Author Topic: Mapping 6+ lane freeways  (Read 12464 times)

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Offline froggie

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Mapping 6+ lane freeways
« on: May 31, 2023, 10:01:54 am »
Pursuant to a thread on AARoads, Jayhawk had an idea to use TM to map out those freeways in the US (and, theoretically, any country we have in TM) that have 6 or more through lanes.  I'm intending to start a user list on GitHub called "6lane" to map this out.

Thoughts and comments from the TM crowd are welcomed.

Offline si404

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Re: Mapping 6+ lane freeways
« Reply #1 on: May 31, 2023, 12:11:26 pm »
A perfectly grand idea. We have the database and can map stuff like that quite easily and effectively.

Offline Markkos1992

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Re: Mapping 6+ lane freeways
« Reply #2 on: May 31, 2023, 12:27:02 pm »
Ok I get this idea.  I thought we were creating a separate system or something for a second.

So would I-81 around Harrisburg be:

1.  PA I-81 59 70

or


2.  PA I-81 57 72

due to there only being 4 thru lanes on I-81 through both the PA 581 and I-83 interchanges?

Offline Jim

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Re: Mapping 6+ lane freeways
« Reply #3 on: May 31, 2023, 12:54:29 pm »
Sounds like a nice unintentional feature.  And with the 6lane.list file living in GitHub, people can contribute concurrently via pull requests.

Offline michih

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Re: Mapping 6+ lane freeways
« Reply #4 on: May 31, 2023, 01:30:50 pm »
If anyone bothers about Germany, have a look here: http://autobahnatlas-online.de/index_e.html
There are maps and one can even go through each route. Legend: red = 4 lanes, violet = 6 lanes.


Offline si404

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Re: Mapping 6+ lane freeways
« Reply #5 on: May 31, 2023, 02:58:24 pm »
If anyone bothers about Germany, have a look here: http://autobahnatlas-online.de/index_e.html
There are maps and one can even go through each route. Legend: red = 4 lanes, violet = 6 lanes.
I'm doing the UK first, but Germany will be next due to that fantastic resource.  Other European countries have good resources to make it easy, but none is as good as this.

Offline si404

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Re: Mapping 6+ lane freeways
« Reply #6 on: May 31, 2023, 03:13:35 pm »
Ok I get this idea.  I thought we were creating a separate system or something for a second.

So would I-81 around Harrisburg be:

1.  PA I-81 59 70

or


2.  PA I-81 57 72

due to there only being 4 thru lanes on I-81 through both the PA 581 and I-83 interchanges?
Effectively the latter, though you might write it as the former with 57 59 and 70 72 entries as well.

If you travel from exit 1 to exit 3 and then from exit 3 to exit 15, you clinch 1 to 15, even though you haven't been through 3. A limit of the way we do stuff.
« Last Edit: May 31, 2023, 03:16:57 pm by si404 »

Offline Duke87

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Re: Mapping 6+ lane freeways
« Reply #7 on: May 31, 2023, 07:20:25 pm »
Yeah the biggest limitation here is this will not catch cases where a route is 6 or more lanes on both approaches to an interchange, but does not maintain 6 thru lanes through it. A situation which is fairly common, so this is a nontrivial limitation.

Still, an interesting use of the project. I can dig it.

Offline Bickendan

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Re: Mapping 6+ lane freeways
« Reply #8 on: May 31, 2023, 08:29:55 pm »
Even though it's still a devel system, we can put down the Yamuna Expressway and Greater Noida Expresway in Uttart Pradesh, India, as both being 6 lanes.

Offline froggie

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Re: Mapping 6+ lane freeways
« Reply #9 on: May 31, 2023, 09:52:13 pm »
Yeah the biggest limitation here is this will not catch cases where a route is 6 or more lanes on both approaches to an interchange, but does not maintain 6 thru lanes through it. A situation which is fairly common, so this is a nontrivial limitation.

I was thinking about this earlier this morning as I got the ball started before work.  Where there are multiple interchange points to support it, things can be tweaked (I did such with some of the Minnesota routes).  Where the route lists went with 1PPI, we'll just have to live with it.

That said, Jayhawk and I both agreed that where the lanes are strictly auxiliary lanes between interchanges that are not multiple miles apart, they do not count.

Offline Jim

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Re: Mapping 6+ lane freeways
« Reply #10 on: May 31, 2023, 10:28:58 pm »
The first site update that include this is now finishing up.

Since it seems a number of people will be contributing to this file, I'll try to merge in PRs more frequently to avoid conflicts.

Offline rickmastfan67

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Re: Mapping 6+ lane freeways
« Reply #11 on: June 01, 2023, 01:40:15 am »
Just a thought, but if you really want to get as close as possible for 6+ lane segments (like if a segment ends 5 miles from an exit on either side), you could always see if there's a shaping point already near by.  Or even request a shaping point be added for this project.  I'm sure the data maintainers for the region wouldn't mind adding one in most cases (or adjusting a near-by one).

Offline Markkos1992

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Re: Mapping 6+ lane freeways
« Reply #12 on: June 01, 2023, 06:05:27 am »
Just a thought, but if you really want to get as close as possible for 6+ lane segments (like if a segment ends 5 miles from an exit on either side), you could always see if there's a shaping point already near by.  Or even request a shaping point be added for this project.  I'm sure the data maintainers for the region wouldn't mind adding one in most cases (or adjusting a near-by one).

Yeah, that would work on I-76 just east of the Blue Mountain Tunnel for instance.

Still makes my I-81 in Harrisburg thoughts questionable.  You could arguably go either way.

Offline si404

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Re: Mapping 6+ lane freeways
« Reply #13 on: June 01, 2023, 08:57:27 am »
I've added UK, Ireland, Germany, Netherlands and Belgium, as well as some states with data listed in the AA Roads thread.

https://github.com/TravelMapping/UserData/pull/8840/files

Just a thought, but if you really want to get as close as possible for 6+ lane segments (like if a segment ends 5 miles from an exit on either side), you could always see if there's a shaping point already near by.  Or even request a shaping point be added for this project.  I'm sure the data maintainers for the region wouldn't mind adding one in most cases (or adjusting a near-by one).
The issue is that using shaping points doesn't work as intended when it comes to mapping.

Offline rickmastfan67

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Re: Mapping 6+ lane freeways
« Reply #14 on: June 01, 2023, 12:17:07 pm »
Just a thought, but if you really want to get as close as possible for 6+ lane segments (like if a segment ends 5 miles from an exit on either side), you could always see if there's a shaping point already near by.  Or even request a shaping point be added for this project.  I'm sure the data maintainers for the region wouldn't mind adding one in most cases (or adjusting a near-by one).
The issue is that using shaping points doesn't work as intended when it comes to mapping.

Was just an idea.