those provincial roads with other villages (and the airport in this case).

So, why main municipal roads are so important?

One answer could be found on ΦΕΚ 270Δ/1985.

More or less these roads are exactly what OSM wiki defines as tertiary ones. They are surely not as important as secondary ones, and they are surely not unimportant as residential ones. Of course some parts of these municipal roads might nowdays be irrelevant and have no actual use, but those could easily be “unclassified” (as the wiki suggest to do so, in case these roads are now quitter and unimportant).

But, which roads are the main municipal roads?

It’s easy to determine which are these roads just by definition (the same definition of tertiary roads, according to the wiki). Unfortunately, I can’t find a list and of course there are no signs. There are many random official documents (like this one) though, which both confirm their existence and their names.

TL;DR I do believe that a distinction has to be made between the lowest class of provincial roads and “un-gazetted” roads to villages.

Now, if these roads are highway=tertiary , then provincial roads should be highway=secondary or highway=primary, according to their actual classification. The documents which JayCBR provided are indeed helpful in most of the cases.

I’ve noticed though that ΦΕΚ 293Β/1995 doesn’t include the region of Cyclades. ΦΕΚ 423Β/1995 has an answer:

.

Therefore, to add something to Amaroussi’s scheme, highway=secondary could be used for these cases as well (I am sure he could find some words to describe it… e.g. secondary and unclassified provincial network? non-primary provincial network). Which by they way, I think it is exactly what most of us did, even before we had this discussion.

ΦΕΚ293Β/1995 is based on the older ΦΕΚ47Α/1956, so the rest of them should be there

my proposal about classification is in reply #15

i dont think provincial roads should be in the same category as national highways (even tertiary ones)

they should be tertiary

there are a lot of roads that escaped from this whole network and they should be classified according to destinations:
*primary between cities
*secondary between towns
*tertiary between villages

so every village should connect to the rest with tertiary roads (unless unpaved) so dont worry about municipal roads

Could you please help me understand your suggestion? Why do you think that provincial roads should not be in the same category as national highways? Is this a practical thing? Based on road characteristics? Based on legal distinction?

I did provide an example of how such a distinction is useful - roads of different importance on an island, yet first one is not important as the other - and I am sure I could find many more in Cyclades. Can you please explain to me why this distinction won’t be useful on OSM (or provide an alternative example, or anything). Don’t get me wrong: I am not even arguing here. In all honesty, I am trying to make sense of your proposal so I can clearly understand it.

Do you mean roads that are not classified as either national or provincional?

Hm… seems to be complicated. Let me explain why:

It will surely be hard to define a road based on another feature (city, town, village) that is not clearly defined. If you define cities, towns and villages by population it might be hard to decide based on permanent (μόνιμος) versus actual (πραγματικός) population. If you also use any population for defining cities, towns and villages, you really need to take on account the distinction which is made by ΕΛΣΤΑΤ - the people who actually do the counting: Έννοιες και ορισμοί

If you forget about it’s population, then you can define a city, town or village by other definitions which could easily be found in many popular Greek dictionaries and encyclopaedias (it seems that even on the discussions in wikipedia, people have spent a lot of time trying to establish how these are defined).

For example, the settlement of Mykonos (not the whole island) has a population of 6.467. Is this a village, a city or a town? Based on the most popular English translation it’s a town. Based on ΕΛΣΤΑΤ it’s a city.

But to make things even more complicated, I am sure that you are aware that almost every island in Cyclades has a “Chora”. Chora is by many different definitions a town (e.g… a town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city). It’s the hub of an island and most commercial activity and services are based on this settlement (e.g. city/town hall, police station, fire station, shops etc). There are Choras which have a population of less than 2.000 citizens.

And finally, if for some reason you define a Town as a settlement of more than 1.999, less than 10.000, then how exactly can you map the road connecting Paroikia (4.522) with Naousa (2.316) at Paros Island? Secondary as per your suggestion for “roads that escaped from this whole network” or tertiary, as your suggestion for provincial roads (ΕΠ2 Παροικιά - Χριστός - Νάουσα according to ΦΕΚ 47Α/1956)?

It now even makes more sense to me to have provincial roads as secondaries instead of tertiaries.

We might even consider a third alternative proposal:

highway=secondary: Provincial Network - regardless of its classification as primary or secondary provincial network

(and to make sure that we cover relevancy, in case they are not important anymore - e.g. roads leading to nowhere or unpaved - they could of course being downgraded partially to something less important - importance was and still is the keyword in this discussion).

Well, I honestly have nothing else to add on this issue. I really hope that we (as a community) reach a consensus on something. I strongly believe that you (and I do mean all of you) are more experienced than me on things like that, so I would much prefer to have you all mapping things in agreement instead of discussing them :).