Here in Thailand there is an understanding that an unclassified way is more important than a residential way but less important than a tertiary highway. See http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Thailand#Highway_classification for more information. Most but not all unclassified ways are paved in Thailand.

I never understood the reasoning behind this but the practice is in wide use and mappers here generally abide by it. I think it might have come about because mappers were looking for a way to classify roads that are important connectors but were not strictly residential and that have no official designation like a route number.

On Tue, Sep 8, 2015 at 4:13 PM, Felix Hartmann <extremecarver@gmail.com> wrote:

For Unclassified - yes I agree. It should be rather unpaved. However for at least highway=cycleway and highway=unclassified (very rare anyhow) - I think a country based list wouldn't be too bad. If you know that 99% of such ways in your country are paved - shout out.... Otherweise IMHO both should be assumed unpaved.
Unclassified I would guess paved by default for Central/Western/ European countries? But unpaved for Northern (but not Denmark), Eastern European countries - and the rest of the world? Certainly unpaved for most of Asia and Africa...

On 8 September 2015 at 10:46, Gerd Petermann <gpetermann_muenchen@hotmail.com> wrote:

Hi Felix,

okay, got the point, but why do we assume that a highway=unclassified is paved
when no other tag gives information?
Might be a good assumption in Germany or Austria, but probably not in other areas.

Gerd

Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2015 10:32:14 +0200
From: extremecarver@gmail.com
To: mkgmap-dev@lists.mkgmap.org.uk
Subject: Re: [mkgmap-dev] default style: highway=path means unpaved?

Well that was introduced because it is unknown. If you have a map and want to avoid unpaved ways - and select that - then there really should be no unpaved ways. If we don't set unpaved here - the avoidance will not be strict enough anymore...
highway=path & bicycle=designated could well be a tracktype=grade2 and sometimes even grade3 or worse... And in cases of a mtb route - clearly something completely unrideable for a normal cyclist...

On 8 September 2015 at 10:19, Gerd Petermann <gpetermann_muenchen@hotmail.com> wrote:

Hi all,

I just noted that the default style sets the mkgmap:unpaved
flag for many cycleways, e.g.
http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/276070019

I see intensive discussions about wrong use of
highway=path and/or wrong interpretation of that tag.

The rule in lines is
(highway=bridleway | highway=path | highway=track | highway=unsurfaced)
& surface!=* & tracktype!=* & smoothness!=* & sac_scale!=*
{ add mkgmap:unpaved=1 }

My understanding is that highway=track is likely to be unpaved, but
highway=path doesn't suggest that, esp. not in combination with
bicycle=designated.

Does anybody have a better solution?

Gerd

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Felix Hartman - Openmtbmap.org & VeloMap.org
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Felix Hartman - Openmtbmap.org & VeloMap.org
Floragasse 9/11
1040 Wien
Austria - Österreich

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Dave Swarthout
Homer, Alaska
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Travel Blog at http://dswarthout.blogspot.com