OpenStreetMap
UK Unadopted Roads - What are the Accepted Mapping Keys?
Posted by alexkemp on 12 September 2016 in English. Last updated on 31 May 2017.I’ve come across my second un-named un-adopted road (2 in 6 months). I cannot seem to find any info on the wiki for how to map these. I used the following page as my reference:
In the absence of specific info, in brief I mapped using the following values:
highway=residential
noname=yes
noexit=yes(it is a cul-de-sac) (note: this value generally NOT advised (see comments))
unadopted=yes
Links to wiki pages on values to use, and why, much appreciated.
For those unfamiliar with the term “unadopted road” (they are common in England), the following comes from a UK Government publication:
‘Unadopted’ roads are those roads not maintained by a highway authority as defined by Highways Act 1980
For most unadopted residential roads the duty to maintain it falls to the frontagers, ie the owners of the property fronting that road, which may include those where the side, or length, of their property fronts the unadopted road.
A note on wiki URLs: HTTP fails to redirect to HTTPS:
When finding the wiki Key:highway page just now Google gave me a HTTP url for the page. I manually changed it to HTTPS, and it showed fine. However, it did NOT redirect from port-80 to port-443 of it’s own accord. It was announced recently that Google is due to begin penalising HTTP pages. Act now, webmasters!
Discussion
Comment from Vincent de Phily on 12 September 2016 at 11:16
What’s an “unadopted road” ?
Also, remember that noexit=yes is only useful as an aid to mappers in unclear cases, and doesn’t actually need to be added to cul de sacs. A bit like oneway=no. Noname=yes is different, because that information can’t be infered from the rest of the data.
Comment from alexkemp on 12 September 2016 at 18:21
@Vincent de Phily:
The following comes from a UK Government publication:
Local taxes are often lower for unadopted roads, as the occupiers can be responsible for road maintenance. Thus, one of the clear signs of an unadopted road is it’s exceptionally poor state of repair.
I’ll add some of the above into the post.
Whilst I cannot recall the specifics, a Diary post on (I think) USA routing problems mentioned continual difficulties with cul-de-sacs missing
noexit=yes. Since reading that post I religiously add that value to each cul-de-sac.Comment from maxerickson on 12 September 2016 at 18:53
It may be a good idea to revisit that diary entry.
For instance, you can check what tags are considered by some open source routers.
Here are two that don’t consider it at all:
https://github.com/Project-OSRM/osrm-backend/blob/master/profiles/car.lua
https://github.com/osmandapp/OsmAnd-resources/blob/master/routing/routing.xml
I would be surprised if many routers would take the tag into account, as they look directly at the connectivity between the roads, and a road having a single connection is a common and simple situation.
Using https://www.google.com/search?num=20&q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.openstreetmap.org%2Fuser%2F+noexit%3Dyes to search, I only find a couple of entries, one complaining about the tag being added to ways.
http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/AndiG88/diary/35085
Comment from alexkemp on 13 September 2016 at 06:50
Hi @maxerickson
You provide compelling evidence to back up @Vincent de Phily’s assertion on use/no use of
noexit=yes. Looks like I need to change my practice with that. Bugger! I cannot recall specifics on that diary entry, which raises suspicion that my recall is faulty (would not be the first time, but is still damn annoying).You can improve your search results by modifying your use of the
siteparameter; never enter the protocol, normally forget the sub-domain & path:Checking out the above also allowed me to spot the wiki for noexit.
Thanks for your input; most helpful. I’m still waiting for input on unadopted roads, however.
Comment from Vincent de Phily on 13 September 2016 at 09:38
Regarding the original question, it seems that “unadopted” is purely an ownership/maintainership distinction, and is orthogonal to all the other tags we frequently use (highway=residential/service/track, access=private, surface=*, etc).
So I’d say tag all those first, since they cover all the attributes that OSMers usually care about. Then go ahead and add unadopted=yes, if you know this fact for sure. Just don’t make it imply any physical attribute of the road.
There are currently 89 unadopted=yes in the db. It’d be great if you had the time to write a wiki page explaining what it is, as it’s unlikely to be understood outside of the UK.
Comment from Vincent de Phily on 13 September 2016 at 09:46
Getting back on the subject of using the right OSM medium for the right purpose, may I suggest http://help.osm.org/ for questions like this ? It’s made for that, it uses your osm.org login, you’ll get (in my experience) better feedback than on a diary post, and the questions and answers feed a searchable knowledge base.
Comment from alexkemp on 13 September 2016 at 11:23
@Vincent de Phily:
thanks for the link to the OSM Help site; no info there yet on unadopted roads. That site was impressive for me due to it’s auto-redirect from the HTTP link that you gave to a HTTPS url. That is the behaviour that I complained in my original post that the OSM Wiki site neglected to perform.
Comment from alexkemp on 13 September 2016 at 11:38
@Vincent de Phily: > (unadopted roads)
It’d be great if you had the time to write a wiki page explaining what it is
That is the sort of thing that I save for times when it’s impossible to work outdoors mapping. Now that it is September I’m sure that such times will soon arrive (although fixing the JOSM plugin
terraceris first).