I was wondering whether the times Primary Street should be used over Street could be clarified.
On the wiki it states that Primary street is always used for B class roads, which is very clear cut, but then says it CAN be used for roads carrying heavy traffic (I assume this means volume and not weight), and suggests these roads are ‘often’ yellow on OS maps.
The reason I ask is that between one user and another, what constitutes a busy road is very subjective, and in my experience yellow roads on Google Maps or OS maps are extremely unreliable. Of the 4 non major roads near where I live, the 2 busiest roads are shown as simple street on OS maps, and the 2 quietest are shown as yellow ‘heavier traffic’ roads. Without some clarification it is hard to have consistent mapping across an area being edited by a number of different people, and can potentially create disputes and roads are changed back and forth.
My personal view is that Primary Street should be kept only for B class roads, but at present it is hard to follow the wiki guidelines because they are not specific enough.
Primary street gives no routing preference over the normal street. It’s purely for aesthetics hence the slightly vague description. As a local, do what you think is best for your area, as said above it’s pretty subjective.
Actually, I read that Waze prefers to stick to Primary or better roads for longer routes (when >10km from either end). Therefore, it would make sense for any through-road that could be used on a long route to be a Primary Road. If through-traffic shouldn’t be using that road, then set it to ordinary Street.
Directing traffic through a housing estate because it’s the quickest route isn’t necessarily good for the people that live there. Cars that are driving through a town should ideally use the main roads provided for that purpose.
@thelight1: which specific roads are you looking at?
I was asking the question for editing in general as it seemed the wiki was very open to interpretation without any way to solidly solve a disagreement between multiple editors.
I have lived in this area for 30 years, and in my experience Ayton Road and Castle Road experience far more heavy (as in traffic volume) traffic than Crowther Road and Blackfell Road do. Blackfell road especially is barely used since the introduction of traffic calming measures many years ago.
It’s really just main routes that need classifying as Primary Street. Seriously, don’t fuss over it too much, as the penalties are small compared to average road speed.
Living there for 30 years should give you enough personal insight into the road system, and what roads people use, as well as SHOULD use, so go ahead and mark them Primary. Honestly, don’t worry toooooo much.
Looking at the map, I can see why Crowther Road and Blackfell Road would be considered to be Primary Roads over the others. However, as the local editor with the most knowledge, you’re free to classify them as you see fit.
For the purposes of routing, Waze is going to prefer to go via the A182 most of the time anyway, so I don’t think it will matter if you change the classification of these roads.
In the absence of all speed data, iow only Type and distance matters, Primary is preferred over Street for an additional distance of at least 330 meters of Street.
I’ll be reworking The Rig this weekend to make a bit easier to interpret the results (iow naming segments with their Type), and probably rebuilding the entire thing so the horizontal segments of each comparator are just over 1 mile long instead of their current 337 meters.
