Talk:International E-road network
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[edit] Unique use of E-road name in Belgium
It is untrue that Belgian E-roads do not have a national designation. They do, but virtually no one uses it. Thus, while the E411 is also the A4 in Belgium, virtually everyone calls it the E411. I have changed the article to reflect this. --Deregnaucourt 11:39, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Why not compass directions
Is there any reason why the numbers are not accompanied by a compass direction (North, West, ..), the same way as in U.S.? I saw few times in Scandinavia, but not in the rest of Europe. It makes orientation much much easier, especially at complex junctions. Is it just a problem of choosing a common language? Or it was it never intended that way, but why then is the numbering organized by compass direction?
- This is true, European roads are not usually referred to as going "north" or "south", but rather to "Paris" or "Bruxelles". Both systems have their advantages: while a road designated "north" would make it easier to head in that general direction, a road labelled "Bruxelles" would be sure to take you to a specific place. However, you'd have to know where "Bruxelles" is in reference to where you want to be. Having done long drives in N. America and Europe, I think the European system has the clear advantage of providing known waypoints for navigtion. A route such as Bruxelles-Köln-Frankfurt-Nürmberg-Passau-Linz-Wien is much easier to visualise and follow than E40 east to E314 east to German A4 south to German A5 south, etc. --Deregnaucourt 11:39, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
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- I actually have just the opposite experience (easy to drive in U.S. following compass directions, hard in Europe, especially on complex junctions, and in places where all town names seem the same to me; also which name should I look for on round-about signs - the town 10km from here, 50km, 100km, 200km), but personal experiences are not important for encyclopedia article. The design of the system suggests that the authors had compass directions in mind. And I would like the article say if that's true (and then why it was not implemented), or not (and then why is it organized by N-S, E-W). --Jirka6 (talk) 04:13, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Iceland
A pity that the powers that be haven't included Iceland in the uber Autobahn system, even though Anatolia, Kazakhstan and Syria get a look in.
- How are you supposed to do that, given its isolation from the mainland?
[edit] Differing number systems
How should one treat the cases of E47 (which is within Scandinavia, at least Sweden and Norway, called and signed E6) and E55 (which is within Scandinavia, at least Sweden, called and signed E4)? As of now, they are listed here as E04 and E06, which is not a good solution. Also, E4 has its own page, under that name.
I see that I missed on signing the message. But it was mine! =) The reason for listing the roads as E04 and E06 being a bad idea is of course that they are anything but west-to-east. --Jao 02:53, 23 Jan 2004 (UTC)
- Like you, I too was dumbfounded when noticing this fact, as I'm used to travelling the E6 from north to south and vice versa... Likewise the E4 up and down Sweden. --Wernher 14:49, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)
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- There is an edit war between me and a not logged-in person (latest IP 81.104.170.167) regarding this issue. The reason for having articles E4 ad E6 is that the official document [[1]] define these two roads as full E-roads, not as any special numbering of any other E-road. They are violating the east-west principle, but nevertheless they are called E04 and E06. BIL 20:46, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
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- Thank you for that source, I now stand corrected, and of course I will gladly assist your efforts to keep the article correct, if this edit war will keep going on. -- Jao 21:10, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
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[edit] List notation
I would like to propose a 'standard' for listing the roads, based on the current de facto scheme. It should be noted in the text.
- a hyphen '-' between towns; several hyphens where towns are omitted
- an ellipsis '...' denoting connections by sea
No revolution, just putting the de facto std in writing. --Wernher 14:49, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- Might it not be helpful to note the design and such of the roads? --Penta 18:29, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Signage
It would be nice to have information about signage in each country. Here's all I know:
- UK - not signed at all
- Germany - signed on newer signs and at major junctions and reassurance signs
--SPUI (talk) 04:41, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Naming convention?
The official name of the system is the "international E-road network", which is why I moved the article here. "European route" does not seem to be in common use. That of course brings us to the question of what to title the articles about the roads. Maybe E-road E08, E08 (E-road) or E08 (road)? --SPUI (talk) 05:38, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
[edit] What is the point/effect?
Are the roads just lines on a map, or something more? Do national governments get funding for them from the EU or the UN? What effect do they have on me in the UK, where we don't even seem to sign any of them? The article doesn't mention any of these kind of questions. Maccoinnich 12:23, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
- Yes, the UK does get funding for them from the EU. The EU has grandiose plans for networking the whole of Europe, and is putting lots of money into it (more into those nations with fewer roads than us). You sometimes see the EU logo on signs advertising new road projects, but they take the signs down when the roads are finished. I'll see if I can dig up some references. --Heron 20:11, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Removal of reference to US highways/interstates
I removed the reference to the US Highway/Interstate system, since I don't see any connection that has to E-roads. E-roads are an international, transcontinental system; thus, they are most similar to the Pan-American Highway or to the Asian Highway Network. There is of course some vague similarities between international and national highway systems (heck, they are both highway systems). But then, if we are to compare international and national highway systems, why should we compare it against just the US one? The US is but one country of many, a particularly important one in many fields, but in the field of highway systems? I doubt so. -- Samuel Katinsky
[edit] Images
I would suggest that a high resolution map of the complete E-road Network be placed in this article. It should include all A class roads at least, and even B class if the scale permits. It should include information about which parts of a route are up to motorway standards, which are not, which are planned to be upgraded to motorway etc... Also, even though there are images of some of the roads on articles about the country they belong to, it could be useful to link them here, or even add more. Jimzoun 12:59, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Also, there is something wrong with the map of the German system. It's fine if one follows the link, but in the article on my browser, it appears as a thick vertical gray line on a white background. vLaDsINgEr 01:12, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
- No, cut that. It works fine now that I changed the thumb size to 275px. How odd. vLaDsINgEr 01:20, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
The map is missing national boundaries of post-Soviet Union states
- Correct. It's a 1990-1991 map (Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, USSR still exist; Germany reunited). Someone with more Photoshop ability than I shoudl update it or create a new one. ProhibitOnions (T) 22:05, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Updates
The list should be updated with the recent changes documented in the minutes for the 2004 meeting: [2] --ZorroIII 08:39, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Ireland
I'm about to edit the reference to signage practice in the British Isles. Two reasons:
1. The reference to roads not crossing borders with differing numbers on either side is false. Two states and a land border means that that does indeed happen.
2. E-road signage has begun to sneak onto signs in the Republic of Ireland.
3. (I lied about the number). Irish people tend not to like the term "British Isles", mostly because of the way it encourages people to assume it refers to a single country with uniform characteristics (as appears to have happened in the old text).
Mackerski 19:17, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
I get the slight feeling that Wexford County Council did a solo run on putting "E-01" on route confirmation signs on the Gorey Bypass. The N1 Dundalk-Newry dual carriageway, which opened today, does not have similar signs (and in fact, this would be the one strech of road you would expect them to use the E number!). Secondly, the E-01 markers are not in the standard format and are rather small (I believe they should read "E1" now, rather than E-01.
Until they publish the very long awaited new TSM, we won't know for sure, of course....
--Rdd 20:07, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] E-201
E-201 has now been signposted. The E-201 is the N8. It is signed on Route Confirmation Signs South of Cashel, and they are bigger than what was put on the Gorey Bypass. I think the article should be changed to reflect this, also to keep a refernce to the new TSM, if it ever comes out. Limbo-Messiah (talk) 14:11, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Spaces
In the official document pdf, about 130 kB (any other reliable sources?) the naming is always with a space between letter and number - any reason why we don't have this space here? It's not regulated in the source to have a space (or dashes etc.) on the sign, so it may often be omitted resulting in smaller and cheaper signs - but I don't see a reason to omit the spaces here. Greetings -- 79.219.60.232 (talk) 09:54, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] E Road distances
Does anyone know of any wiki-preferred provenance for E road distances appearing in wiki entries on E roads? Background:
I have been translating an entry on the E62 from Italian. Our Italian friends have a total distance for the E 62 of 1290 km from somewhere (source not to me obvious) so I copied it to the intro para.
But now I am trying to compute the distance leg by leg using both (1) distances on road atlases (Ravenstein. Michelin, TCI) and (2) Microsoft Autoroute 2006 'route finder' software (applying cumulative minus previous cumulative to avoid excessive impact from roundings).
I've not finished, but I think I am finding the measured distances longer than the 1290 km by maybe 5%.
Considerations:
- For much of its length A 62 runs NOT on autoroutes - for which well established verifyable distances exist.
- It runs through three different countries, each of which may apply different base assumptions concerning distances.
- Distances change over time. Little by little, bits of this road get converted or supplemented into / by autoroute. Even where that does not happen, by pass roads that avoid the town centre have been a priority with French road builders in the last decade or so. Maps and software put the E 62 tag on the by pass routes rather than through the city centre which reduces the journey time (presumably...) but also increases the journey length quite significantly. ....to the extent that if I were simply measuring distances from urban centre to urban centre, I'd most likely end up pretty close to the 1290 km length from the Italian wiki entry on E62.
I guess this raises quite complex interlocking questions about the 'wiki-nature' of 'wiki-truth' as it impacts route distances. I wonder if anyone else has been through these thought processes and formed any conclusions - consensus even? The wiki project highways group seems to be chiefly interested in stateside routes which is fine and dandy, but in Europe the distances issue seems to be rather different in a way that folks who seldom travel outside The Union probably would mostly find pretty hard to conceptualise. Maybe that should be conceptualize.
