Trans-Canada Highway Research

[hoream-telenav]

Description
In this project we researched the status of the ways and relations of Trans-Canada Highway, the most important highway in the state.

Conclusions of the research

1. The highway is formed from 30 routes;
2. Every route has different names at the name value tag, such as: street names, other routes names or Trans-Canada highway name in different forms
3. The issue from above is repeating for the ref tag;
4. The name of Trans-Canada highway has more than one form (Trans-Canada Highway, TransCanada Highway, Trans Canada Highway, etc.);
5. Another issue is the variety of names in other tags related to it (such as: name:en, name:fr, alt_name, alt_name:en, alt_name:fr, nat_name);
6. There are some routes that don’t have a route name, only ref (5 routes);
7. There are some routes that overlap:
   • in Manitoba:
   - PTH 1 (MB Trans-Canada Highway) and Trans-Canada Highway (Super);
   - Yellowhead Highway and PTH 16 (MB Trans-Canada Highway);
   • in Alberta: Trans-Canada Highway (AB) and Trans-Canada Highway (Super);
   • in British Columbia: Trans-Canada Highway (BC, Super) and Trans-Canada Highway;
8. About 90% of these routes are broken;
9. About 80% of these routes have highway value flip flop (motorway, trunk, primary);

Actions to be taken
• An important problem that we believe should be fixed is the name value tag (ex: “Highway 417”). To resolve this issue, we could standardize the ways’ name tag for all the provinces. The question is, should we modify the way names in to “Trans-Canada Highway”, or should we insert the name “Trans-Canada Highway” at the end of the name, like this: “Highway 417 (Trans-Canada Highway)”, or should we leave it like it is?
• Another question is related to the official name of the highway. According to our research the official name for Trans-Canada Highway is “Trans-Canada Highway”. In our research we have found several forms of this name: TransCanada Highway, Trans Canada Highway, etc. Should we change all the names to “Trans-Canada Highway”?
• Another question is related to the priority of the names in the name value tag and also for the ref tag. If we have a way that has a street name (“Old Highway 16” or “North York River Road”) and two routes that overlap (ex: Trans-Canada Highway and Highway 11). What is the name and the ref that should appear in the way name tag and ref tag?
• In case of overlapping identical routes (ex: in Manitoba there is two routes for Trans-Canada Highway). What would be the best approach?
• In case of highway value flip flop (motorway, trunk, primary), there are several segments like this outside the cities (ex.: Route “Ontario Highway 17 (Blind River to North Bay) (ID 3739829)”, or Route “Trans Canada Highway 104” (ID 1732797)). For areas outside the cities we propose to change the highway value into motorway/trunk. What do you think about this issue?

Solutions proposed
One approach for the first problem could be to add “Trans-Canada Highway” or “Highway 417 (Trans-Canada Highway)” to the way name for all the routes, and the ref number correspondent to each route that forms the Trans-Canada Highway.
To understand the problem, I have attached an excel file with where I described all the routes.

Sources
• Satellite imagery: Bing, Strava, Esri World Imagery, Mapbox
• Street-level imagery: OpenStreetCam, Mapillary

Annex
Trans-Canada Highway research.xlsx

[hoream-telenav]

This issue was moved to TelenavMapping/Canada_mapping_projects#1