Guidance missing for Queensland

There is no clear indication on the Australian Tagging Guidelines/Roads about how Queensland Roads should be classified according to a national hierarchy.

This diary note is about rural roads. I live in a smallish country town and there are few urban roads that aren’t covered by the rural roads hierarchy

Classification and tagging in Australia

The primary guidance appears to be the comprehensive Victorian classification, which classified roads as M, A, B, C or D, or unclassified, with M, A, B and C routes signed. These are to be tagged as Motorway, Trunk, Primary, Secondary and Tertiary.

Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia sign C roads (with the exception of a handful of South Australian Roads) and the extent of the classifications varies by State or Territory. NSW only signs A and B roads.

NSW classification and tagging.

NSW is significant to Queensland classification as the primary traffic interface to Queensland is NSW. Traffic into South Australia and the Northern Terrirory is negligible by comparison.

NSW readily corresponds to Victoria at the top levels with M, A and B roads as corresponding to the Victorian Hierarchy.

The NSW Roads Act 1993 specifies an elaborate classification, but tagging is based on simplified NSW Main Road classifications at the B and below level. The two categories are State Roads and Regional Roads. 1. State Roads, which are largely A and B roads but include some others (e.g. Byrock to Brewarrina, Tumut to Tumbarumba) which are unnumbered. (as noted above M and A roads are tagged as higher in the hierarchy). 2. Regional Roads, which appear to be the balance of NSW Main Roads.

For Openstreetmap, NSW State Roads, whether signed as B or not, are tagged as primary roads. Regional Roads are tagged as secondary roads. There is a clear source for contributors in this Official Map of classified roads

Suggested Queensland classification

… Vêre tot