Key:smoothness
+/- smoothness
Provide a classification scheme regarding the physical usability of a way for wheeled vehicles.
Properties
Tools for this tag
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smoothness provides a classification scheme regarding the physical usability of a way for wheeled vehicles.
Usability by a particular type of vehicle means that the vehicle can traverse the route without significant risk of damage (e.g. to vehicle undercarriage/drivetrain) or injury (e.g. by falling).
The tag can be applied to all driveable ways and areas: highway=*, parking areas, beaches, ...
Values
Smoothness
| Key | Value | Element | Usable by | Rendering | Photo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| smoothness | excellent |  
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(thin_rollers) roller blade, skate board and all below | 
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| smoothness | good |
|
(thin_wheels) racing bike and all below | 
| |
| smoothness | intermediate |
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(wheels) city bike, sport cars, wheel chair, Scooter and all below | 
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| smoothness | bad |
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(robust_wheels) trekking bike, normal cars, Rickshaw and all below | 
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| smoothness | very_bad |
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(high_clearance) Car with high clearance, light-duty off road vehicles | 
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| smoothness | horrible |
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(off_road_wheels) heavy-duty off road vehicles and all below | 
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| smoothness | very_horrible |
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(specialized_off_road_wheels) tractor, ATV, tanks, trial, Mountain bike and all kind of off-highway vehicles (see also mtb_scale=*) | 
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| smoothness | impassable |
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No wheeled vehicle (see also sac_scale=*) | 
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Please note: Photos are examples ONLY ! Because the smoothness of a way should be assessed solely based on whether the way is usable by the vehicles mentioned above. This is my whole point: as a user of a certain road or path I am only interested whether I can drive on this road or not.
This table is a wiki template with a default description in English. Editable here.
Usage
This tag isn't in use on the renderers at www.openstreetmap.org but Hiking/openhikingmap and the Motorcycle map of Romania are using "surface" and "smoothness" to depict real state of roads.
For use in developing countries the HDM model is using some values of smoothness=* to help define road quality. see: Humanitarian_OSM_Tags/smoothness
Controversy
It is clear from discussion on the mailing lists that a major part of the community does not like this key, based on the guideline of Verifiability. Please have a look at the discussion page and the mailing-list (thread starting at [1], contiued at [2]) and make up your own mind. As always on OSM you are free to use the keys you like in the way you like! Use the page Talk:Proposed features/Smoothness for the controversy details. Please help improving the tagging of roads by posting constructive comments to Proposed_features/surface_unification.
- The key could be made more verifiable changing the values to thin_rollers, thin_wheels, wheels, robust_wheels, high_clearance, off_road_wheels and specialized_off_road_wheels. (See Proposed_features/usability) for a transition.)
See Also
- approved smoothness proposal page for further discussion of the tag
- surface=* to describe the material of which the route's surface is made.
- Humanitarian_OSM_Tags/smoothness
