Ramp naming proposal

[mithrandi]

If it's consistency you are after, whether you get a keep left / exit left / turn left icon, the icon does not signify any extra meaning. Why would you need an icon and a 'to N1 North' for some and an icon with just a 'N1 North' for others ?

Hmm, I think you misinterpreted something I said. I don't think a road should be labelled "N1 North" unless it actually is the N1 North. A ramp leading to the N1 would be labelled "Exit: ..." or "to ..." depending on whether it is a labelled exit ramp or not. What I was trying to say about icons is that you can read the arrow on the actual road sign itself as "to", I wasn't talking about the icons in the client; but nevermind, that line of reasoning doesn't actually make as much sense after some sleep

[mithrandi]

Okay, I finally got around to editing the wiki page again. Main highlights: I've added some additional organization to the page, reduced the word count (I think; I deleted a bunch of words but added some new ones), and added some references to the specific ZA road signs I mean instead of vague descriptions.

(Incidentally, I know the link to the road signs page is broken; still need to write that page...)

[Kuhlkatz]

A ramp leading to the N1 would be labelled "Exit: ..." or "to ..." depending on whether it is a labelled exit ramp or not.

I fully support the "Exit <number>: <Route><number><direction> <Street Name>" convention.
I was actually referring to the "to_..." bit in the entrance ramp name if used.
In my very biased opinion it does absolutely nothing except waste an extra 3 characters of storage for every ramp name and quite a few AT Grade connectors across the world.
It's dropped automagically in TTS, but it is still displayed in the client. All the other displayed instructions just have the next action (icon) and the next road name, which usually is in a neat, crisp "Uppercased Name" or "[N/M/R]Route Number Name" or whatever supported format.

The mixed "to This Next Road" looks crappy and carries no weight in my books, no matter who else adopted it across the world. It looks more like some spring chicken "wAs bUsy WriTinG GobBlEdYgOOk oN HeR FaCeBooK PaGe" instead of a professional job.

The only place I would actually support it, is for Wayfinders indicating "to City A" or "to City B", which we do not have too many of in ZA in any case.

I know, I'm facetious. Sue me

P.S. If all of those extra 3 characters are dropped for entrance ramp names across the world, Waze can easily store additional bitmapped attributes for most existing roads, like paved / non paved etc. without forking out anything for additional storage.

[mithrandi]

All the other displayed instructions just have the next action (icon) and the next road name, which usually is in a neat, crisp "Uppercased Name" or "[N/M/R]Route Number Name" or whatever supported format.

The mixed "to This Next Road" looks crappy and carries no weight in my books, no matter who else adopted it across the world. It looks more like some spring chicken "wAs bUsy WriTinG GobBlEdYgOOk oN HeR FaCeBooK PaGe" instead of a professional job.

I sort of see where you're coming from here, but there are a few things to consider.

1) "To Road Name" looks even more ridiculous -- or at least I think it does -- than "to Road Name", because the "to" is not really part of the name of the road (even though we are putting it in the "Name" field in Waze...).
2) It is important for the ramp to be named differently to the actual road segment for a number of reasons (navigation instructions, select all segments, traffic reports).

On the other hand...

3) If the ramp segment's name would "clash" with the segment it is named after, is there any situation where the name could not just be left blank?
4) The TTS instruction for turning onto a highway actually sounds a little weird. You get an instruction like "keep left onto M1 Johannesburg". If it said "keep left to M1 Johannesburg", it might be a little better, not sure. Of course, the presence or absence of the "to" here makes no difference as far as TTS goes, but perhaps a different prefix convention might improve how the TTS instruction sounds. By comparison, an exit instruction sounds like "exit left onto Exit 104: M1 Johannesburg" which sounds okay to me. On the other hand, "Entrance: M1 Johannesburg" or similar seems absurd, and I don't have any other ideas in this vein.

I'm currently trying to determine if there are any other technical reasons (as opposed to aesthetic reasons) for the current standard in place in other regions; if there's nothing else, then I think I could be persuaded to go for the "naked" style (ie. like "M1 Johannesburg"). It seems like ever time I change a ramp's name I end up changing it again 2 days later, anyway, so I wouldn't even end up doing extra work

[Kuhlkatz]

1) "To Road Name" looks even more ridiculous -- or at least I think it does -- than "to Road Name", because the "to" is not really part of the name of the road (even though we are putting it in the "Name" field in Waze...).

If we absolutely have to, the "to .." would be my choice too.

2) It is important for the ramp to be named differently to the actual road segment for a number of reasons (navigation instructions, select all segments, traffic reports)

Ramps should never be named the same as the roadway segments they connect. I'm not sure if it's named 'to..' purely to avoid the selection. For instructions where the same name is required, leaving it unnamed is the logical way to go. I personally refrain from using any actions where multiple segments are selected, since they seem to end up being more destructive than anything else if you want to apply similar attributes.
As far as traffic goes, I'm not sure that Ramps actually generate or form part of traffic reports at this stage. I cannot remember seeing any reports where ramp names were visible. The names themselves are also not visible on the client maps.

4)...By comparison, an exit instruction sounds like "exit left onto Exit 104: M1 Johannesburg" which sounds okay to me. On the other hand, "Entrance: M1 Johannesburg" or similar seems absurd, and I don't have any other ideas in this vein.
I'm currently trying to determine if there are any other technical reasons (as opposed to aesthetic reasons) for the current standard in place in other regions; if there's nothing else, then I think I could be persuaded to go for the "naked" style (ie. like "M1 Johannesburg"). It seems like ever time I change a ramp's name I end up changing it again 2 days later, anyway, so I wouldn't even end up doing extra work

I cannot remember seeing any particular reason for the 'to' either. We can likely pop Weezer or Alan a PM to confirm. If there's any history, Alan might recall, but it was Weezer that set up the US Wiki page.

What we should likely consider is TTS when using "Route#<direction>" vs "Route#_<direction>" naming of Exits and onramps. If we use the "Route#_ <(direction)>" or "Route#_<direction>", e.g. R101 (N) or even R101 N instead of R101N, TTS should be consistently pronounced the same due to some form of spacing between the Route, route no. and direction. I'm just concerned that N1N could be pronounced as "en-one-en" at some point in future if there is no form of whitespace or when bracketed. This should be more predictable for consistent results, especially if Waze alters the parsing of the TTS arguments to consider spacing to make it more logically in future.

[Kuhlkatz]

Just for the interested,

I did a Google site search for the reason to use not to use the "to" and ran into a similar discussion by the USA guys earlier this year as well for Ramp Naming. The whole saga is at http://www.waze.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=16468. It seems that the same concerns are raised as we did so far, including spacing for direction etc. etc. etc.
It also looks like the " / " in naming was supposed to force a pause, but current indication is that it never materialized.

I did fire a PM off to AlanOfTheBerg and WeeeZer14 to try and find any historic use or special functionality attributed to the "to " part in Ramp Naming. Maybe they are aware of something that we are not, but it also looks like it was suggested to be dropped in the abovementioned thread.

I still maintain that if the Ramps are properly named that the select all segments functionality should not be broken.

[mithrandi]

Okay, I had a look at that thread, and it seems like a lot of the participants don't like the "to" either; the only major concern raised is the Select Entire Street issue, which I think is simply not an issue in South Africa. An entrance ramp or connector at a major interchange will almost always have a "proper" name that is different to the road it would otherwise match; the cases where we would name a ramp in a way that clashes are unlikely to be important enough for leaving the ramp unnamed to be a problem. I'll be interested to hear what AlanOfTheBerg and WeeeZer14 have to say, but barring some technical issue being raised that isn't already covered by what we've discussed, I'm withdrawing my objections against dropping the "to" prefix, and I've updated my draft wiki page accordingly.

[Kuhlkatz]

Okay, I had a look at that thread, and it seems like a lot of the participants don't like the "to" either; the only major concern raised is the Select Entire Street issue, which I think is simply not an issue in South Africa.
...
I'm withdrawing my objections against dropping the "to" prefix, and I've updated my draft wiki page accordingly.

Tristan,

What still concerns me, is that despite a lot of the thread participants also being against it, the current method the US adopted still includes the 'to '. I agree that the Ramps should be uniquely named, but I would really like some more participation from other local editors on this issue.
If we can get a large enough group to voice their opinions on keeping or dropping the 'to ', we should get a clear indication of what the majority prefers.
Just because I'm hard-a$$ed about this, does not mean that I'm right. We really should go with the major opinion. I can honestly live with myself if most of the other editors prefers the 'to ' method. What I would actually appreciate even more, is that they do actually speak up !!

I also got feedback from WeeeZer14 on this :

Re: Question on "to " in ramp naming
Sent at: Thu Dec 13, 2012 4:44 pm
From: WeeeZer14
To: AlanOfTheBerg Kuhlkatz

Kuhlkatz wrote:
Alan / WeeeZer,

Just a quick question on the "to ..." in Ramp Naming conventions.
The "to" is droppped in TTS for onramps. Is there any particular reason for retaining the "to" part in naming onramps vs just an actual Ramp name / description based on the normal conventions ?

Are any of you aware of special functionality attributed to this that we might break if we adopt a naming convention that drops the "to " bit in South Africa ?
It seems a waste of space and looks 'cheap' in the client if displayed as the next instruction vs the normal instructions.

I would appreciate any input you might have on this.

Thanks

Carel

The main thing it does is guarantee that the ramp name is different from the roads connected to it. Here in the US, we may have a road named "I-40 E". The simplest ramps to it may only be signed as "I-40 E" with an arrow to the ramp. So the ramp name COULD be "I-40 E" just like the road. But the problem is that if you are working on the ramp or the main highway and do a "select entire street" in the editor, you will get ALL of the ramp AND highway segments at the same time which is usually NOT what you want to happen.

Of course the US standard also includes using the "control city" (next major city in that direction) for ramps, so the simplest ramp should be "I-40 E / Knoxville" for example, so the "to" isn't needed to create the uniqueness compared to the highway.

Keep in mind non-freeway cases as well. There may be an un-numbered exit going to "Main St". If the exit ramp is just named "Main St", we have the same uniqueness issue. So it would need to be "to Main St" or "Exit to Main St" to keep it separate from the road itself.

The fact that TTS ignores "to" has come up before. Ideally I think TTS should use it since to me there is a big difference in making a turn "at" a certain road vs. making a turn going "to" that road.

All that said, if you think things can deal with the uniqueness requirement and never use the word "to", I do not know of any issue with that if you can get agreement amongst the main editors in SA. I am pretty sure the UK does not use the word "to" in their directions. In their format as I understand, my "to I-40 E / Knoxville" example would be something like "I-40(E):Knoxville".

Please let me know if you have ay questions about what I said (I typed this quickly so I may have made a mistake).

-- David

If you type in 'Ramp Naming' on the Nanorep page, it pops up the US description and links to the Wiki, which obviously includes the 'to ' convention.

Just to be sure, I did also pop off the question to support. Even though the UK uses the 'Entry ' format, I want to be 100% sure that dropping the 'to' would not break any functionality that Waze had intended in the past or may have intended in the future for this.

Carel

[mithrandi]

What still concerns me, is that despite a lot of the thread participants also being against it, the current method the US adopted still includes the 'to '.

From what I can gather, this was due to a combination of issues: 1) the TTS behaviour / understanding was not quite as clear at the time the discussion was happening; 2) the discussion dragged on for quite some time going back and forth on certain issues, so I think some compromises were made just to get a standard finalized without getting bogged down in the details; 3) the situation wrt US ramp naming is slightly different to what we have here in ZA.

I agree that the Ramps should be uniquely named, but I would really like some more participation from other local editors on this issue.

Yes, I'd really like some more participation full stop. If everyone is just quietly watching and agreeing, that's one thing, but I get the impression that many editors are just not paying attention to this forum and doing their own thing, which doesn't really help reach an actual consensus.

And, just to be clear: like you, I am definitely after a consensus here, not to force a decision down everyone's throats. If there's an issue with any of my proposals, I'll argue my case, but in the end it'll be far better if we can apply a consistent standard across the country (even one that we don't agree on fully), rather than applying random inconsistent standards depending on what editor touched the map last.

Just to be sure, I did also pop off the question to support. Even though the UK uses the 'Entry ' format, I want to be 100% sure that dropping the 'to' would not break any functionality that Waze had intended in the past or may have intended in the future for this.

Well, that could be interesting, if you ever get a response. I contacted them a little while ago regarding the TTS issue with N1 etc. but haven't heard back so far.

[Chriseleven]

"To" is superfluous. I would exclude.

Ok. You have my comment.