Road Classification

Thailand does not seem to have an established convention yet. Is one contemplated? Small roads I cycle regularly are either ‘tertiary’, ‘unclassified’, or ‘road’, and they all look about the same from a bike.

A warm welcome to the Thailand subforum and to the OSMers mapping in Thailand.

Please have a look at WikiProject Thailand / Highway classification. There’s also other information on this page.

If you have questions to this or other topics please don’t hesitate to ask here.

Hallo Sam Kuat,

also a worm welcome from me.

The value “road” is only intended as a temporary tag to mark a street that needs a proper classification.

The classification of streets does not necessarily depend on how it looks like. Other criterias are e.g. official street signs.

Thank you Willi and Wan. I have read WikiProject Thailand / Highway classification. Now I need to read it about ten more times.

There is a big gap in the map where I live and bike. I would very much like to fill it with good map information.

Cheers, Tom

Hi Tim,

please be aware, that “unclassified” does not indicate an un-classified type of road. That’s what “road” is for.
“unclassified” is a type of road that has no official classification like 1-4 digit highways, but larger than residential roads. Usually main roads inside towns that do not fit in the classified category.

Stephan

That’s great.

As you registered shortly I guess you just joined the OSM community. OSM is not easy or simple anymore. But you can start with simple things and use a simple editor like Potlatch and can go later to more complex things and use a more powerful editor like JOSM. But you are lucky: you live in Thailand and where you live is a gap in the map. You can start from scratch, not bothering with already mapped stuff which you don’t want damage or which might contain things you don’t like, want make better or which contains errors. You can add little or much, start with POIs (points of interest, in OSM nodes), go to ways and later use areas. Each contribution is welcome especially in a gap. Later you can rework or even scrap your own beginners work. It’s more easy to scrap own work than the work of others but even this is sometimes the better way to improve the map.

So don’t hesitate to ask questions, to present a situation to get advice or pointed to a similar situation, to make it simple, to make errors. There’s no best way, there are many. For me going the way is more important than reaching a certain goal which I guess doesn’t even exist for OSM. And take it easy, having fun is a good motivation.

But may be you are contributing already long to the map and just registered to the forum and I’m “carrying coals to Newcastle”.

Happy mapping
Willi

Thank you, Willi, Wan, Stephan. Most of the roads I have posted are I think unclassified, with some sections of ‘residential’, based on the village limit signs. They are just great bike roads, but cars can drive on them. There are no numbers. Willi, I have already had to correct stupid mistakes. There is a steep learning curve. The gap I mentioned is huge, and I can’t believe all the places I’ve biked to around here for years and was not aware of OSM (I first started carrying a gps to make my own bike map).

One more question: If I tag a village, should I put the marker at what seems to be the area of greatest population, or at the Wat, which usually has the same name? There won’t be a post office or government building.

I’m off tomorrow for two months and have loaded OSM maps for each area of travel. I will plot any missing roads there.

Thanks for making me feel welcome, Tom

The description of Key:place reads
“The place tag is used on a single node to mark the center of an area where people exist as well as on the whole area to mark its extent.”

As with many things there’s no strict definition. The situations are too different. In my opinion the center can be the geometric center or the point of the highest density of roads, buildings, shops. The Wat is sometimes in the center, sometimes the Wat is on the outskirts. It’s up to mapper.

Have a nice and save journey.

Willi