International E-road network

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Image:EurpoeanRouteSign.png

The international E-road network is a network of roads in Europe, numbered E01 and up. They cross national borders and are the responsibility of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). In some countries like Germany, roads carry the European route designation beside national road numbers. Other countries like Sweden have roads with exclusive European route signage. Other continents have similar international road networks: e.g. the Pan-American Highway in the Americas, and the Asian Highway Network.

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Numbering system

The route numbering system, defined by UNECE since 1975, went through a major change in 1992 and is now as follows (text and layout slightly modified from the original for clarity of understanding):

  1. Reference roads and intermediate roads, called Class-A roads, have two-digit numbers. Branch, link and connecting roads, called Class-B roads, have three-digit numbers.
  2. In general:
    • North-south reference roads have two-digit odd numbers terminating in the figure 5 and increasing from west to east.
    • East-west reference roads have two-digit even numbers terminating in the figure 0 and increasing from north to south.
    • Intermediate roads have two-digit odd (north-south) and two-digit even (west-east) numbers between the numbers of the reference roads between which they are located.
    • Class-B roads have three-digit numbers, the first digit being that of the nearest reference road to the north, the second digit being that of the nearest reference road to the west, and the third digit being a serial number.
  3. North-south Class-A roads located eastwards of road E99 have three-digit odd numbers from 101 to 129. Other rules mentioned in paragraph 2 above apply to these roads.
  4. Class-B roads located eastwards of E101 have 3-digit numbers, beginning with 0, from 001 to 099.
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Exceptions

Two Class-A roads, namely E47 and E55, have been given their pre-1992 numbers, E6 and E4 respectively, within Sweden and Norway. These exceptions were granted because the expenses connected with re-signing these extremely long road portions would be too large. Since Sweden and Norway integrated the E-roads into their national networks, there are a lot of signs showing how to reach them, not just how to follow them as in most other countries. These roads maintain their new numbers from Denmark and southward, though, as are other European routes within Scandinavia. This has violated the logical numbering principle of the network, but on the other hand the reason to have the network is to support international traffic, not to "beautify" the logics in the system. One other exception is E67, going from Estonia to Poland, assigned around year 2000, simply because it was best available number for this new route.

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Notes to the listings

In the road listings below, a hyphen ('-') indicates a land road connection between two towns/cities—the normal case—while an ellipsis (three dots, '...') denotes a stretch across water (with or without ferry connection).

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Class A roads

Image:European Highways UK-EI.png Image:European Highways DE.png Image:European Highways PL.svg

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North-South reference

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West-East reference

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North-South intermediate

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West-East intermediate

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Class B roads

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Signage

The European routes are signposted with a green number sign like this:

 E 30 

There are different strategies for determining how frequently to signpost the roads.

  • Belgium, Sweden, Norway and Denmark have integrated the E-road numbers into their networks, meaning that the roads usually have no other national number.
  • In most of the countries the E-roads form a network on top of the national network. The green signs are frequent enough to show how to follow the roads, but do not usually show how to reach them.
  • In some countries, like Germany, E-roads are poorly signposted, making it difficult to follow the E-roads. Drivers have to use the national network.
  • In a few countries, such as the United Kingdom, the E-roads are not signposted at all.
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See also

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External links

cs:Evropská silnice de:Europastraße es:Carreteras europeas fr:Route européenne nl:Europese weg nb:Europavei nn:Europaveg pl:Trasa europejska sv:Europaväg

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