The tier concept

[yakra]

At the time I checked it out (2017, 2018?) there was a clear color hierarchy that held site-wide.

That's no longer true.

I'm not sure that was ever true. At least not after E Roads were added as a tier 3 green system in 2009 or whatever.

Here's what I came up with at the time:

Code: [Select]

void SetSubTier()
{ if (Color == "b_water") { SubTier = 10; return; }
if (Color == "b_subdiv") { SubTier = 12; return; }
if (Color == "b_country") { SubTier = 11; return; }
if (Color == "yellow") { SubTier = 8; return; }
if (Color == "brown") { SubTier = 7; return; }
if (Color == "lightsalmon") { SubTier = 6; return; }
if (Color == "magenta") { SubTier = 5; return; }
if (Color == "red") { SubTier = 4; return; }
if (Color == "green") { SubTier = 3; return; }
if (Color == "teal") { SubTier = 2; return; }
if (Color == "blue") { SubTier = 1; return; }
/* default/unrecognized */   SubTier = 9;
}

[michih]

yellow should overlap brown.

[yakra]

Yellow lower priority than brown came from North American usage; I believe yellow started out for cannsc only. Yellow had begun to come into use in Europe then (Spring 2018 or earlier); I don't think brown had.

That stuff no longer applies to the TravelMapping of 2021 anyway.

[Jim]

Here's a preliminary idea of where my thinking is going on this, using the U.S. as an example.  Note that I'm leaving out usaif because I hate it and think we should delete it and usansf because it will go away.

Replace the numbered tiers with:

- USInterstates
- USBanneredInterstates
- USHighways
- USBanneredHighways
- USFreeways
- USPrimaryRegional (most state sets)
- USSecondaryRegional (some state sets like usamts, usatxf)
- USOthers (usanp,usaush)

Then separately define a hierarchy of these for ordering in tables and on maps.

Named tiers could have a default color, so they wouldn't all need to be in systems.csv.  Users could override colors by named tier or individual system.

We wouldn't need to worry about what does "Tier 2" mean in Europe or Australia to be consistent with what "Tier 2" means in the US.  Continents or countries or whatever is appropriate can define their own.

I especially like to have the ability to specify "all state level primary systems" in a meaningful way that wouldn't wind up bringing in or excluding, depending what I'm trying to do, some other systems that were arbitrarily assigned the same tier number.

[yakra]

Would the benefits of this scheme be worth the hassle of building & implementing it & switching over, as compared to no-build?

[Jim]

I'm seeing it as part of the infrastructure that will enable future abilities to restrict maps and stats.

[yakra]

A means of restricting or enabling multiple systems all at once. Fair enough.
The Unsigned Interstates Discussion has got me thinking about modifications to userpages.

[cl94]

I'm seeing it as part of the infrastructure that will enable future abilities to restrict maps and stats.

Yeah, I was thinking that reading through this thread. Make it so people can turn off each tier to hide stuff they don't want to clinch. Possibly use such a system to resolve the "great unsigned highway debate". This is one of those developments that would likely save us a lot of hassle later in exchange for some work now.

[vdeane]

I'm not sure that was ever true. At least not after E Roads were added as a tier 3 green system in 2009 or whatever.

Lightsalmon in Australia is mostly a place holder system - it's used on the NT Territorial Highways (which is being converted to alphanumeric) to separate them from the C roads (which are grey), and the Melbourne Metropolitan Routes (vs Victoria C roads) too. I can change the colour to grey, but I've just not bothered doing it - the lightsalmon meaning different things in different parts of the world is less of an issue, IMV, than grey meaning different things within the same region.

Well, if we go really far back, everything used to use the same scheme.  Then Europe changed to green for E roads.  Later, Europe changed to lightsalmon for the tier 4 systems for whatever reason (were tourist routes around yet?)  I'm not sure when the E roads were put as tier 3 rather than tier 2, though, and that's a detail that's actually easy to miss if one doesn't have travels in Europe.  I wasn't aware the E routes were tier 3 until the subject came up somewhat recently in another thread (might have actually be the Australia thread, now that I think about it).  I always assumed they were just like the US routes, except green (similar for Europe tier 4 systems and state routes).

[si404]

I'm not sure when the E roads were put as tier 3 rather than tier 2, though

pretty sure it was a day 1 thing for E roads as E Roads came after some tier 2 freeway systems in Europe had been done.

[yakra]

Yup. Have expressways between Freeways and Natioal/Continental systems.

[michih]

Later, Europe changed to lightsalmon for the tier 4 systems for whatever reason

The reason was the contrast - especially of untraveled routes - on underlaying map tiles.

(were tourist routes around yet?)

I don't think so. If they were, it didn't the matter if memory serves (cannot find the discussion with the search feature of the forum).

[yakra]

The reason was the contrast - especially of untraveled routes - on underlaying map tiles.

As opposed to brown?
edit

[michih]

The reason was the contrast - especially of untraveled routes - on underlaying map tiles.

As opposed to brown?
edit

Orange. Brown was used but Si assigned brown to tourist systems and introduced orange for the tier 4 systems.

btw: why have you changed the (default) color of YOUR European tier 4 systems from brown to orange?
To be honest, I think it looks worse compared to brown: http://tm.teresco.org/user/mapview.php?u=michih&rg=CZE&colors=tier4:rgb(255,165,0):rgb(255,165,0).

You are right it looks awful, but thankfully it's rendered as a (default?) pinkish red that works well. I went with orange as most systems I gave the colour to use red or yellow shields for them (green and blue having been taken for motorways and E roads, though obviously many European countries have motorways signed in green), but the pinkish red gives contrast, looks good, and isn't tourist-route brown, so I'd like to go for that.

Red is not (or rarly) used for signage in Europe and it sticks out too much for a tier 4 system compared to tier 1-3.
Brown is the typical color for tourist routes

There are 3 options left:
1. Yellow (looks a little bit over the top, maybe "gold" is more restrained?)
2. Magenta (sticks a little out like red though)
3. Jim would kindly add something like "pink" (well, I think it's pink or salmon for clinched and brown for unclinched segments)

[yakra]