Warn about dangerous hiking routes in routing about organicmaps HOT 23 OPEN

Just for arguments sake, here's a recent photo of a T2 route. Who wants to be navigated through here?

Even a very smooth trail may have a very different passability / difficulty after a strong rain and when under a waist-high snow :)
What should be unroutable by default is discussable of course and should be quite conservative overall. An important point is to provide a hint to users that routing through difficult sections could be enabled and hence there is an alternative route. E.g. I don't want to miss a challenging and adventurous shortcut just because the app deemed its not safe for a "default" user :)

2-3 grades

This is what OsmAnd does and I don't find it very helpful in practice, but rather even more confusing. Meaning the visual cues should be really obvious.

AFAIR OsmAnd strives to render many grades and it visualizes trail_visibility, smoothness, etc. differently - it creates a lot of possible visual combinations which are hard to decipher and memorize.
The idea is to have 2-3 easily distinguishable trail styles overall, e.g. render trails in "extreme" style either for high sac_scale or for low trail_visibility.

• see #6447 (comment)

Also, having 2-3 grades is then rather useless for me because T2 and T3 are often mixed together. The Austrian system is also using three colors: blue (T1-T2), red (T3), and black (T4+). This is also ok as there is a clear distinction between T2 and T3, and for T4+ you have to have equipment or be crazy enough.

The idea is that a user will be able to select a specific trail section and see more details like specific sac_scale, visibility, smoothness etc.

from organicmaps.

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:sac%20scale would be a good starting point (in general, the same data as discussed in #6593)

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Car routing already shows icons for toll booths. Maybe showing appropriate icons at the beginning of each risky section, and displaying more detailed text when these icons are selected, is enough?

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Routing may work, although:

1. It should take into account the difficulty for the correct the ETA.
2. A warning sign with track difficulty (and detailed text explanation when it's selected) can be displayed on the track at the beginning of the dangerous route like warnings are displayed now for paid roads.

The idea is to keep it simple and predictable, while still informing users about dangers. If someone builts routes in dangerous areas, there is a chance that a person already knows where he/she goes.

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A related story about maps not taking sac_scale into account:
https://www.thegreatoutdoorsmag.com/news/concerns-raised-over-crowdsourced-maps-used-by-popular-hiking-apps/

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Note no warning

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There were also sections too dangerous to take photos and making necessary to turn around. This is from one of tamer sections that we used in the end.

Photo taken at https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/271158954

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Good idea! But where to get this data?

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Let me add a suggestion to warn before routing over surface=ice or any path that intersects spatially with a natural=glacier:

"This path goes over ice/and or a glacier and may be dangerous without mountaineering experience and special equipment such as crampons." or similar

from organicmaps.

Car routing already shows icons for toll booths. Maybe showing appropriate icons at the beginning of each risky section, and displaying more detailed text when these icons are selected, is enough?

I think it will be better than nothing. In walking and bicycle mode should be warning too

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Maybe showing appropriate icons at the beginning of each risky section, and displaying more detailed text when these icons are selected, is enough?

It definitely would be a good start! Maybe sufficient, maybe not, but definitely useful to mark specific locations and also warns

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Also, an image of the relevant section, the same place as the original photo. Organic Maps also happily routed through a similar section that had such rock drop but about 15m high.

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This seems like the usual case where apps can't really help you much. Unless there is some clear mark on the map, it is hard to know how difficult the route is. I was on the rocks yesterday, on a route marked as T2 (perfectly normal route, apparently) but in reality a ridge with a 200m drop on one side and climbing up and down the rocks on the other, similar to what you have here. With additional snow. Not much any app can do about that.

The closest thing that can be done is #6593, adding the scale markings so that we can easier choose which way to go.

To me, that first screenshot already indicates trouble.

from organicmaps.

This seems like the usual case where apps can't really help you much

In this specific case there were clear tags and OM completely discards them when showing route to user and when calculating route.

No idea why you think that nothing can be done here.

from organicmaps.

In this specific case there were clear tags and OM completely discards them when showing route to user and when calculating route.

You never really mentioned what tags are those. Different people may consider different things dangerous.

from organicmaps.

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:sac%20scale would be a good starting point (in general, the same data as discussed in #6593)

#7430 (comment)

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OM can also show osm descriptions attached to the trails, see #1953 (comment)

Ideally, the warnings should be shown both when the route is being built (like it is now for e.g. unpaved roads and ferry crossings) and while in navigation mode.

Maybe we should not route through the most extreme technical routes at all (e.g. T6 in SAC), as its of little actual use anyway.
And route through T4-T5 (and/or other "potentially dangerous" tags like very low visibility path) only if it was ticked by a user explicitly in "route options".

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And route through T4-T5 (and/or other "potentially dangerous" tags like very low visibility path) only if it was ticked by a user explicitly in "route options".

Trust me, you don't want to be routed through T4 or T5. The photos and the complaint above is from a T3 route. Those are fairly dangerous for average person.
Even T2 can get tricky at times, and require the use of hands. This parameter should ideally be selectable in the settings.

I would really like to see little tags on the path sections. There is a route I'm going to explore on the weekend. It's T2 for kilometres except for 15 meters of T3, across the rocks. With snow and an exposed path, this is life-threatening. I'd like to be able to see these sections easily and not find out only when I'm already there.

Edit: I'm going to look at some T6 routes on Saturday. On the map, these climb 400m in less than 100m horizontal space. Just to get an idea of what a T6 is.

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I would really like to see little tags on the path sections. There is a route I'm going to explore on the weekend. It's T2 for kilometres except for 15 meters of T3, across the rocks.

For "tags" its likely to be e.g. 3/6 (see a discussion in #4242).
Still, it could be problematic, e.g. in your example with a very short T3 stretch you'll have to zoom in a lot for that label to appear (otherwise it won't fit into the stretch). Especially if we'll decide to append the difficulty to existing trail name. (Its possible to use "shields" approach for difficulty as in road shields, but there will be similar issues still)

Relying on a different trail rendering is a better bet, but in this case it might be better (less confusing visually) to distinguish just 2-3 grades, see #6593 (comment)

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For "tags" its likely to be e.g. 3/6

That's ok. The discussions about the details can go on forever. I'm more of a fan of having at least something and working with it rather than waiting until the perfect solution is agreed upon. In practice it's never a perfect solution, anyway.
It seems that CAI also uses 6 grades, so a T2 is a common marker. In German-speaking areas they use T2-K2 marking for tours. T is for Technical, and K is for Kondition (fitness/stamina level). Hence, T2 identifies that it is a technical difficulty level of 2. But whatever. 3/6 is as good as any, as long as it can show the section difficulty (not trail!).

Just for arguments sake, here's a recent photo of a T2 route. Who wants to be navigated through here?

Note that is always looks less scary on the photos.

example with a very short T3 stretch

If, as suggested, there is a warning/info that the "route includes potentially dangerous sections", that would help identify that there is such a section in the route. As I almost never use the navigation feature for walking routes, except to get an idea of the time required, this would not be too helpful for me. But I could get used to testing the route this way. In that case, having the ability to "plan" the route, or add waypoints manually, would be really helpful. I don't want the shortest or the easiest route, but a route that follows marked trails, if any, then foot paths, then track roads, etc. But also direct lines across meadows, through the forest, etc.

Fortunately, in the above-mentioned case with T3 sections, I inspected the route closely - seeing the ridge section was a clear indication that there might be trouble. So, having tags when zoomed in would still be helpful.

2-3 grades

This is what OsmAnd does and I don't find it very helpful in practice, but rather even more confusing. Meaning the visual cues should be really obvious. Also, having 2-3 grades is then rather useless for me because T2 and T3 are often mixed together. The Austrian system is also using three colors: blue (T1-T2), red (T3), and black (T4+). This is also ok as there is a clear distinction between T2 and T3, and for T4+ you have to have equipment or be crazy enough.

Note that, in addition, there will probably later be a visual cue for path visibility. Sometimes the markers are set at every 20m, sometimes at 400m, sometimes there are no markers, the path is not maintained and the bushes have grown on it. The visibility scale is also useful.

from organicmaps.

Especially if we'll decide to append the difficulty to existing trail name.

Yeah, the same argument as in OsmAnd. Well, in a section of 20km, there's bound to be different difficulty levels. As mentioned, I'm more concerned about the 15-100m sections that are life threatening, while the remaining 18+km is quite fine. But yes, having the overall trail difficulty (in addition!) might be useful for someone when deciding on a route.

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Here are some fresh photos of T6 routes, just for reference.

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Whether for this reason or not, the Open Topo Map has added explicit marks of the SAC levels:

While I used to think these are just regular paths to the hut, now I'm looking forward to finding out what makes these T4 and T5.

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