Travel Mapping Manual: System Highway Lists

Each highway system needs to have files that list basic information about each route that is part of the system. The Chopped Routes File (e.g., usai.csv) tells our scripts which files to look for and to load into the web site. The Connected Routes File (e.g., usai_con.csv) lists how those chopped routes are connected across boundaries to make full-length routes.

• Creating the files
• Chopped Routes File (e.g., usai.csv) format
• Connected Routes File (e.g., usai_con.csv) format
• International characters

• 🔗 Make a text file with comma-separated values containing all the needed info for each of these files. Use a text editor or a spreadsheet program such as OpenOffice Calc (it's free). Then save the file with .csv filename extention.
• 🔗 Use a semicolon (not a comma!) as the field delimiter, and don't use any text delimiters (no quotes!). In OpenOffice Calc, the default delimiters are comma and double quotes, but instead you must specify semicolons and none for the two types. Saving in UTF-8 encoding is necessary to ensure that international characters are properly handled.
• 🔗 In OpenOffice Calc, the three correct options when saving the sheet as a .csv file are: UTF-8 encoding, semicolon delimiter, no text delimiter.
• 🔗 Excel doesn't cooperate with UTF-8 encoding and will not use semicolon delimiters when saving a .csv file. It will save the file using commas. This is not good. You could do a search and replace on the .csv file to turn the commas into semicolons, but beware: sometimes commas are part of the City and Roots fields.
  Best advice: Don't use Excel but download and use OpenOffice Calc or use a text editor.

• 🔗 Make a .csv file with the name systemcode.csv. Replace systemcode with the lowercase system code assigned to your system. E.g., the spreadsheet for the Ohio State Highways (system code = usaoh) is usaoh.csv.
• 🔗 The spreadsheet must have 8 columns and 1 header row. Use the header row to label the columns, not to enter the first highway. In processing, the first row is always ignored.
  
  🔗 The columns:
1. 🔗 System: the short, all-lowercase system code for the system. It should appear in every row of the spreadsheet even though it seems redundant. It is also used for the filename above.
2. 🔗 Region: For undivided countries, this is the uppercase 3-letter country abbreviation in which the highway is located. Country subdivision codes are used instead or in addition for divided countries as used in the .wpt file name but all-uppercase and with hyphen (no spaces), e.g. FL for Florida, NT for Northwest Territories, DEU-TH for Thuringia, ESP-AR for for Aragon, MEX-BC for Baja California.
3. 🔗 Route: The name of the highway, ignoring any banners or qualifiers. No spaces! US34 for US 34, OH17 for OH 17, PA66 for Business PA 66, A7 for French Autoroute A7. Skip hyphens and slashes unless they separate two numbers (M22-1), or the hyphen is in common usage such as for US Interstates or Business Interstates (I-80BL) and Quebec Autoroutes (A-50). For routes with names instead of numbered designations, follow the same rules for truncating highway names used when labeling waypoints.
4. 🔗 Banner: For bannered routes, put the 3-letter banner abbreviation(s) used in the .wpt file name but starting with an uppercase letter (Bus, Alt, Spr, etc.) here only if needed. Otherwise leave it completely blank (no whitespace). Lp for Loop is two letters. No more than six characters (for double-bannered routes) are allowed.
5. 🔗 Abbreviation: The three-letter abbreviation for auxiliary highways or for most piecemeal highways if needed to distinguish between otherwise identically named routes of the same highway in the same region. Pit for Truck US 19 (Pittsburgh). Otherwise leave it blank (no whitespace).
6. 🔗 City: Used to distinguish between otherwise identically named routes of the same highway in the same region. Pittsburgh for Truck US 19 (Pittsburgh). Prefer using city names (if applicable) or other common geographical names to distinguish, e.g. island names. This is the text that will appear below the shield in the highway browser. Usually no text is needed except for auxiliary highways, so leave it blank (no whitespace) in most cases. The name should be spelled as the locals spell it and using international characters as needed.
   • 🔗 If there are two or more discontinuous routes of the same Route+Banner combination, each wholly within the same, single region, use either "(Main)" (parentheses included) for the longer route or give this piece a city name. For example, if there are 200-mile and 8-mile disconnected sections of US 47 in the same state, use "(Main)" or a geographical name for the long section and a geographical name for the short section.
7. 🔗 Filename root: The name of the .wpt file with the extension omitted. pa.us019trkpit, oh.oh007, etc.
8. 🔗 Alt Route Names A comma-separated list of deprecated route names, or blank if none. This field is blank for most routes and not blank only when necessary to handle route merges or name changes. While the primary route name is usually split into the Route, Banner, and Abbrev columns, any alt route names have these 3 parts concatenated. The result should be whatever would be entered in a .list file for the old name of the route, e.g. I-22FutTup.


• 🔗 Order of the routes in the file
• 🔗 Route numbers are ascending by route number.
  PA3, PA5, PA8, etc.
• 🔗 For identical route numbers, suffixless routes come first, followed by suffixed routes of the same number.
  MA2, MA3, MA3A, MA3B, MA4, MA4B, MA4H, MA5, etc.
• 🔗 For pieces of the same route, put them in the usual order for the country (i.e., south to north or west to east in the US).
  ..., PA42, PA43 Chadville, PA43 Brownsville, PA43 Pittsburgh, PA43AltCal, PA44, etc.
• 🔗 Bannered routes of a certain number come immediately after the bannerless route of the same number and before any suffixed routes of the same number. Bannered routes of the same number but with different banners go in order of the banners. Bannered routes of the same number and banner go in the usual order for the country (e.g., south to north or west to east in the US).
  ..., PA42, PA42AltCen, PA42AltBlo, PA42TrkEag, PA42A, PA42ABusPit, PA42B, PA43, ...
• 🔗 Doubly bannered routes come right after the matching singly bannered route. The banner immediately after the route number here matches the banner immediately above the route number as signed in a shield.
  US50AltBusDun is the Dunkirk City business route of US50Alt. US50AltBusDun is signed with a Business banner on top, Alternate banner in the middle, and the number shield at the bottom on a roadside sign assembly.
  ..., US50, US50AltGeo, US50AltBusDun, US50BusFay, US50BusTrkUni, US50ScePin, US50TrkSno, US 51, ...
  

• 🔗 The Chopped Routes File lists all the highways in the highway system after being chopped at national and sometimes subdivisional (state, province, oblast, etc.) borders. This Connected Routes File gives the information about which chopped routes should be connected to reconstruct each full route.
• 🔗 The filename is systemcode_con.csv, with systemcode replaced by the code for the system.
• 🔗 The spreadsheet must have 5 columns and 1 header row. Use the header row to label the columns, not to enter the first highway. In processing, the first row is always ignored.


• 🔗 The columns:
1. 🔗 System: system code, see chopped file.
2. 🔗 Route: the common Route name, like US52, see chopped file.
3. 🔗 Banner: the common Banner, if the route is bannered, or left blank if not, see chopped file.
4. 🔗 Name: like the City field of the Chopped Routes File, the Name field is used to distinguish between otherwise identically named routes (same Route and Banner fields) or to give extra info about numberless or bannered/repeatable designations. Use geographical names, e.g. city names, island names or country names.
   • 🔗 If there is exactly one route with a certain Route+Banner combination, the Name should be blank.
   • 🔗 If there are multiple routes with the same Route+Banner combination, each route should have a nonblank Name.
   • 🔗 If the route is lengthy and within one region, use the region name as the Name. For example, the southern US 9 is entirely in Delaware, so the Name should be "Delaware" (and not "DE").
   • 🔗 If the route is lengthy and spans multiple regions, use the first and the last region names separated by space-hyphen-space. Put the region names in the usual order for the system (e.g., region containing the southern or western end first if in the US). For example, the northern US 9 spans New Jersey and New York in that order, so the Name should be "New Jersey - New York".
   • 🔗 If the route is in the same region used in different Names for routes with the same Route+Banner, add an abbreviated direction (NW., W., C., etc.) to that region name in each Name it appears. For example, the western US 422 would be Named "Ohio - W. Pennsylvania" and the eastern US 422 would be Named "E. Pennsylvania". Alternatively, if one route is wholly on a large island within the region (of size like that of Crete or larger), use the island name along with the region abbreviation. For example, E25 has a piece "Netherlands - Italy" that includes mainland France, as well as pieces in the large islands of Corsica, France, and Sardinia, Italy. The three piece Names should be "Netherlands - Italy", blank, and "Cagliari".
   • 🔗 If a route is more local (shorter), is a full beltway, or is a bannered/repeatable route type (mandatory Name and Abbrev in the Chopped Routes File), then the Name should be devised in the same way as the City field in the Chopped Routes File (and in most cases, the Name and City fields should be identical).
5. 🔗 Roots: a comma-separated list (no spaces!) of filename roots of the chopped routes that connect to form this connected route. Continuous roots that were chopped at boundaries will have a list of 2+ file roots, while a route that exists entirely in one region will simply have one root, the same as specified for Filename root in the chopped file. Always put the list of file roots in the correct order to make sure that the chopped routes indeed compose a continuous route. Remove all spaces.


• 🔗 Each row gives info about the connected routes in the same order as they are given in the Chopped Routes File.

• 🔗 The System, Region, Route, Banner, Abbreviation, Filename Root, Alt Route Names and Roots fields must be devoid of international characters since these appear in .list files and as filenames. Pick the closest character without any diacritical marks, e.g., "o" for "ö", if it would appear in the Abbreviation field: "Kol" for Köln.
• 🔗 The City and the Name fields should use the native language name for a place, and it may use international characters. "München", not "Munchen" nor "Munich".
• 🔗 International characters will appear as weird symbols or question marks on the web site if the encoding isn't properly done. OpenOffice Calc will do this properly when saving the spreadsheet as a .csv file. Type the international characters into the spreadsheet. Choose "UTF-8" when saving as a .csv file, see above.