State Hwy 1 South Island using city field "South Island"

[ispyisail]

Hi Guys

I've been thinking about naming the whole of "State Hwy 1" city field in the south island to "South Island"

The theory would be when you zoom out the only name left would be "South Island"

Thoughts?

[pcp192]

My view is that the city field should be used in all roads to reflect the area that the road is actually in. If its done properly I don't see why it's an issue. When zooming out the area/town names across the country is what you will see.
In bigger cities the field can show the suburb and in smaller towns or rural areas just use the name of the town etc.
motorways in the city should just have the city name.

Where this has been done in Auckland looks good on the map with suburb names being displayed in the correct places. I'll have to try again but in the past I did an experiment with searching and found that a road with the suburb in the city field can be searched using either the suburb or the city name. Waze knows the greater city name even when the suburb is put in the city field.

[ispyisail]

Waze knows the greater city name even when the suburb is put in the city field.

Are you sure about this?

I used to think this but now I believe some streets are labelled with the greater city name so it gives the impression that waze knows the greater city name..............

[pcp192]

I know it used to work, but that may have changed.
I'll find some roads around auckland again where I can try it out.

[Antmannz]

... now I believe some streets are labelled with the greater city name so it gives the impression that waze knows the greater city name..............

This.

I've found recently that you can now search without specifying a city and Waze will return results closer to you first. In the past it seemed completely random.

[nzhook]

My view is that the city field should be used in all roads to reflect the area that the road is actually in. If its done properly I don't see why it's an issue. When zooming out the area/town names across the country is what you will see.

I disagree with this, its fine in places like Auckland where everything is very connected, but once you start going out into the rest of New Zealand the client starts doing weird stuff, for example the middle of the town/city is the middle of all the roads that have that name. And recently ive found largish (50k) towns that are in the middle of nowhere because the city name had the name on the small road.

On top of that as ive mentioned in the other thread when people are setting the city, its based on 'ive just done this one', and everything in between doesnt exist until someone fixes it. For example Taranaki had a lot of places like this, Inglewood, Eltham, Midhurst, Patea, even Hawera were all listed as the incorrect towns because someone had done a town/city before it, entered the name and then when someone else came along they didnt update the field. At least if its set as No City it wont cause what the forum calls a City Smudge.

[ispyisail]

My view is that the city field should be used in all roads to reflect the area that the road is actually in. If its done properly I don't see why it's an issue. When zooming out the area/town names across the country is what you will see.

I disagree with this, its fine in places like Auckland where everything is very connected, but once you start going out into the rest of New Zealand the client starts doing weird stuff, for example the middle of the town/city is the middle of all the roads that have that name. And recently ive found largish (50k) towns that are in the middle of nowhere because the city name had the name on the small road.

On top of that as ive mentioned in the other thread when people are setting the city, its based on 'ive just done this one', and everything in between doesnt exist until someone fixes it. For example Taranaki had a lot of places like this, Inglewood, Eltham, Midhurst, Patea, even Hawera were all listed as the incorrect towns because someone had done a town/city before it, entered the name and then when someone else came along they didnt update the field. At least if its set as No City it wont cause what the forum calls a City Smudge.

yep, im with "nzhook" on this one

[pcp192]

I've just tried out my theory on searching using Ormonde Rd in Remuera.
It's named Ormonde Rd, Remuera (City) and here's the results based on varying search strings:
1. 'Ormonde Rd' - results include the correct road along with many other Auckland roads
2. 'Ormonde Rd, Remuera' - results include the correct road and may other roads with Remuera in either the road name or the City.
3. 'Ormonde Rd, Auckland' - results include a number of Auckland Roads none of them being Ormonde Rd.

I was sure option 3 had worked in the past so either I am mistaken or the search has changed since then.

Searching for roads in Taranaki has mixed results when there is no City field in the road name. for example Upland Rd in Egmont Village is impossible to find in a search. Entering 'Upland Rd' alone provides a number of Upland Rd's around the country not one of them in Taranaki. There is one in the results labelled 'Upland Rd, , New Zealand' (with the city field blank) but that is in Kelburn, Wellington.

There are two issues that need to be resolved regarding the City field
1. what to use in larger cities - 'City' vs 'Suburb' vs 'City,Suburb'
2. how to name roads in rural areas and small towns - 'no name' vs 'town/area'

What we want to achieve in both cases is
1. appropriate naming on the map visually
2. data that provides accurate results in searches

The search-ability should have a higher priority than the visual appearance of names on the map.

I still believe it is best to use a city value in the rural areas and name them correctly. The challenge perhaps is finding the correct name. The Wiki talks about not being able to use Google imagery for copyright reasons (http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php/Map_Editing_(new_Editor)#Using_External_sources_.28such_as_Google_Imagery.29) - does that include the actual map data as well? It's very easy to see the boundaries on the map by searching for the town/area name. E.g. searching for 'Inglewood, Taranaki' will show the boundary. If the City name is displayed in the middle of an area where it is used, and the roads are named in this way, then where it's displayed should be appropriate.

[nzhook]

Upland road (or many of the country roads in Taranaki) is a bad choice as ive only just named it before the latest map update and the routing server will not have caught up on the names (I dont understand why there have to be so many copies of the data updated before everything in the client works - but thats a different topic)

However the real question that needs to be asked is, is Waze a replacement for a navigation system like Google maps in that you can navigate from Auckland to somewhere you dont know. Or is it a user based traffic assessment app that you use in your local area to get around current problem spots?

Eg. Would I use Waze to find Second Ave, Whangarei when I live in New Plymouth? No.
Would I use to take me to work in the morning and avoid areas where there maybe delays? Yes
(ill also add Would I use Waze to find the fastest way to Second Ave if I was already in Whangarei? Maybe)

If I search for a road in the area im in, Waze will normally return the closest match (which if Upland Road was upto date, would be the one that runs from just outside of Bell Block through to just outside of Inglewood), where as if I was in Wellington it would return the one closer to Wellington.

That also leads into the other question, what is better to have city or suburb. City is helpful from a zoom level further out and doesnt clutter up the map, but as you get closer or start navigating you really need the suburb. This is why I like ispy's idea of having the city against primary streets and higher, but normal streets have the suburb. Its a pain if the street you want in a suburb is listed as primary, but now that they have added Alternative names back in, it should allow us to have both the suburb name as well as the city name (Only the primary name shows on the map, but the routing server apparently will search for both - once its updated with the most recent data).
The alternative names maybe why it worked correctly in the past, someone had entered them with both names.


For the copying from Google maps, that article is more talking about using it as an overlay. You can use it as a reference if need be, much like you could use a map from AA. You however can not use it to copy the roads (or imagery - which is something that maps Taranaki really hard - no good imagery) directly into Waze without first getting permission from the copyright holder.

And the areas shown in Google maps dont make a lot of sense for those driving the road, take a look at Egmont Village (70k speed limit thru the built up area), Inglewood (50k speed limit thru the built up area), and Waiongana (Theres no built up area so its all 100k)

Personally, if your driving 100k (or Open Road Speed) outside of a motorway then its 'No City'. Its the easiest option to explain for new map editors, shouldnt cause city smudges, looks correct on the map, and the client should find the streets correctly if your already in the area.

BTW, I would be happy with a town/city entered on all streets if we were doing postal addresses, had more fields to determine the built up areas and suburbs + could guarantee that all the city/towns/villages... were correctly entered.

[ispyisail]

However the real question that needs to be asked is, is Waze a replacement for a navigation system like Google maps in that you can navigate from Auckland to somewhere you dont know. Or is it a user based traffic assessment app that you use in your local area to get around current problem spots?

Both.

But it doesn't do the first very well. Having said that its getting better.