Test of Text-to-Speech (TTS) Abbreviations in Waze Clients

[GizmoGuy411]

[Please note that this lead post is edited periodically to reflect updated information, with any changes highlighted in the color of the date that follows:]

Post edit history:
2012-10-31
2012-09-24
2012-09-06
2012-08-20
(post edit history not maintained prior)

This is a list of abbreviations and acronyms that are being added to two sandbox test rigs, to be tested in the Waze clients to learn their TTS output results for North America. (Jenncard maintained a second test rig.)

All tests are with the Nuance female "Samantha" voice only as used in North America. While we expect that the other voice choice for NA, "Tom", is likely to use the same TTS databases, we have not tested for it.

The list includes all the official and alternate abbreviations of the United States Postal Service, all the English abbreviations for Canada Post, a subset of the French abbreviations for Canada Post, a subset from the U.S. Federal Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices plus a number of others suggested by Waze users. (Additional abbreviations from the MUCCD for each U.S. State and from any equivalent list for each Canadian Province, have not yet been compiled.)

Official abbreviation list sources for specific states or providences are linked from their respective names in the test list.

If you already know or learn any TTS results, please post them here. Please submit only results that you are absolutely sure of, with the exact spelling (including any capitalization) of the abbreviation, and the confirmed TTS output result.

Also submit any additional abbreviations that you feel should be part of the list for testing and/or for future inclusion in the TTS system.

Some current abbreviations such as "Penn" (which generates "Pennsylvania") should probably be removed from the TTS system in favor of using the two letter state and province system. We should also discuss others for consideration that may need to be removed from the TTS.

To hear the most current TTS results from your Waze client device, it may be necessary to clear your current TTS cache. Enter "cc@tts" without quotes in the Navigation search to clear the cache. Waze should reply with a "TTS cache has been cleared!" popup box. Then wait for "Searching ..." to end.

This list will be updated periodically. (The initial list was submitted 2012-01-18, which took a month for Waze to process, and for us to test in the Waze Clients.)

Once we learn what the TTS currently knows, we can add the results of this list to the Wiki, plus
we can use it to submit our requested TTS "wishlist" changes to Waze. Please note that inclusion in the last does NOT mean we endorse an abbreviations. This list is merely to research the abbreviations that Waze currently recognizes.

To learn how to hear the TTS files on your Android device manually, read the side notes in the following post: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=15178&p=144296#p144296

A section on Abbreviations has been added to the Waze Wiki:
Editing Manual > How to label and name roads > Abbreviations

Google Docs Spreadsheet:
Text-to-Speech (TTS) Abbreviations in Waze Clients - Test List for North America

[CBenson]

I'm not sure how waze plans to handle regional/national/language diffences, but I am assuming that currently we are dealing with US English. If that is the case I would add in the state abbrieviations. For instance "MD" is pronounced "emm-dee" by waze. "Penn" is a problem and is pronounced "Pennsylvania."

I would also add the following:
Alternate - ALT
Bound - BND
Crossing - X-ING
Expressway - EXPWY
International - INTL
National - NATL
Route - RT
Throughway - THWY

I would also note that some abbrieviations are ambiguous: ST for Saint or Street and DR for Doctor or Drive. Also some streets are lettered thus there are "E St (or Ave, Blvd etc.)," "N St," "S St" and "W St" out there. Ultimately, there will need to be a method for distinguishing "St" when it means Saint and "St" when it means Street and "N" when it means North and "N" when is should just be "N." If this is done with punctuation then we need to test "St" and "St." etc. If this is done by parsing the phrase, that is "N" is N if followed by a road designation, but north otherwise, then we will need to indicate the different results depending on the phrase.

[mapcat]

Thanks for putting together the list. Very thorough. I look forward to seeing the results as they come in.

[AlanOfTheBerg]

Was this also to end up being an official list to help them differentiate things like Penn vs. Pennsylvania, St vs. St. (saint) and Dr vs Dr. (doctor)? I think we need to add those too, unless I'm missing the purpose of the full abbreviation list.

[jasonh300]

EXPY also works for Expressway.

[GizmoGuy411]

CBenson:
Excellent points CBenson. Some of the words you mentioned were already in the list I believe, however I'll be sure to add the ones you mentioned. At the Palo Alto Meet-Up there was discussion about many of the issues you mentioned. We did kick around the idea of using "St." for "Saint" and "St" for "Street" as you mentioned. I'll be sure to add "St." The list does have NE. NW, SE, & SW to see what they generate, but I forgot about the issue of differentiating roads named with a letter such as "E" from "east" as the current "E" abbreviation currently says. Since there are fewer roads named with a letter than roads that include a direction, we will have to think of a way to make them different. Maybe with quotes? Anyone else have ideas here?

I suppose I should test every letter of the alphabet to see what they say. N, E, S, & W may not be the only ones that produce a word.

mapcat:
Your welcome... altough I don't think I got any points for making that list did I?

AlanOfTheBurg:
Actually Alan, the list was to be multipurposed. Intially to learn what abbreviations the TTS already knows, and secondly to be a basis for creating our TTS "wishlist" for Waze. I'll see if I can make that clearer in the lead post. Thanks.

jason300
Thanks Jason.

[gettingthere]

Request to add (does not work currently)

C - Calle - The abbreviation would be the first word in the street name

We'll need to add a bunch of Spanish abbreviations since there are loads of streets in many states where the street name is in Spanish.

Pso - Paseo - confirmed working in TTS
Av - Avenue - confirmed working in TTS

[GizmoGuy411]

... We'll need to add a bunch of Spanish abbreviations since there are loads of streets in many states where the street name is in Spanish. ...

Geez, I wonder who we could ask that might know those!

[Timbones]

Does TTS not say "saint" when St is at the beginning, and "street" when it is at the end? This is how I'd expect it to work...

via TapaTalk

[xteejx]

Think it does Tim not entirely sure though.

using Tapatalk