Roading Standards for New Zealand

Hi all

I’ve been looking and making some roading standards for NZ like

http://world.waze.com/wiki/index.php/Road_Types_(USA)

Freeway = Motorway

Highways

This is where is gets tricky, we have some options

option 1
Major Highways = only SH (State Highway) roads
Minor Highways = major roads of Significance but to not SH roads
Primary Street = Major roads used to get across a neighborhood ,city.
Street = Any other road that traffic will be routed onto

option 2
Major Highways = SH (State Highway) class A roads
Minor Highways = SH (State Highway) class B roads
Primary Street = all other major roads
Street = Any other road that traffic will be routed onto

I perfer option 1 but I suspect that option 2 is more correct

I would like to point out that based on other maps google, bing, AA maps, etc they all do it different

What do you think about this: http://viastrada.co.nz/sites/viastrada.co.nz/files/National_Road_Hierarchy_IPENZ.pdf

See section 3.1 of the paper

There is a more general presentation at

http://viastrada.co.nz/sites/viastrada.co.nz/files/National_Road_Hierarchy_IPENZ.pdf

I also wonder if RAMM would give us read-only access to their GIS viewer, most of the local authorities/councils/tansport authorities use this to manage their ineventory. See http://www.ramm.co.nz/ for details

I doubt they will let us view/copy

I think that RAMM is the provider of the software, the councils are the “owners” of the content - and I wonder if under an Official Information Act request we could argue that we should be allowed access to it…

The other problem is waze and not copying copyright works

I’m not sure how far you can stretch fair use

I’ll see if I can find out the position from a contact of mine who used to be CIO at one of the pre-amalgamation councils

Not sure that data in the councils hands is owned by anyone other than the ratepayers, but I’m also not sure what the licensing position is once it is stored in Waze. I don’t even recall reading the license agreement that was doubtless presented when frst installed.

I vote for Option 2, which is pretty much what I do for my editing anyway.

I consider primary roads as a road used for transit to other areas, where streets are usually just destination / origins.

Fair enough, but what are the rules for dividing SH roads?

How do you know if SH roads are class A or B?

I would also suggest that all SH roads as class A would look better when zooming out on the client

I have been using major highway for all state highways 1-10 and minor highway for 11+, but am now thinking perhaps major should be any highway up to highway 20? For example, SH16 from Auckland north should be a major highway.

Hi all

Just catching up on the conversation and agree there needs to be better rules/guidelines around the road type convention.

I like the simplicity of SH1-20 being Major and anything higher being Minor.

If we use the class A/B approach, how do you know what class applies?

http://world.waze.com/wiki/index.php/New_Zealand

http://world.waze.com/wiki/index.php/New_Zealand/RoadTypesNZ

I guess the only thing I’d have some debate on would be the Primary Street designation

This would leave pretty well all urban roads as primary streets, whereas I firmly believe that primary streets should be limited to those which are used to take you from one part of the town or city to another. Your current definition would make just about every residential (including urban no exit roads) into “a Primary Street”. Surely this can’t be right?

Referring to the US standards does save time (and may possibly answer my concern) but few people will read the US defintion then assess the difference for NZ before editing. Also what happens if the US standards change, should we then reclassify our roads too?

Stephen

I have noticed that if you are using AutoZoom, any “Streets” disappear when you get over about 70km/h including the street you are on.

I would like to suggest that any road that has a speed limit higher than 70 is set to Primary road?

does it matter?

I don’t think we should add exceptions to the naming standards on that basis. It would be very hard to maintain and know what the speed limits are in order to set this accordingly.

I say keep it as it is and turn auto zoom off if necessary, which I often do for various reasons - especially if I want to know where roads are missing as I’m driving.

Re the State Highways & splitting between Major & Minor, how about following how NZTA seem to differentiate?

http://nzta.govt.nz/network/operating/faqs.html#numbered

1-9 = Major
11-99 = Minor

http://world.waze.com/wiki/index.php/New_Zealand/RoadTypesNZ

Should the Wiki say 1-9 for Minor? currently says 1-8b

what do you think it should say?

Sorry, that was wrong in my last post.
It should have said…

Major 1-10