Road Classifications

Hi All,

Can someone please confirm the classification of a gravel road (unpaved) that runs through the rural areas?

I have seen them tagged as unclassified or residential (both of which render as a white road). However I have also got the impression they might have to be tertiary, but this renders as a yellow road which doesn’t look correct.

These roads just criss-cross through farmland or nature-reserves, and between other classified roads (eg. secondary,etc).

At this stage I will simply tag them as residential, even though this does not seem correct. It will be a pain to change later.:frowning:

PleaseNote: I have read the Australian Tagging Guidelines, but this area is still unclear to me.

Thanks in advance

You are probably confused because you are looking at 2 things at once. The classification is based on other criteria, such as how important the road is to the area, where as surface material is indicated with the surface=* tag.

If you know the surface material, you can specify it, eg surface=gravel or surface=dirt etc, if you don’t you can use surface=unpaved

Thanks John,

I see that the purpose of the road is the primary consideration, regardless of surface, but to be quite honest I think that many of them are simply shortcuts between roads that should be tertiary (which renders yellow and looks wrong). Do we really use tertiary as a classification in australia?

I’ve mapped about 10 towns on the Yorke Peninsula in SA (with more to come end Feb) and it’s only those shortcuts that confuse me.

From what I can see done already, minor country roads are marked as “Unclassified”.