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Aspur route is a shortroad forming a branch from a longer, more important road such as afreeway,Interstate Highway, ormotorway. Abypass orbeltway is not considered a spur route as it typically reconnects with another or the same major road.

In the province of Ontario, most spur routes are designated as A or B, such as Highway 17A, or 7B. A stands for "Alternate Route", and usually links a highway to a town's central core or main attraction, while B stands for "Business Route" or "Bypass", but are used when a main highway is routed around a town and away from its former alignment. The designation of "C" was used twice (Highway 3C and 40C), and is assumed to mean "Connector". Both highways have long since been retired and are nowcounty roads. There was also one road with the D designation (Highway 8D, later the original Highway 102), and this may have stood for "Diversion", as it was along the first completeddivided highway inCanada at the time (Cootes Drive inHamilton).

TheIndian National Highway system designates spur routes of the main National Highways with letter suffixes. For example,National Highway 1 has four spur routes:NH 1A,NH 1B,NH 1C, andNH 1D, the shortest of which is just 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) in length (NH 1C) and the longest is 663 kilometres (412 mi) (NH 1A). While the spur routes essentially originate at the parent National Highway, they are not merely secondary in status as some of the spur routes serve important cities in India. For example,Srinagar, the capital of the state ofJammu and Kashmir, is served by the spur route NH 1A. Some spur routes are specifically used to connect important Indianports:NH 5A linksParadip with its parentNH 5 andNH 7A linksTuticorin withNH 7).

The acronym RA stands forRaccordo autostradale (translated as "motorway connection"), a relatively short spur route that connects anautostrada (Italian formotorway) to a nearby city or tourist resort not directly served by the motorway. These spurs are owned and managed byAnas. Some spurs are toll-free motorways (type-A), but most are type-B or type-C roads. All RA have separate carriageways with two lanes in each direction. Generally, they do not have an emergency lane.

In Japan, spurs of itsexpressways are usually designated with an added letter "A". This designation applies to all routes that are part of a "family" of routes with the "parent" route lacking the added "A". Examples of spur routes in the system include theAomori Expressway (E4A), linking theTōhoku Expressway (E4) to the eastern limits ofAomori, and theSasson Expressway (E5A), linking theDō-Ō Expressway (E5) toOtaru; however, some expressways that lack the "A" designation could also be considered spurs, such as theKansai-Kūkō Expressway (E71) or theŌita Airport Road (E97).^[1]

In New Zealand, spurs onstate highways are usually designated with an added letter. Examples includeSH 2B, linking SH 2 to Napier Airport, andSH 6A, linking SH 6 withQueenstown town center. Not all such alphabetic suffixes refer to spurs, however; ring roads and linking roads between highways are also so designated. Conversely, some State Highways could themselves be considered spurs, notablySH 78, New Zealand's shortest state highway, which links SH 1 inTimaru city center with the Port of Timaru.

Such spurs and spur roads leading from smaller urban thoroughfares to individual facilities are often referred to in New Zealand as "feeder roads".

All national roads, local roads and county roads have spur routes.A good example isDN1 andDN1A. DN1A goes fromBucharest toBrașov viaBuftea, and have an intersection withDN1 atPloiești.AfterPloiești,DN1A goes to Vălenii de Munte, Cheia, and thenDN1A goes directly onto theBrașov.

In theUK, a spur route carries the same definition, but the numbering rules differ.

Short spurs from primary roads or motorways typically are not given a unique number, and three arms of the junction will apparently have the same number. For example, theA14 has a same-number spur to theA1(M) motorway atHuntingdon inCambridgeshire, theM23 motorway has one toGatwick Airport inWest Sussex and theM4 has one toHeathrow Airport. To distinguish the spur on road signs, the road it leads to is usually given - for example "Gatwick Airport (A23)".

Typically, slightly longer spurs, or those with intermediatejunctions of their own, are given unique numbers to distinguish them from their parent road, for example, theA48(M) motorway, a spur of theM4. There is a loose numbering system for these spurs on the motorway network, not dissimilar to the US system – the road takes a three-digit number derived from that of the parent road. Examples include theM602 motorway (spur of theM60 andM62 motorways),M621 motorway (spur of theM62 andM1 motorways), andM271 motorway (spur of theM27 motorway). There are anomalous spur numbers though, for instance theM898 motorway (spur of theM8 motorway; number given to match with a unique A-number road) and the unique case of theM181 motorway, a spur of a spurM180 motorway, and that of theM18 motorway

A-road spurs do not follow a noticeable numbering system; they would be impossible to assign due to the quantity of A-road numbers in use.

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In the US, manyInterstate Highways have spur routes when they enter a large metropolitan area. Interstate spur routes are numbered with a three-digit number. The last two digits of the number are the number of the "parent" Interstate (Interstate 238, which connectsInterstate 880 withInterstate 580 near Hayward, CA, is the only exception to this); e.g. a spur route ofInterstate 90 could be 990; a spur route ofInterstate 5 could be 105.

Spur Interstate routes have three-digit numbers with an odd first digit. A subsidiary route either passing through a city or bypassing it and then reconnecting to a major highway would receive an even first digit, and be considered a loop rather than a spur. For example, in the case ofInterstate 5,Interstate 105 is a spur route ending atLos Angeles International Airport, whereasInterstate 405 begins and ends atInterstate 5, bypassingdowntown Los Angeles.

Spurs are also found branching fromUS highways,state routes, andcounty routes, often as extendedonramps andofframps ofexpressways.

There are many numbering violations in the spur route numbering system, thus the general rules above do not always apply (e.g.U.S. Route 400—there is no parent "route 0").

• Special route
• Loop route

• Types of roads

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