Naming Standards

[zarf]

Yup - agree with you on the data model. If we're consistent about the "Suburb, City" naming structure that should mean that it will be possible for the Waze team to programmatically populate the Suburb field if it ever arrives and change the city field back to just the city part. Whether we'd ever manage to convince them to devote the dev time needed for such an update in SA is of course another matter.

[zarf]

Road Types

OK, so here's the road type plan that Blyzz & I debated IRL the other day. I'll lay out our proposed standards first and then get to the reasoning afterwards.

Freeways: Any national road (with an N prefix) should always be classified as a freeway in Waze, even where it passes through the middle of a one-horse town and has its speed limit reduced to 60kph.

Major Highways: Major arterial roads, as indicated on any maps produced by the Directorate of Surveys & Mapping, or identified as such by SANRAL or the provincial roads department responsible for their upkeep are major highways. These roads have an Rnn naming structure, where nn represents a two digit number (eg: R27), and their road sides enclose their names in a rhombus/diamond shape, and they're typically the primary roads that connect cities and towns to each other.

Minor Highways: Surveys & Mapping's maps call these secondary roads. Their designations are R's followed by three digit numbers. eg: R304, R102.

Primary Streets: In metropolitan areas anything with an M prefix is automatically (at least) a primary street, but there will be of plenty of other major roads that qualify as primary streets without the M prefix. In rural areas, it's probably appropriate to use primary streets for district roads that have a D prefix, but probably not for private roads (P prefixes).

Promotion: Anything roads from Primary Streets upwards can have segments of their length upgraded to freeway status where appropriate, but only in those segments. You can generally identify genuine freeways by the presence of freeway starts/ends signs at the beginning and end and, most importantly, the absence of intersecting crossroads. ie: Freeway road segments have fly-offs (or ramps) and don't have stop streets or traffic lights. eg: The M3 in Cape Town is a freeway Westlake to the top of Wynberg Hill and from Newlands Ave all the way to Vredehoek, but the section in between (Edinburgh Dr & Paradise Rd) is just a primary street because it has traffic lights and other intersections with side roads connecting directly to it. See https://world.waze.com/cartouche/?zoom= ... ayers=BTFT

Demotion: Roads don't get demoted below the status they inherit from their prefix or naming structure at any point in their length. So, just as the N2 remains a national road (and hence a freeway in Waze classification) where it runs through that intolerable stretch of traffic lights in the Somerset West/Strand area, so the R27 is always a major highway even in the sections where it's interrupted by lots of traffic lights.

I think the N vs Rnn vs Rnnn vs M breakdown is a pretty clear guideline that should work for us 99% of the time. The biggest question that Blyzz & I debated was what happens to highways when they pass through the centres of towns or cities. In some of the roads I've previously labelled, I demoted major highways to primary streets where they pass through towns with traffic lights or just plain old stop streets, but that's inconsistent with the treatment of national roads, many of which are also subjected to the indignity of stop signs in some areas, and I think inconsistencies are dangerous ground in naming standard! An even bigger motivation for not demoting roads, though, is that lower level roads like primary streets aren't visible when you zoom out too far on the live map or on our mobile clients, and so if you're visually scanning a route through a town, highways that get demoted would seem to disappear through the middle of the towns, and that's never confidence-inspiring.

All comments welcome as usual.

[Discus]

Wish I'd stumbled upon this previously - was wondering why South Africa wasn't present on the Wiki with naming standards.

I'll go about renaming all the roads in Grahamstown with abbreviations for Street etc, and also the road name - Rnnn instead of having the Rnnn as an alias soon, as soon as the thing stops giving me blasted error messages.

I'm in a more rural part of South Africa than perhaps zarf & Blyzz, and it doesn't really make sense to me to make, for example, the N2 a "Freeway" between Grahamstown and Port Elizabeth. Yes, there are certainly sections of the N2 that are what are internationally classed as "Freeways" near and in PE, but in between here and there, even calling it a "Major Highway" is a stretch in international terms! I note your concern about such roads disappearing when you zoom out, but "Major Highway" seems to stay prominent on the Live Map display even when you zoom out pretty far - sure if you can see the whole country on your phone, they disappear, but you'd probably zoom in a bit anyway? On my E71, I can get PE and Grahamstown in one screen and the N2 shows up as a line when designated Major Highway. To me, a Freeway categorically must have ramps as the only way of getting on and off them - if there's a road that just meets them, or a traffic light or even a stop street, they're not Freeways!

Whilst there is certainly an argument to be made for adapting the Waze road types to a country, when we're looking at hosting something like the World Cup with many international visitors (and the big tourism sector in any case), calling a piddly little road a Freeway will probably lead to confusion (You can almost picture it: "I'm on the wrong @#$&*^# road, this thing is too small for a Freeway! Where the heck *is* the Freeway?" etc.). I'd certainly advocate we keep the major N roads as Major Highways even if they go through towns and have traffic lights, or are just a single lane with no hard shoulder in each direction, promoting them to freeways when they meet the definition?

I like the idea of preferring the "real" name of roads over their numbers in South Africa - we generally don't refer to or even often signpost very well the M etc numbers of roads. You know you have to go down a particular street to get somewhere, and if you ask for directions, you'll get street names more often than not. The M etc is quite handy for comparing it to a map book or working out what the big roads might be that get you around quickly.

The other interesting thing in South Africa is road (and town/city) name changes. I like what Durban has done, having the old names below the new ones on signs - you still get a lot of people referencing the old road name in JNB with no sign of that road existing any more if you read the signs and painted road names these days. Perhaps the Alias field would be good for these cases? Having "New Name Rd (Old Name Rd) - M47" would be quite unwieldy. We should definitely think about ways of handling these issues, I think.

I'd also like clarification on another issue. Grahamstown has a lot of very, very wide streets with a central area that isn't road; I've taken to splitting these into 2 one way streets, but am not sure about the best way of getting them to intersect with other narrower two way single roads and with each other. The most "important" roads in Grahamstown are probably High Street, Bathurst Street and Somerset Street, and all of these are (at least in considerable sections) like this. Some of them are even wide enough to have multiple lanes in each direction in places. I'm still tweaking it to get it looking right and actually following where the roads go irl, but you can see what I'm playing with quite easily. Any thoughts? I've taken to un-naming short "link" roads where you can cross through "islands" in them.

Here's a good example: http://world.waze.com/cartouche/?zoom=9 ... FFFFFFTTTT
Of course, the whole area in the box wedged in between the intersection of the 4 lines is actually road - you can drive on it, and you'll get GPS tracks though there over time.

[pevans_om]

Welcome Discus

Good to see another person active in the EC.

I was just thinking last week that maybe I should upload what we've discussed here onto the wiki. We have more than enough info to make a good start on a page for SA standards.

Choosing when to use Freeway and when to use Major Highway is a tough one. I'm still of the feeling that national roads (Nx) should get denoted as freeway just because they are our major connecting routes and should stand out as thus. But I here what you say about possible confusion. I see that OpenStreetMap has them change to "Trunk" Roads once they stop being true freeways

For my money OpenStreetMap has better road classifications than Waze; being Freeway, Trunk Road, Primary Road, Secondary Road and Unsurfaced Road. (much simpler)

The other deal with Waze is that since it's beta it's always changing. I see now that we have "Ramps" as a separate designation. Not sure what's up with that?

As for joining wide roads. I think that navigation is more important than look. So drive the road with navigation on and see how Waze tells you to go. If what Waze shows makes sense with what you see IRL then that's perfect.

[Discus]

Thanks pevans_om!

I've used "ramps" as on/off ramps on the N2 - you can see examples along the N2 where they're working on that flyover near Coega (Hougham Park road, if memory serves - I was wondering WTF they were doing having such a minor road randomly crossing the N2 there!), and just outside Grahamstown, where the N2 intersects the R67. I'm pretty sure that's what they're intended for.

Yes, the OSM road types seems better from your description. I'm also somewhat wary of Waze's "Dirt/4x4" classification - there are lots of really good dirt roads in South Africa - and there are 4x4 trails (and/or really bad dirt roads) you'd get stuck on in a "normal car" too - I really feel those two should be split up. I've once come across a road that suggested 4x4 only (there was a road sign) - other than some fairly impressive dongas in a few places (which you could have gotten through in a Citi, if you knew what you were doing), it was "just a dirt road" to me. But take a low-slung car along there, and you'd have gotten stuck...

Perhaps we could open a ticket on UserVoice suggesting some changes to road classifications? (my votes are all currently used up on other things already )

The POI types could use some work too - there aren't enough, and there are some really obscure ones when things that make much more sense are absent - what the heck is a "Crew of Vessel Location" when it's missing Supermarket, Pharmacy (insert common shop type)...? They've also spelt "Place of Buisness" wrong.

I think we should definitely decide on what to do with the national highways outside of towns and places they're not (internationally obviously) freeways before we wiki-ise the suggested road "taxonomy" - does it make sense to call/designate for example the N2 as it winds its way through the former Transkei a "freeway", what will all the cattle and pedestrians in the road, and the times it simply becomes a major road through a small town?

Perhaps the "easiest" change would be to have the roads designates as "major highways" stick out about as much on the maps as freeways do? This would obviously be something the Waze admins would have to change - we can't do much about that!

I'll have to have a look at what it does with navigation turned on - GHT is so small I don't really use the navigation feature! (And there's nowhere really convenient to be able to "see" my Nokia in my car whilst I drive along).

It's great that this system can be more up-to-date that even Google Maps, who did the whole street view thing through here just a few months ago - and there have been road changes since then that don't reflect. OK, so I don't have as many roads mapped in GHT as they do, but they're more "right"

Thanks!

[mohag]

Demotion: Roads don't get demoted below the status they inherit from their prefix or naming structure at any point in their length. So, just as the N2 remains a national road (and hence a freeway in Waze classification) where it runs through that intolerable stretch of traffic lights in the Somerset West/Strand area, so the R27 is always a major highway even in the sections where it's interrupted by lots of traffic lights.

This seem to make sense in urban areas, but large parts of N roads in North West and even the Northern Cape are quite small and often full of potholes.

http://goo.gl/maps/FHTh is an example of a smaller N road.

At parts the N14 between Krugersdorp and Ventersdorp is even closed http://goo.gl/maps/2oA8 due to sinkholes and the detour have a dirt section. (here's the turn off: http://goo.gl/maps/LB4z, the road itself is not on streetview, the satellite view is here: http://goo.gl/maps/H5Jm )

[andre-m]

Hi there,

I see there is now a wiki page for South Africa editing standards:

http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php/South_Africa

But this conflicts with some information presented here. For example, the wiki page says " Always write out the suffix in full, i.e. Road instead of rd, Highway instead of Hwy, Avenue instead of Ave. " But this thread says to use abbreviations.

Similarly for primary road numbers. Wiki page says to use the number in brackets "Road Name (M31)", but the standard on this thread says to use "Road Name - M31"

I did not know about this thread, and have been following the standards set out in the Wiki page.

Is there a consensus about which method to apply? I can go back and rename all my roads again.

[mithrandi]

Hmm, I think the wiki needs some editing.

Regarding "suffix in full", this conflicts with the general Waze editing standards, so I don't think we should go down that road (tee hee); on the other hand, there's no real need to go back and edit all of your roads just for that.

I would vote for "Joe Slovo Dr (M31)" over "Joe Slovo Dr - M31"; or in the case where you want to write the route number first, I think "R24 (Albertina Sisulu Fwy)" works better than "R24 - Albertina Sisulu Fwy" or "(R24) Albertina Sisulu Fwy". These are all just workarounds for Waze not presenting alternate road names in a usable fashion, unfortunately.

[Chriseleven]

Just to get back to the suburb issue (a few random thoughts).

I don't think the priority is going back to streets that are already there - there are too many blank areas that need filling

It is difficult to know where suburb boundaries are. In fact I do not know how you determine the suburb boundaries without very good local knowledge or stealing some copyright info. I have lived in PE for 30 years and there are still some surprises when I see some suburb names boards or in postal addresses that include the suburb

[Chriseleven]

I would vote for "Joe Slovo Dr (M31)" over "Joe Slovo Dr - M31"; or in the case where you want to write the route number first, I think "R24 (Albertina Sisulu Fwy)" works better than "R24 - Albertina Sisulu Fwy" or "(R24) Albertina Sisulu Fwy". These are all just workarounds for Waze not presenting alternate road names in a usable fashion, unfortunately.

I don't like the route number first - no-one knows the route number in PE. We go by street names