Private Installation Roads - gov/mil/public-sector
Based upon prior conversations and a number of side discussions at the Waze Meetup 2013, here is a suggested approach to handling larger private installations, and perhaps all private communities. I’ll start with definitions and a proposal followed by discussions.NOTE: This is an original outdated version. See following versions in this thread.
Definition: Private Installation
A small to large restricted-access set regularly navigable roads (street, primary street, highway, freeway) connected at one or more points to a public road network. Access restriction is usually implemented by gates or guards that only allow entry by authorized individual. An unmanned means of preventing one-way access could be tire puncture strip that would deflate tires of vehicles going in one direction. In some cases access may be unrestricted by physical means, but may be implemented through patrols, cameras, or other means that would lead to a response to apprehend an unauthorized visitor. A private installation may have nested levels of access. A particular region of the installation may be excluded to those who have general access to the larger installation.
Purpose:
Waze should not automatically route onto or through a private installation unless the destination point is within the installation. Waze should be able to route off of a private installation at any level of nested access without entering a separate access area of a deeper level unless the destination is within that deeper installation.
Examples:
= Military base
= Government installation
= Airports
= Private school
= Closed commercial campus
= Closed Communities
= Private sector exclusive clubs, hunting lodge and hunting grounds, ranches, etc.
Discussion:Proposed treatment:
Private installations will be connected to public road networks through two or more short private road segments of the same length at each entrance or exit. All roads within an installation will be of type appropriate for that road (dirt road, street, primary street, minor highway, major highway, freeway). One-way roads out of a private installation could be normal street types, but care should be taken that Waze will prefer that exit over all others because of a lower penalty. Therefore it is suggested that even one-way exits also be two private road segments of the same length. Nested private installations (wholly within another private installation) will likewise be isolated in the same manner from the larger installation. The private road segments and surrounding roads should be locked with a high enough level lock to prevent novice editors from deleting or changing this control.
There seems to have been two approaches I have read in the Wiki and Forum about how to handle installations in order to prevent general routing through that area. The two approaches seemed to be (A) mark one or more road segments as private at each entrance/exit to the installation (and perhaps one-way exit roads could be normal street type roads), and (B) mark all the roads within the installation as private. My guess is that those who advocated (B) didn’t consider nested level of access.
I submit that (B) will not work in general because it is quite common for government or military installations to have various zones of privacy or limited access. This is the same as nested levels of access. If we were to use (B) then it would be impossible to differentiate these various areas and one would be routed through inappropriate areas while on the larger installation. Although more rare or highly unlikely, commercial campuses (controlled by a company) and private-sector installations could also have such areas. Examples might be huge hunting lodges in the western US (some in NM) that have roads that are private around the lodge, but even more restricted access to the hunt area. Another common example are roads that go from public to private land that have multiple lock gates and cattle guards where the owners of the deepest property have all the keys to get in while those in the nearest nested access have fewer keys and gates to go through to reach their property.
Waze is used on these installations as demonstrated by GPS points. Some installations are huge and include highways, such as White Sands and some bases in southern California and Nevada. Many of the installations have many visitors that could use an up-to-date nav app.
Using approach (A), I am currently working on understanding exactly how Waze routes into and out of an installation like this, even without consideration of nesting. Routing in seems to work well. Routing out seems to have some strange dependence on one particular exit over the others until you get very close. This may be that a one-way exit is of normal street type, the lengths may be different, or there are a different number of private segments at one exit over another. I am trying to understand if the private road penalty is based upon number of segments or length of segments. Of course, this behavior is algorithmically influenced, and could change at any time based upon Waze’s routing algorithm changes.
Comments?
Re: Private Installation Roads - gov/mil/public-sector