*UPDATED* Ramp naming convention proposal

[sketch]

If we start linking roads and cities then we start reorganizing the signs. So no longer do the segment names correspond to the way people read (right to left, top to bottom), but start jumping all over the place. I think this becomes confusing to the driver and is distracting. It also introduces further complexity for the editor because they then have to link the roads and city names. This requires even more work and sometimes isn't the easiest thing to do as that information is not always apparent from what is provided on the exit sign.

You're absolutely right. I've been taking time to consider this as I waited for the map update to go through. The point has always been to match the sign, and that's what we will continue to do. Matching the highways to their destinations is a nice idea, but it's not actually a good one, and that's why we have discussions for things like this.

My original proposal is this:
Exit ##: I-xx / US-yy / US-zz: City 1 / City 2 / City 3

We threw around a bunch of other ideas, but it's all coming back to this, to me. The only material difference between this and the existing standard is that this includes a separation between the shields across the top and the cities down the bottom.

[sketch]

Hang on, Alan, when did we decide to add this to the wiki?

http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php?titl ... ldid=14856

This is a place where I thought "to I-10 E: New Orleans" was a no-brainer.

[AlanOfTheBerg]

Hang on, Alan, when did we decide to add this to the wiki?

http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php?titl ... ldid=14856

This is a place where I thought "to I-10 E: New Orleans" was a no-brainer.

It was to match the 2nd item in the list which shows a street name and control city.

[AlanOfTheBerg]

Hang on, Alan, when did we decide to add this to the wiki?

http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php?titl ... ldid=14856

This is a place where I thought "to I-10 E: New Orleans" was a no-brainer.

It was to match the 2nd item in the list which shows a street name and control city.

Well, so that section was ambiguous as the 2nd item in the list had the slash but the first didn't, so I standardized it by adding the slash to the prior sentence and the first example.

The fourth example, added on Dec 5, included the slash between the street name and control city, so it made sense to clarify when the slash is used and not. The 3 examples in the bulleted list had two with a slash and one without, so majority ruled.

[R4CLucky14]

Hang on, Alan, when did we decide to add this to the wiki?

http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php?titl ... ldid=14856

This is a place where I thought "to I-10 E: New Orleans" was a no-brainer.

I disagree. The parsing engine drops "to" from the TTS (It would say "Turn right at eye 10 (pause) New Orleans"), from my experience, at least.

I believe the "to" is to stop the Select All feature from selecting ramps.

As far as the colon, I don't think it's appropriate. I believe "I-10 E to New Orleans" operates much better for on-ramps with control cities. Without a control city, I would suggest not naming the ramp. It will use the name of the highway to turn onto, exactly as if some wrote "to I-10 E".

That's my personal opinion, at least.

[sketch]

Ah, I see. The logic does seem a little ambiguous without pictures of the signs themselves.

The difference is shields. The original standard, as I wrote it a couple years ago, did not include any punctuation separating a shield plus direction from the words below it, whether street names or control cities. Back then, TTS wasn't even really expected to happen anytime soon, so I figured there wouldn't be any confusion between some letter and number combinations and the text that followed. This logic was kind of faulty in the first place, though, if I'm honest -- there's no accounting for the difference between "US-49 E: Azalea Pkwy" and "US-49: E Azalea Pkwy".

The "to I-10 E New Orleans" sign is a shield and text. For the past couple months, I've been testing "to I-10 E: New Orleans", and I think it sounds and looks great.

The "to Causeway Blvd N / Mandeville" sign is two lines of text. Even though one is a road and one is a control city, they're presented as equals in a list, and to me this should always be accompanied by a slash.

--

At the heart of the matter, on the most granular level, the best way to name everything is this:

[Exit numbers]: [Shields]: [Text]

There are three groups, and everything within a group is separated by a slash. "Exit number: Shield / Shield: Text / Text / Text". Not everything has every element. So,

"to I-10 E: New Orleans"
"Exit 228: Causeway Blvd / Mandeville"
later, "to Causeway Blvd N / Mandeville"
"Exit 220: I-310 S: Boutte / Houma"

and so forth.

[sketch]

Hang on, Alan, when did we decide to add this to the wiki?

http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php?titl ... ldid=14856

This is a place where I thought "to I-10 E: New Orleans" was a no-brainer.

I disagree. The parsing engine drops "to" from the TTS (It would say "Turn right at eye 10 (pause) New Orleans"), from my experience, at least.

I believe the "to" is to stop the Select All feature from selecting ramps.

As far as the colon, I don't think it's appropriate. I believe "I-10 E to New Orleans" operates much better for on-ramps with control cities. Without a control city, I would suggest not naming the ramp. It will use the name of the highway to turn onto, exactly as if some wrote "to I-10 E".

That's my personal opinion, at least.

The "select all streets" function is indeed why the leading "to" was put there in the first place.

I'm going to be testing ramps without the leading "to" in my area with the next map update. I'm provisionally for getting rid of it; the only thing I'm not sure about is whether leaving ramps without control cities unnamed is a good idea. This is okay for singular ramps, but with complex urban interchanges, it's often not so simple.

As for the "to" in the middle, well, half the point of the colon is to stop things from running together. "I-10 E to New Orleans" isn't a huge problem, but is it "US-20 to Little Farms" or "US-22 Little Farms" or "US-22 / Little Farms"? Or are you going to some place called "Two Little Farms"? Sure, that last one will give us a pause.... eventually. Maybe in a year or so. But the colon is here now and, I think, makes more sense anyway. And, if we're just going to separate shields from text with "to", then, how do we make sense of "LA 3139 to Earhart Expy" when LA 3139 is Earhart Expressway?

[gettingthere]

Just to add another perspective. I had mentioned earlier in this thread that ramps named as 'to xyz' is not common with other Navigation applications. Of course a couple of days afterwards when using MotionX-GPS Drive I see ramps names in their application named:

'Ramp to xyz'

So they are going even a step further and using the word 'Ramp' in the naming. MotionX-GPS Drive uses map data from Navteq. So if Navteq is labeling ramps in this manner...

[R4CLucky14]

The "select all streets" function is indeed why the leading "to" was put there in the first place.

I'm going to be testing ramps without the leading "to" in my area with the next map update. I'm provisionally for getting rid of it; the only thing I'm not sure about is whether leaving ramps without control cities unnamed is a good idea. This is okay for singular ramps, but with complex urban interchanges, it's often not so simple.

As for the "to" in the middle, well, half the point of the colon is to stop things from running together. "I-10 E to New Orleans" isn't a huge problem, but is it "US-20 to Little Farms" or "US-22 Little Farms" or "US-22 / Little Farms"? Or are you going to some place called "Two Little Farms"? Sure, that last one will give us a pause.... eventually. Maybe in a year or so. But the colon is here now and, I think, makes more sense anyway. And, if we're just going to separate shields from text with "to", then, how do we make sense of "LA 3139 to Earhart Expy" when LA 3139 is Earhart Expressway?

Good points. But the colon already is being used for a specific place. If we divide the signs as you did:

[EXIT][SIGN][CITY]

The colon is specific used to set off the exit, thus:

[EXIT]:[SIGN][CITY]

If we use the / to specifically split multiple entries in each section:

[Exit ##]:[Sign 1 / Sign 2][City 1 / City 2]

Thus, we are left with only one needed operator left. I believe repeating the colon is a good idea, but a bad design and use. I consider it a hack, to make it work as expected, rather than us expecting Waze to follow a standard. That brings me to suggest "to", but I am definitely open to another operator. Currently, thus this is my suggestion:

[Exit ##]:[Sign 1 / Sign 2] to [City 1 / City 2]

But other potential possibilities:
[Exit ##]:[Sign 1 / Sign 2] | [City 1 / City 2]
[Exit ##]:[Sign 1 / Sign 2] - [City 1 / City 2]
[Exit ##]:[Sign 1 / Sign 2] & [City 1 / City 2]
[Exit ##]:[Sign 1 / Sign 2] ~ [City 1 / City 2]

That's my opinion, at least.

[jasonh300]

I don't see any reason to drop the "to" in the onramps. It's not spoken in TTS (which would sound awkward) and it's accurate if you read the display because you're on a ramp "to X-##". The name doesn't display on the map if the segment is a Ramp type.

Dropping the "to" will still screw up Select Entire Road if there's no control city.