A road is a

thoroughfare A thoroughfare is a primary passage or way of transport, whether by road on dry land or, by extension, via watercraft or aircraft. Originally, the word referred to a main road or open street which was frequented thoroughly. Different terms *Roa ...

, route, or way on land between two

places Place may refer to: Geography * Place (United States Census Bureau), defined as any concentration of population ** Census-designated place, a populated area lacking its own municipal government * "Place", a type of street or road name ** Oft ...

that has been surfaced or otherwise improved to allow travel by foot or some form of conveyance, including a

motor vehicle A motor vehicle, also known as a motorized vehicle, automotive vehicle, automobile, or road vehicle, is a self-propelled land vehicle, commonly wheeled, that does not operate on railway track, rails (such as trains or trams), does not fly (such ...

, cart, bicycle, or horse. Roads have been adapted to a large range of structures and types in order to achieve a common goal of

transportation Transport (in British English) or transportation (in American English) is the intentional Motion, movement of humans, animals, and cargo, goods from one location to another. Mode of transport, Modes of transport include aviation, air, land tr ...

under a large and wide range of conditions. The specific purpose,

mode of transport A mode of transport is a method or way of travelling, or of transporting people or cargo. The different modes of transport include air, water, and land transport, which includes rails or railways, road and off-road transport. Other modes of t ...

, material and location of a road determine the characteristics it must have in order to maximize its usefulness. Following is one classification scheme.

Taxonomy of Road

Marohn distinguishes between roads that are designed for

mobility Mobility may refer to: Social sciences and humanities * Economic mobility, ability of individuals or families to improve their economic status * Geographic mobility, the measure of how populations and goods move over time * Mobilities, a conte ...

which he terms "roads" and those that function to "build a place", build community wealth and provide access to land. He argues the value of a road in terms of both community wealth and mobility is maximised when the road speed is either low or high, but not at midpoints such as 45mph. He refers to this low-value midpoint of speed and land access as a

stroad A stroad is a thoroughfare that combines the features of streets and roads. Common in the United States and Canada, stroads are wide arterials (roads for through traffic) that also provide access to strip malls, drive-throughs, and other aut ...

Types of roads

Lower capacity roads

Street

Primitive roads

* Agricultural road * Backroad *

Dirt road A dirt road or track is a type of unpaved road not paved with asphalt, concrete, brick, or stone; made from the native material of the land surface through which it passes, known to highway engineers as subgrade material. Terminology Simi ...

Forest road left, alt=Pathway through forest., Concrete pathway through deep forest in India. Forest tracks or forest roads are roads or tracks intended to carry motorised vehicles or horse-drawn wagons being used mainly or exclusively for forestry purposes, ...

Gravel road A gravel road is a type of unpaved road surfaced with gravel that has been brought to the site from a quarry or stream bed. Gravel roads are common in less-developed nations, and also in the rural areas of developed nations such as Canada and ...

* Green lane * Historic roads and trails *

Ice road An ice road or ice bridge is a human-made structure that runs on a frozen water surface (a river, a lake or a sea water expanse).Masterson, D. and Løset, S., 2011, ISO 19906: Bearing capacity of ice and ice roads, Proceedings of the 21st Int ...

Roman roads Roman roads ( ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Republic and the Roman Em ...

Sunken lane A sunken lane (also hollow way or holloway) is a road or track that is significantly lower than the land on either side, not formed by the (recent) engineering of a road cutting but possibly of much greater age. Holloways may have been formed i ...

Large roads

Higher capacity roads

Sometimes with

median The median of a set of numbers is the value separating the higher half from the lower half of a Sample (statistics), data sample, a statistical population, population, or a probability distribution. For a data set, it may be thought of as the “ ...

Expressways

The term expressway includes

limited-access road A limited-access road, known by various terms worldwide, including limited-access highway, partial controlled-access highway, and expressway, is a highway or arterial road for high-speed traffic which has many or most characteristics of a contro ...

s and

grade-separated In civil engineering (more specifically highway engineering), grade separation is a method of aligning a junction of two or more surface transport axes at different heights ( grades) so that they will not disrupt the traffic flow on other tr ...

highways.

Private roads

Driveway A driveway (also called ''drive'' in UK English) is a private road for local access to one or a small group of structures owned and maintained by an individual or group. Driveways rarely have traffic lights, but some may if they handle heavy ...

Gated community A gated community (or walled community) is a form of residential community or housing estate containing strictly controlled entrances for pedestrians, bicycles, and automobiles, and often characterized by a closed perimeter of walls and fences ...

* Military road *

Private highway A private highway is a highway owned and operated for profit by private industry. Private highways are common in Asia and Europe; in addition, a few have been built in the United States on an experimental basis. Typically, private highways are b ...

Private road A private road is a road owned or controlled by a private person, persons or corporation rather than a road open to the public and owned by a government. Private roads can be on private land or can be constructed on government land for use by go ...

Intersecting roads

Roundabout - Flickr - Stiller Beobachter

* Connector * Interchange *

Intersection In mathematics, the intersection of two or more objects is another object consisting of everything that is contained in all of the objects simultaneously. For example, in Euclidean geometry, when two lines in a plane are not parallel, their ...

Level junction A level junction (or in the United Kingdom a flat crossing) is a railway junction that has a track configuration in which merging or crossing railroad lines provide track connections with each other that require trains to cross over in front o ...

Level crossing A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road, Trail, path, or (in rare situations) airport runway, at the same level, as opposed to the railway line or the road etc. crossing over or under using an Overpass#Railway, o ...

Road diet A road is a thoroughfare used primarily for movement of traffic. Roads differ from streets, whose primary use is local access. They also differ from stroads, which combine the features of streets and roads. Most modern roads are paved. The ...

Roundabout A roundabout, a rotary and a traffic circle are types of circular intersection or junction in which road traffic is permitted to flow in one direction around a central island, and priority is typically given to traffic already in the junct ...

Material type

Roads also may be classified based on their pavement material types. For instance, the

Long-Term Pavement Performance Long-Term Pavement Performance Program, known as LTPP, is a research project supported by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to collect and analyze pavement data in the United States and Canada. Currently, the LTPP acquires the largest ro ...

database includes more than 30 types of pavement types for roads in the US and Canada. However, a more generic classification of roads based on material type is as follows. * Concrete roads * Asphalt roads *

s * Earthen roads * Murrum roads * Kankar roads * Bituminous roads

Other thoroughfares

Road types by features

In this list, roads names are used in different areas and the features of the roads varies. So this table address the differences in that usage when needed.

Notes

*Access type ** Interchange - access limited to

interchanges **Junction (roundabout) - access limited to major roads via a

roundabout A roundabout, a rotary and a traffic circle are types of circular intersection or junction in which road traffic is permitted to flow in one direction around a central island, and priority is typically given to traffic already in the junct ...

**Partial - Limited access **Uncontrolled - no control of access *Speed **Any - Used in all types of applications **Low - Low-speed **High - High-Speed *Cross traffic **Yes- cross traffic allowed at-grade without a

traffic light Traffic lights, traffic signals, or stoplights – also known as robots in South Africa, Zambia, and Namibia – are signaling devices positioned at intersection (road), road intersections, pedestrian crossings, and other locations in order t ...

** Intersections - at-grade with a traffic signal **No - no cross traffic *Divided **Yes **No **Some - some sections may be divided

References

External links

* {{Authority control Types of roads

Roads A road is a thoroughfare used primarily for movement of traffic. Roads differ from streets, whose primary use is local access. They also differ from stroads, which combine the features of streets and roads. Most modern roads are paved. The ...