A highway location marker is the modern-day equivalent of a
milestone
A milestone is a numbered marker placed on a route such as a road, railway, railway line, canal or border, boundary. They can indicate the distance to towns, cities, and other places or landmarks like Mileage sign, mileage signs; or they c ...
. Unlike traditional milestones, however, which (as their name suggests) were originally carved from stone and sited at one-mile intervals, modern highway location markers are made from a variety of materials and are almost invariably spaced at intervals of a kilometre or a fraction thereof (except in the United States, where miles are used on roadways). In some countries they may be known as
driver location signs,
milestone
A milestone is a numbered marker placed on a route such as a road, railway, railway line, canal or border, boundary. They can indicate the distance to towns, cities, and other places or landmarks like Mileage sign, mileage signs; or they c ...
s or kilometre stones.
Route identification
Until the beginning of the twentieth century, highways were usually named rather than numbered.
In most cases they had the name of the town or city to which they headed, for example
The Old Portsmouth Road. Other ancient highway names include
The Pilgrims Way,
Watling Street
Watling Street is a historic route in England, running from Dover and London in the southeast, via St Albans to Wroxeter. The road crosses the River Thames at London and was used in Classical Antiquity, Late Antiquity, and throughout the M ...
and
the Via Appia.
However, with the increase in private traffic after the First World War a simpler way of identifying roads was needed. Different countries adopted different ways of identifying roads. Under the 1966 Local Government Act
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...
xcluding Northern Ireland">Northern_Ireland.html" ;"title="xcluding Northern Ireland">xcluding Northern Irelandadopted a system of road numbering so that each roads had a unique number across the entire country. The relative importance of the road was identified by a "A" or a "B" prefix.
In France roads that were in the care of the national government were prefixed by "RN" (later just "N") and had a number that was unique across all of France. Roads that were maintained by Departments of France, departments had a number that was prefixed by "D" and were unique within the department concerned while roads that were maintained by
Communes of France, communes had numbers that were prefixed by a "C" were unique within a commune. The advent of motorways meant an extension to both the British and the French methods of roads identification.
Highway location markers often have the route identifier marked on them.
Location identification
Location identification is achieved by the highway location markers having numbers on them – usually the distance from some reference point.
A highway may be divided into more than one sector, with different sectors having different numbering sequences (though it is possible, as will be explained later for two sectors to share a sequence). Sector boundaries could be the boundaries of a state (as is the case of the United States Interstate highway system), or could be the middle of a large town or any one of a number of other locations.
Each one of numbering sequence is defined by its
reference point and all the numbers within one sequence having a fixed relationship to the reference point and hence to each other (such as being at 0.1 km intervals). The reference point might be the start of the highway, it might be the start of the sector or it might be some artificial point that is located before the start of the highway. Such artificial points include the
Zero Milestone
The Zero Milestone is a zero mile marker monument in Washington, D.C., erected in 1923 as the initial milestone from which all road distances in the United States would be measured.
Location
The monument stands just south of the White Ho ...
in
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
, and
Charing Cross
Charing Cross ( ) is a junction in Westminster, London, England, where six routes meet. Since the early 19th century, Charing Cross has been the notional "centre of London" and became the point from which distances from London are measured. ...
in
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
.
In some countries such as
Spain
Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...
or the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
, highway
exit numbers are identified using location identifiers.
Rerouting problems
If a highway is rerouted, then invariably its length changes. This can be handled in one of three ways:
* Location identifiers can be adjusted to take the rerouting into account. This is often impractical.
* The new section of road can be given a new identifier. This is often done in Italy.
* The sequence can be broken. Any adjustments in the sequence are recorded using the
milepost equation.
Carriageway identification
Until the advent of dual carriageways, it was seldom necessary to identify the actual carriageway. When this was necessary, the carriageway was often identified informally in terms of the town or city to which the carriageway is heading or by using one of the points of the compass. However, the use of highway location markers to pinpoint accidents made it necessary to identify the correct carriageway in an unambiguous manner so that the emergency services could get to the scene of the accident with minimal delay.
Location marker examples
These location marker examples have been chosen because each has a novel feature over and above route and location identification.
United Kingdom
Major British dual-carriageway roads have marker posts at 100-metre intervals. These posts, which are used for administrative purposes, give the distance in kilometres from some reference point. The digits on the posts are not designed to be used by the general public. There are no fixed rules for determining the reference points: they may be the centre of a city, an administrative boundary or follow some other rule. Marker posts on
motorways
A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway, and expressway. Other similar terms ...
also have arrows that point to the closest emergency telephone.
The advent of the mobile phone required a government rethink regarding marker posts. This has led to the erection of driver location signs in England (but at the time of writing, not in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland)
at about 500 metre (about 1/3 mile) intervals on many motorways.
Driver location signs have three pieces of information:
* The road identifier
* The carriageway identifier
* The location
The location is identical to the location given on marker posts. The most commonly used carriageway identifiers are the letters "A", "B", "J", "K", "L" and "M".
The letter "A" normally denotes the carriageway in the direction of increasing location numbers (usually away from London), "B" the carriageway in the direction of decreasing location numbers while "J", "K", "L" and "M" denote junction slip roads.
Ireland
Location reference indicator (LRI) signs are provided on
motorways
A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway, and expressway. Other similar terms ...
and
dual carriageway national roads. They indicate the route number of the route being travelled on, the direction of travel (N, S, E, and W for north, south, east and west) and the distance from the start point of the route. LRI signs are placed every 500 metres.
LRI signs are supplemented with location reference markings (LRM), which are road markings painted in the
hard shoulder parallel to the road. They contain the same information as LRIs, though the letter from the route number is omitted. They are placed every 100 metres and also indicate the direction to the nearest
emergency telephone.
Netherlands
As the name suggests, Dutch
hectometre
The hectometre, ( SI symbol: hm), spelt hectometer in American and Philippine English, is a unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), equal to one hundred metres and to one tenth of a kilometre. The word comes from a combination ...
markers are spaced at 100-metre intervals. In addition to showing the motorway number and location, they also bear a carriageway identifier – ''Li'' for (left) and ''Re'' for (right). The carriageways are identified as being left-hand and right-hand as viewed by somebody looking in the direction of increasing location numbers. By and large, Dutch location numbers increase as one moves away from Amsterdam, or in the case of roads that do not originate in Amsterdam, location numbers increase as one moves eastwards away from the North Sea. Carriageway identifiers 'a', 'b', 'c' and 'd' are used to identify slip roads on and off the motorway.
Another novel concept on Dutch hectometre markers is that speed limits are displayed on the marker boards when the speed limit is less than the (previous) national default of 120 km/h.
United States
Except in California (discussed below),
milepost
A milestone is a numbered marker placed on a route such as a road, railway, railway line, canal or border, boundary. They can indicate the distance to towns, cities, and other places or landmarks like Mileage sign, mileage signs; or they c ...
s are placed on interstate highways (and other major routes in some states) at one-mile intervals that indicate the distance through a state. Mileposts normally start at the western or southern point of entry of the route into the state, or the southern or western terminus of the route within the state, and increase heading north or east. Many states have added supplemental reference markers that indicate distance in fractional miles (tenth, quarter, half, etc.) in addition to mileposts for whole miles, either across the entire state or in select regions of the state.
California
California uses a postmile system on all of its
state highway
A state highway, state road, or state route (and the equivalent provincial highway, provincial road, or provincial route) is usually a road that is either Route number, numbered or maintained by a sub-national state or province. A road numbered ...
s, including
U.S. Routes and
Interstate Highway
The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System, or the Eisenhower Interstate System, is a network of controlled-access highways that forms part of the National Hi ...
s. The postmile markers indicate the distance a route travels through individual counties, as opposed to mile markers that indicate the distance travelled through a state. Multiple other states, including
Nevada
Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...
,
Ohio
Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...
, and
Tennessee
Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...
, use similar county-based mile markers on non-interstates, but use standard mileposts on interstate routes.
New York
New York reference markers are plates 8 in by 10 in (252 mm by 200 mm) that have three rows of numbers. Since the lettering is small (60 mm, 2.4 in), they are designed for use by highway engineers rather than motorists. The first row displays the route number, the second row the
NYSDOT
The New York State Department of Transportation'' (NYSDOT) is the department of the Government of New York (state), New York state government responsible for the development and operation of highways, Rail transport, railroads, mass transit sys ...
Region, and the third row the control segment and distance from the segment start. The control segment has one digit while the distance from the start of the segment has three digits and is given in units of tenths of a mile.
Vermont
Vermont () is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, New York (state), New York to the west, and the Provinces and territories of Ca ...
uses a similar reference marker system on non-interstate routes.
New England
The
New England road marking system
,
,
,
,
,
The New England road marking system was a regional system of marked numbered routes in the six-state region of New England in the United States. The routes were marked by a yellow rectangular sign with black numbers and border. M ...
was a regional system of marked
numbered route
A route (or road) number, designation or abbreviation is an identifying numeric (or alphanumeric) designation assigned by a highway authority to a particular stretch of roadway to distinguish it from other routes and, in many cases, also to indica ...
s in the six-state region of
New England
New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...
in the United States. The routes were marked by a yellow rectangular sign with black numbers and border. Many signs were painted on
telephone poles. The routes were approved by the
highway departments of the six New England states in April 1922.
Prior to the New England road marking system, through routes were mainly marked with colored bands on telephone poles. These were assigned by direction (red for east–west, blue for north–south and yellow for intermediate or diagonal routes). The
Massachusetts Highway Commission convinced the rest of southern New England and
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
New York may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* ...
to use this system in 1915 (
New Hampshire
New Hampshire ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...
and
Vermont
Vermont () is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, New York (state), New York to the west, and the Provinces and territories of Ca ...
already had their own schemes, and
Maine
Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...
also opted out), and it was the main system until 1922.
The New England road marking system, while limited to New England, was designed for expansion to the whole country. One- and two-digit numbers were assigned to major interstate routes, with three-digit routes for
state route
A state highway, state road, or state route (and the equivalent provincial highway, provincial road, or provincial route) is usually a road that is either Route number, numbered or maintained by a sub-national state or province. A road numbered ...
s (marked in a rectangle, with the
state abbreviation below the number). In general, odd numbers ran east–west and even numbers ran north–south. The main exception was
Route 1, which was to run along the
Atlantic coast from
Florida
Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...
to
Calais, Maine
Calais is a city in Washington County, Maine, United States. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 3,079, making Calais the largest municipality by population in Washington County, but the third least-populous city in Maine (after Ha ...
. A few of the major
auto trail
The system of auto trails was an informal network of marked routes that existed in the United States and Canada in the early part of the 20th century. Marked with colored bands on utility poles, the trails were intended to help travellers in t ...
s were not to be assigned numbers, instead being marked with letters—for instance, L for the
Lincoln Highway
The Lincoln Highway is one of the first transcontinental highways in the United States and one of the first highways designed expressly for automobiles. Conceived in 1912 by Indiana entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher, and formally dedicated Octob ...
and R for the
Roosevelt International Highway.
In 1926, several of the routes were supplanted by the national
United States Numbered Highway System
The United States Numbered Highway System (often called U.S. Routes or U.S. Highways) is an integrated network of roads and highways numbered within a nationwide grid in the contiguous United States. As the designation and numbering of these ...
. Except for Route 1, which became
U.S. Route 1, the old numbers were not used, since the U.S. Highway System uses odd numbers for north–south routes and even numbers for east–west routes. While some of the routes that did not become U.S. Routes were disbanded in the 1930s, many of these routes were transferred to
state highway
A state highway, state road, or state route (and the equivalent provincial highway, provincial road, or provincial route) is usually a road that is either Route number, numbered or maintained by a sub-national state or province. A road numbered ...
systems, often retaining their original route numbers.
India
The Indian location markers carry a number of different distances. The marker illustrated carries the following information:
:*
National Highway 58
:*180 kilometres from the start of the highway (in
Delhi
Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, but spread chiefly to the west, or beyond its Bank (geography ...
)
:*24 kilometres to the next big city -
Haridwar
Haridwar (; ; formerly Mayapuri) is a city and municipal corporation in the Haridwar district of Uttarakhand, India. With a population of 228,832 in 2011, it is the second-largest city in the state and the largest in the district.
The city is s ...
:*352 kilometres to the last town on the route -
Mana, India
Mana is a village in the district of Chamoli in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, located at an altitude of 3,200 meters . It is located on the northern terminus of National Highway 7 (new numbering system), Mana is the fir ...
(which is close to
Mana Pass on the
Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...
an/
Chinese border, the terminus of the route).This is extremely false.
Although the sign illustrated uses Latin script, a number of Indian location markers use the Indian official language
Hindi
Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...
or the predominant language of the state in which they are located.
Italy
The highway location markers in Italy are part of the category of distance signs,
[Regolamento di attuazione del Codice della Strada, art. 129, comma 2 .] subcategory of indication signs, and are of two types, those that indicate the distance in
kilometers
The kilometre ( SI symbol: km; or ), spelt kilometer in American and Philippine English, is a unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), equal to one thousand metres (kilo- being the SI prefix for ). It is the preferred measu ...
and those that indicate the distance in
hectometer
The hectometre, ( SI symbol: hm), spelt hectometer in American and Philippine English, is a unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), equal to one hundred metres and to one tenth of a kilometre. The word comes from a combination ...
s (100-metre intervals). In Italy, until before 1959, the function of mileage signals was performed by
milestone
A milestone is a numbered marker placed on a route such as a road, railway, railway line, canal or border, boundary. They can indicate the distance to towns, cities, and other places or landmarks like Mileage sign, mileage signs; or they c ...
s. In the Consolidated Law Regulation of 1959, figure 103b mentions the use of the motorway confirmation sign, consisting of a white box on the left with the distance from the point of origin of the road and a blue rectangle with white characters in which the name of the next exit is shown with the relative distance in kilometers. In the circular of the
Ministry of Public Works
This list indicates government departments in various countries dedicated to public works or infrastructure.
See also
* Public works
* Ministry or Board of Public Works, the imperial Chinese ministry overseeing public projects from the Tang ...
n. 9540/1969 "Motorway signs", signs with a similar function have been adopted to be installed on the traffic island.
In Italy the highway location marker is a square white sign with the current kilometer (of hectometer) of the road written on it. This sign is accompanied by the sign that identifies the road if it indicates the kilometers (or hectometers) of a state, regional, provincial or extra-urban municipal road. If the sign indicates kilometers of a motorway the sign is accompanied by a green sign (positioned to the right or below the main sign) indicating the next exit with the distance remaining if the kilometer ends in 1, 3, 4, 6, 7 or 9, the next service area with the remaining distance if the kilometer ends with 2, 5 and 8 or the highway with the remaining distance if the kilometer ends with 0.
To mark the distance from the starting point of a road, progressive hectometric signs are also used. These signs are placed every and carry a two-line indication, such as . The sign indicates in the lower part the kilometer of the last kilometer progressivity sign (if you travel the road from the starting point) or of the next one (if you travel the road from the end point) and indicates in the upper part the hectometers in Roman numerals the distance to the last sign (if you drive the road from the starting point) or the remaining distance to the next sign (if you drive the road from the ending point). These signs are positioned on all types of extra-urban roads whose length is such as to make their use appropriate.
[
]
Malaysia
Malaysia has its own unique set of location markers in kilometre and hectometre (100-metre intervals). They include the route code, location number from the road starting point and sometimes direction of the carriageway. Green background are for toll expressways and blue backgrounds are for non-tolled highways.
E2 penanda kilometer.png, alt=, Driver location sign on tolled expressways every 1 kilometre
E2 penanda hektometer.png, alt=, Driver location sign on tolled expressways every 100 metres
Federalroadkmmaarker.png, alt=, Driver location sign on non-tolled highways every 1 kilometre
JKRhectometermarkers.png, alt=, Driver location sign on non-tolled highways every 100 metres
On the other hand, federal roads have marker which are placed every kilometre and includes the distance to primary destination and location number. Every five kilometres however the marker includes the route code, distance to primary destination, distance to secondary destination and location number.
FT1 penanda kilometer primer.png, alt=, Driver location milestone on federal roads every 5 kilometres
FT1 penanda kilometer sekunder.png, alt=, Driver location milestone on federal roads every 1 kilometre
Identifiers on road concurrencies
Roads often have two or more numbers. This can happen where two highway designations run concurrently, or share the same piece of road for part of their route or when the same road is numbered by two different authorities. Certain road authorities prefer to only display a single route identifier on their roads, but others display both route identifiers on their roads.
A common example of roads numbering by different authorities is the numbering of the European routes—all such routes have local numbers in addition to the "E number" allocated by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (ECE or UNECE) is an intergovernmental organization or a specialized body of the United Nations. The UNECE is one of five regional commissions under the jurisdiction of the United Nations Econom ...
(UNECE), though is some cases, such as Sweden, the local route numbers have been changed to match the "E" numbers.
The picture shows a typical route marker in Europe (in this case Belgium
Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
) where both the European route number and the national number are displayed on the same location marker. The style of the route marker, apart from the green E-route indicator, is specific to the country concerned.
See also
* Milestone
A milestone is a numbered marker placed on a route such as a road, railway, railway line, canal or border, boundary. They can indicate the distance to towns, cities, and other places or landmarks like Mileage sign, mileage signs; or they c ...
* Driver location sign (UK equivalent)
References
{{Authority control
Milestones
Location
In geography, location or place is used to denote a region (point, line, or area) on Earth's surface. The term ''location'' generally implies a higher degree of certainty than ''place'', the latter often indicating an entity with an ambiguous bou ...
Traffic signs