Key:smoothness
 | The verifiability of this key is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. |
 smoothness
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| Description |
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Provide a classification scheme regarding the physical usability of a way for wheeled vehicles. 
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| Group: Properties |
| Used on these elements |
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| Useful combination |
| Wikidata |
| Search Wikidata |
Status: approved
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smoothness provides a classification scheme regarding the physical usability of a way for wheeled vehicles, particularly regarding surface regularity/flatness. 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, etc.
tracktype=* is also an important surface property and refers to surface firmness, regardless of shape.
surface=* refers to surface material and sometimes to material structure. It may suggest a surface smoothness sometimes, but because the same surface material/structure can exhibit various shapes, it is still advisable to add smoothness=*.
Contents
Values
Smoothness
| Key | Value | Element | Usable by | Rendering | Photo |
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| smoothness | excellent |  
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(thin_rollers) roller blade, skate board and all below | 
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| smoothness | good |
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(thin_wheels) racing bike and all below | 
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| 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.
In developing countries, the HDM model is using some values of smoothness=* to help define road quality.
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
- surface:grade=*
- projects, monitoring surface quality of roads via build-in accelerometer (smart-phone, tablet, etc.):
