Tag:highway=motorway link

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Image:Mini-osm-logo.png motorway_link
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One example for highway=motorway_link
Description:

The link roads (sliproads / ramps) leading to and from a motorway.

Element: help

Can be attached on ways

Useful combination:
Implies:
Used combinations in:



Contents

Description

The link roads (sliproads / ramps) leading to and from a motorway. Normally with the same motorway restrictions.

How to map


Mapping a motorway link is quite easy. In the first example left you can see a dual carriage motorway where another way (green) branch off. This way has to be tagged with highway=motorway_link and oneway=yes.

The second example shows a more difficult junction. In this example you can leave the highway and enter it. For this create 2 different junctions (orange) and tag them separately with highway=motorway_link and oneway=yes. Be sure to check the direction of the arrows. The green way in this example can then be a simple junction withhighway=motorway_link without the oneway tag, as it is supposed to be used in both directions.

To attach more information for the motorway you should add further keys.

  • maxspeed=Number indicates the maximum speed which is allowed.
  • minspeed=Number indicates the minimum speed which need to be reached to use the motorway.
  • name=Name of the motorway
  • ref=reference name for example A 1, E 22
  • highway=motorway_junction Indicates a junction (UK) or exit (US) ref should be set to the exit number or junction identifier. (use it on one of the nodes not the way)

Special situations

In the case you do not have a normal motorway you should take a look on these sites:

  • bridge=yes - If the motorway goes over a street or waterway.
  • tunnel=yes - If the motorway goes below a street or waterway.

Examples


Huge Motorway junctions

This is a example of a more complicated junction between 2 different motorway junctions. You can see this in Germany quite often this example shows the Autobahnkreuz A 1/A 27 osm link.

If you take a closer look you can see the A 1 in blue lines going from left to right and the A 27 from north to south.
The A 27 runs over the A 1 and therefore it is splitted into 3 sections. The dark blue part is a simple motorway with highway=motorway and oneway=yes. The light blue part is tagged with highway=motorway,oneway=yes,bridge=yes and layer=1.

In addition various junctions exist to get from one motorway to another.
You can see that parallel to every motorway part runs a orange way. They are used as a link between the motorway and the original junction. They are tagged with highway=motorway_link, oneway=yes and usually maxspeed=80 as you have to slow down there.
The orange way beside the A 27 which goes from north to south is again splitted into 3 parts to insert the bridge=yes and layer=1 tags at the purple marked location.

The last parts of this junctions are simply the links shown in yellow and green which are also get just the highway=motorway_link and oneway=yes tags.

To enhance this junction some of the nodes could be tagged with highway=motorway_junction and the associated name.
As well as a more complex way to deal with the layer=* and bridge=yes part to allow the renderer a better image processing.

Note for Germany: The links between the main motorways should usually be tagged with the ref=* of the motorway they are going to--unless there are signs saying otherwise.

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