Key:width:effective

Since this page didn't have any text, I'm going to add it and hoping the professional wiki guys catch this entry and update it accordingly as I'm not the professional wiki contributor.

Thank you professional wiki contributors for your help in advance to get this page properly formatted.

The key width describes the actual width of a way or other feature. However the width may be variable and not a constant. This is the more true in developing countries.

The key maxwidth specifies a legal restriction of the maximum permissible width of a vehicle in order to use a way or other feature. Thus this key doesn't refer to the actual feature on OSM but to the vehicles! The key maxwidth:physical=* expresses a physical width limit for using the way or passing the barrier to which the tag is added. This this key also refers to the vehicles and not the actual feature on OSM, it's just this is a physical limitation not a legal limitation as set by the maxwidth key.

Note there's more specific info on more detailed mapping under Key:area:highway but that one demands exact polygon drawing - which demands high resolution imagery, which again in developing countries is quite often not available. So we're in developing countries quite often stuck that area:highway requires imagery not available in our countries and the other keys can not actually describe the physical reality on the ground - as those keys are mainly focused on the developed world.

As such, as of now - there's no clear tagging for the width of a feature, if that width is not a constant.

This key width:effective was proposed by someone else, no idea who, but I'll just adopt it for the same as he/she does, namely the effective width available by that feature on OSM.

Why not using the maxwidth:physical=*for that?

Because we're missing something on OpenStreetMap to describe the width of roads entirely, again this is especially true for developing countries.

I'll add a drawing. But the main issue is here - that the effective width of the roads physical properties, isn't necessarily the effective width or max width a vehicle can use. This may seem awkward for people living in developed countries but in the developing countries you have quite often situations where there's features ON the road itself further limiting the physical maxwidth of a vehicle as opposed to the effective width of the actual road itself.

I'm sure some of the 2+ decade into this field of mapping can come up with something better - and I'm sure the professional wiki writers can improve this article - but someone has to kick-start it..

Showing what's missing on width tagging for developing countries where road width isn't a static constant for the whole length of a road