Fix highway=track

[lxbarth]

Ongoing Nepal mapping highlights the massive confusion around highway=track.

This tag represents roads for mostly agricultural use, forest tracks etc.; usually unpaved (unsealed) but may occasionally apply to paved tracks as well, that are suitable for two-track vehicles, such as tractors or jeeps.

http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=17/28.00016/84.62408

Can we call track "agricultural track"?

[jfirebaugh]

What exactly is the confusion?

[bhousel]

@lxbarth since the time you posted that, it looks like they have all been changed to "unclassified road"?

The HOT tasking manager does contain pretty detailed instructions on how to tag different roads, so I'm not sure how renaming Track to something else helps here.

[pnorman]

Can we call track "agricultural track"?

They're not purely agricultural - see forest tracks.

[lxbarth]

What exactly is the confusion?

All across OpenStreetMap and in the particular example above, dirt roads are tagged highway=track where they should be tagged surface=unpaved together with the appropriate road classification. highway=track is reserved for roads for agricultural or similar use.

Do not use tracks to represent public unpaved roads in built-up areas [1], that would be considered tagging for the renderer. In this situation, classify them as usual according to the conventions in your country, and also provide a surface=* tag.

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:highway%3Dtrack

[brycenesbitt]

In the USA they are definitely not "agricultural track".
Many residential roads and hiking routes are marked highway=track.
The highway tag is a mess unfortunately.

[pmailkeey]

Totally agree with you Bryce, the highway tag is a complete mess and I take it, it's the core of OSM.

lxbarth - tag the roads in Nepal as you think fit and is appropriate. Get a consensus among all Nepal map editors.

[RicoElectrico]

This is a problem that really annoys me, frankly. It's more about tagging for the renderer and possibly bad translation. You would have to check specific locale of the user who added it. (which is possible from some time as locale is tagged in the changeset).
I intentionally changed Polish translation to "droga polna lub leśna" (field or forest road) as people did in fact use track incorrectly and there is no direct translation for track ("droga gruntowa" means roughly unpaved road).
As per TFTR, please visit gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto#110 as some people acknowledge this is a shortcoming of the renderer.

The problem is more systematic, though. In my opinion there should be some text description like

"This is for FOO. For BAR use {link to preset BAR}"

that is always present under preset's name where ambiguities arise from preset's name (sometimes it's impossible to tell that in name itself) that logically are not fit for Wiki infoboxes (from where we take descriptions now).

[sebastian-philipp]

This may also be caused by the HOT OSM tasking manager, which says in the instructions for e.g. #1047 :

highway=track Unpaved motorable tracks

IMO the tasking manager should be consistent with the Wiki page.

Btw, the German term for highway=track is "Waldweg / Feldweg" which can be roughly translated as "forest way / field way", which fits pretty good for this preset.

[brycenesbitt]

Well... the American West uses highway=track for any dirt road a vehicle can travel on, even if it's closed to vehicles. It slots below highway=residential in priority.

[brianreavis]

Well... the American West uses highway=track for any dirt road a vehicle
can travel on, even if it's closed to vehicles.
It slots below highway=residential in priority.

@brycenesbitt I think I know what you're saying, but just want to comment that I've seen this applied a bit too liberally in places. Tracks are (to me) roads with two distinct tracks. Old forest service roads, old mining roads, tiny roads paralleling powerlines through sagebrush (although this could be ambiguous with service roads), and so on. Roads like this aren't tracks, are they?

[pmailkeey]

If something has done the same route as you're following, they have left a track. ALL routes except those where there's no track are tracks. There are animal tracks, pedestrian tracks and vehicular tracks (there are more but we're not likely interested in those).

There are at least 2 ways to look at the problem; locally and globally. Locally is good as it fits in with local descriptions. Globally is good as it displays comparability between countries.

OSM will need to decide what the solution is - but sadly is ill-equipped to make that decision.

[brycenesbitt]

The image above I'd map as a highway=track / surface=dirt|gravel in the western USA. What I don't know how to map well is the difference between a pedestrian walkway and a hiking track, and between a dirt road for standard vehicles and a narrow track ATV road.

[pmailkeey]

walkway,sidewalk & man-made = footpath.
Hiking over natural terrain = 'path' - that's what I've gone for.

As for the tracks, they may be the same type but need further detail like surface=

[brianreavis]

@brycenesbitt I would not call that a track – it's a maintained/grated gravel road with washboards connecting parts of an oilfield. What should this be called? (I would consider this a highway=track)

PS. Not meaning to derail this thread – but I think this clarifies the confusion that exists.

[brycenesbitt]

The whole scheme is buggered. The right answer in a given area depends on what's already nearby. I'd tag both of those as tracks.

[bhousel]

OK let's talk about highway=track. Most mappers seem pretty confused about this tag, but I know lots about these because I run trail ultramarathons. I have probably run 100s of miles on roads like these.

They are often just 2 ruts, but can be paved, pebbles, asphalt, dirt, or anything in between. They generally don't have names (but some do). There is a "track" near me that was a street with a name that was paved 50 years ago and went to a missile silo. It is now behind locked gates, deteriorated and the woods has taken it over.

What I'm saying is: you can not tell from looking at a single imagery tile if it is a highway=track or something else. You need context.

Here's the difference:
When it snows, when bridges go out, when trees fall across it, etc etc - does someone need to plow/clear/repair ASAP because somebody lives there and needs to get home or get their mail delivered? Or is it a "we will get around to it whenever, or wait until spring or next year" sort of situation? The latter are highway=track.

Tracks are defined by 2 things: A vehicle can sometimes drive along it, and it is not used for anything urgent.

I only map highway=track from aerial imagery if it is clearly heading out into a farmyard or through a wooded area not near any buildings. Anything else gets highway=residential or highway=unclassified if I really can't tell.

Anyway.. I'm closing this issue, as it's not something wrong with iD, and renaming "Track" to something else would just make the situation more confusing. Educating mappers is the solution, and maybe improvements to the wiki page and HOT task manager instructions too.

[brianreavis]

@bhousel The underlying point here is that there are way too many personal/convoluted definitions of what the things are. Educating mappers is the solution – but I'd argue this education should happen in iD. Many people use the descriptions of the types in iD as reference when making edits. Honing them a bit could help a bunch

[bhousel]

@brianreavis I have changed slightly the wiki page for highway=track, to say "Infrequently maintained minor roads for agricultural and forestry use etc." This is the help text that is also shown in iD.

I think the HOT Task Manager should be updated also, but this is not something I can do. For Task #1018 it currently says "highway=track Unpaved motorable tracks" which is probably the source of some of the confusion.