Australia

[Bickendan]

While this isn't the start of any official data set for Down Under, I found myself drafting a route file for Australia's Highway 1, the perimeter highway of the mainland. According to Wikipedia, the route starts in Katherine, Northern Territory, and goes around Australia's outer edge and ends at itself in Katherine, with a spur running north to Darwin.
Since the spur and the mainline running south from Katherine are both part of the Stuart Highway, I opted to use Darwin as the origin, and started running clockwise around Australia.
Currently, route 1 is in one giant file. To give an idea how massive it is with only two states, from Darwin, NT, to the Queensland/New South Wales border, the highway is 2628 miles long (out of a projected 9000+), 1010 points, 706 of which are shape points. Queensland apparently has a number of duplicated state highway numbers with no relation to each other.
To break this down further:
Northern Territory (Darwin - Queensland): 776 miles
Points: 256
Shape points: 217
Queensland: 1852 miles
Points: 755
Shape points: 489

The 10 mile distance maximum between clinchable points has been ignored but is more or less irrelevant from Brisbane south and won't be an issue until Melbourne's been cleared, in fact, it could be argued that New South Wales-Victoria-South Australia portion, while far lower on the shape points, will 'bloat' the file!

Ultimately, the file would be split up by state. It could even be split by the alpha-numeric changes through out (N1 in NT, N1 in northwest QLD, A1 along the coast, M1 where it becomes a motorway, and B1 near Melbourne, and so on).

[Bickendan]

New South Wales: 829 miles
Points: 437
Shape Points: 223

Total: 3457 miles
Points: 1446
Shape points: 929

[Bickendan]

Victoria: 595 miles
Points: 265
Shape Points: 119

Total: 4052 miles
Points: 1711
Shape Points: 1194

[Bickendan]

South Australia: 1082 miles
Points: 247
Shape Points: 156

Total: 5134 miles
Points: 1958
Shape Points: 1202

[Bickendan]

A computer crash way back when destroyed my work in southern NSW, Victoria, and South Australia on Hwy 1. I also discovered that a good portion of coordinates on the NT portion are off by 360° longitude, resulting in strange world wrapping on the map.
Initially, I started the draft as a single file, just to see how big it was (got into Westerm Australia before the aforementioned crash), and it was bogging the highway drafter down quite badly, definitely arguing for subdivision splits for Australia.
Lastly, with motorway construction through both QLD and NSW, the trace is out of date as 1 bounces between A1 and M1 less often.

[michih]

Do you work on developing a system here? Or was your work on Hwy 1 just for fun?

[Bickendan]

It was just for fun. Since I have the most basic draft done, I should probably finish that off and hand it off to whomever wants to do the systems down under.

[michih]

What's your source, only wikipedia?

[Bickendan]

OSM

[michih]

I had a quick look on wikipedia.
We could start with freeways (tier 1 system). I'm not sure but think that toll roads are concurrent with them - each toll road is a freeway?
The potential tier 3 (since there is no international route system as we have in Europe and Asia) or tier 4 system (?) should be the National Highway network but they are not numberd nor have a proper name

Australia is already split into regions since 2015:

Code: [Select]

code;name;country;continent;regionType
ACT;Australian Capital Territory;AUS;OCE;Territory
ANT;Northern Territory;AUS;OCE;Territory
AUS;Australia;AUS;OCE;Country
CCK;Cocos (Keeling) Islands;AUS;OCE;External Territory
CXR;Christmas Island;AUS;OCE;External Territory
HMD;Heard Island and McDonald Islands;AUS;OCE;External Territory
NFK;Norfolk Island;AUS;OCE;External Territory
NSW;New South Wales;AUS;OCE;State
QLD;Queensland;AUS;OCE;State
SAS;South Australia;AUS;OCE;State
TAS;Tasmania;AUS;OCE;State
VIC;Victoria;AUS;OCE;State
WAS;Western Australia;AUS;OCE;State
Do we really wanna keep this region codes or should it be AUS-ACT, AUS-NSW, AUS-NT, AUS-QLD, AUS-SA, AUS-TAS, AUS-VIC, AUS-WA?
What's about CCK, CXR, HMD and NFK?

https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:code:3166:AU

[si404]

Do we really wanna keep this region codes or should it be AUS-ACT, AUS-NSW, AUS-NT, AUS-QLD, AUS-SA, AUS-TAS, AUS-VIC, AUS-WA?

Tradition dictates Anglophonic countries get short subdivision codes - the 2-letter postal codes for US/Canada and ENG/WLS/SCT/NIR.

What's about CCK, CXR, HMD and NFK?

They have ISO-3166:1 codes of their own.

See also (these in use ones - others exist):
ABW
ALA
GLP
GUF
HKG
MAF
MTQ
MYT
NCL
PYF
REU
SPM
WLF

[michih]

Tradition dictates Anglophonic countries get short subdivision codes - the 2-letter postal codes for US/Canada and ENG/WLS/SCT/NIR.

I thought that the dictatorship is over... Australia is a "new TM country" and I think we should do it like Mexico, Germany, Spain, India and China. To be honest, ACT or ASA is not intuitive but AUS-ACT and AUS-SA would be.

[vdeane]

I had a quick look on wikipedia.
We could start with freeways (tier 1 system). I'm not sure but think that toll roads are concurrent with them - each toll road is a freeway?
The potential tier 3 (since there is no international route system as we have in Europe and Asia) or tier 4 system (?) should be the National Highway network but they are not numberd nor have a proper name

The US and Canada don't have international routes either and they have systems at tier 2.  Since Australia is its own continent, I could see something similar working.  The bigger issue, as far as I can see, is that it appears the National Route system is partially phased out, signed in some states but not others.

[michih]

yes, the first non-freeway system could also be tier 2.

wikipedia also states that the Highway 1 itself is a "network of highways". I think that's what Bickendan has drafted, now I've realized that the thread is called "N/A/B/M1". It's similar to TCH. Maybe this should be the tier 2 system?

[Bickendan]

Corrected a massive raft of bad longitudes for Northern Territory N1 causing globe wrapping traces (eg, -227° instead of 133°).
N1 runs from Darwin, NT, to Cairns, QLD. OSM doesn't show it, and it may no longer exist, but there is/was an A1 Alt through Cairns. For drafting, I've included it.
A1 begins there and runs down to Gympie, QLD, where M1 begins. This was a 975 mile beast.
M1 runs down through Brisbane, with an exit number swap (the last 86 km of Bruce Highway don't exist, apparently) as the M1 jumps onto the Pacific Motorway at km 16. It continues into New South Wales, without exit numbers, to Ballina, and here it starts to get fuzzy: NSW is currently building out M1 from Sydney north toward Ballina, so the jumps between M1 and A1 will eventually get filled in, but the transitions aren't yet concrete -- OSM shows motorway sections signed as A1.

To recap:
AUS-NT - N001 [Darwin-QLD], N001Bul (Bulla) [WA-Katherine]
AUS-QLD - N001, A001AltCai (Cairns), A001, M001
AUS-NSW - M001Bal (Ballina), A001Gra (Grafton), M001Woo (Woolgoolga), A001Cof (Coffs Harbour), M001Uru (Urunga), A001Eun (Eungai Creek - motorway section of A1), M001Kem (Kempsey), A001Bul (Buladelah), M001Haw (Hawkesbury River), A001Cha (Chatswood), M001Syd (Sydney) and M001SHB (Sydney Harbour Bridge), A001Syd (Sydney), M001Wol (Wollongong), A001She (Shellharbour). I will not use a non-named segment of either A1 or M1 for New South Wales.
AUS-VIC - A001, M001 [with a reversing exit number series through Melbourne. All exit numbers will be a Ex or Wx series] and A001AltMel (Melbourne), A001Win (Winchelsea), M001Win (Winchelsea), A001War (Warrnambool)
AUS-SA - A001MtG (Mount Gambier), B001, A001Mur (Murray Bridge), M001, A001Ade (Adelaide - Glen Osmond Road), R001Ade (Adelaide - City Centre Ring), A001
AUS-WA - N001 [without any shapepoints, this segment is 3128 mi/5034 km long!]