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New Page - Tunnels

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From my searches of the Wiki I do not find anything that covers more of the "theory of operation" around tunnels. WeeeZer14 mentioned to me that it comes up enough it would be good to have something to reference. Currently on our Map Editing Page we have a TODO item on Tunnels. It is listed as "How to add tunnels", but currently nonexistent. We can link that to this page and cover any aspect of the tunnel.

I propose a full page with the following basic information. Below is the basic content/outline. Any comments or suggestions are welcome. Once we get far enough along we can create the actual "Tunnel" Wiki markup and add the appropriate interpage Wikilinks. I need feedback on the Theory of Operation section since I am making that up based on what I know about the segment tracking.

Also I rarely go though any tunnels, but I have one just north of me (mostly straight) that I can do some basic tests as needed. If someone has more experience with tunnels please speak up.

I did find a few threads talking about tunnels and sound like the problem is worse than I have described. My description appears to be the solution after the Waze client app uses the accelerometer in the phone. Is it possible some phones provide more tracking in tunnels than others? If we don't know I can pose the question to the Waze team to try to get an answer.
http://world.waze.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 51#p197951
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=22589&p=250978&hil ... ls#p250978


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PAGE: Tunnels

Tunnels are no different from any roadway segment(s) including bridges, viaducts, overpasses, etc. The are drawn and modified the same way as any other road using the geometry nodes to shape the roadway through the tunnel.

==Theory of operation==
The complication with navigation through tunnels is that generally they obscure GPS communication and cell phone data connections. The Waze servers track each mobile device (driver) as they enter and exit each segment along their route. With the start and end times of each segment, the Waze server can calculate the average speed of drivers through that segment. This is how the Waze server can determine if the tunnel traffic is flowing normally, or if there is a slowdown of the vehicles in the tunnel even without the GPS tracking information while inside the tunnel.

<!--
1. Is this correct? Again the few times I have passed through my short tunnels I did not pay attention.
2. Do we want to get into more details than this?
3. What does it do if there is a junction inside the tunnel and only the outside ends of both segments are accessible to the server. Does it simply take a weighted average based on proportional length of the two segments and assign average speed to both based on the one reading?
-->

==Creating a tunnel==
Due to the GPS and mobile device data communication problems inside tunnels, the mapping process of the tunnel is difficult if it does not follow a straight path from the entrance to the exit. The important point of any tunnel mapping is to at least connect the two entrances to enable the routing engine to use the roadway through the tunnel as appropriate for destinations on the other side of the tunnel.

Find on the visual map the locations of the two entrances of the tunnel. If you know the tunnel is a straight path through the tunnel you can simply draw a new straight road between the two entrances and name the segment appropriately. If you don't know the path of the tunnel personally, check to see what is shown with the GPS tracks through that area. If it shows a consistent path of curves, then the active mobile devices are able to track and communicate the data back to the Waze server and you should lay out the road following that path by altering the geometry nodes to match it.

If you know the roadway is curved by personal experience and there are no matching curved GPS tracks, consider estimating about where the curves exist inside and shape the segment using the geometry nodes. Then once that new roadway segment is live on the client app you can drive through that tunnel and if the mobile device has the ability to generate its own internal GPS estimate you can see about where on the map your vehicle is in relation to the roadway. Note where the road may turn before or after the map display and make adjustments when you return to the map editor later. Although it is not critical that it match exactly, it is helpful for drivers to have the visual route be similar to the real road as they pass through the area.

==Junctions in tunnels==
Some roadways through tunnels include splits or exits to other routes inside the tunnel. Creating the split is done the same as with any other junction. As described in the section above, the GPS tracking and navigation may make it difficult to know exactly where in the tunnel that turn truly exists. In the case of splits and exits, it is more important to be more accurate in the estimate of the actual roadway split or exit so the navigation directions match the roadway as closely as possible.

==Tolls for tunnels==
If a tunnel requires a toll to be paid in order to pass through the tunnel, use the same toll road controls as for any other roadway segment.

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Post by CBenson
sketch wrote:And I assume anything that does have valid GPS points for the whole time won't trigger that particular merger function.
That would makes sense, but I'm not quite as optimistic.
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Post by datakoe
Hi all,

there's another one interesting point from my experience. In Russia we have a local navigation system which uses the last noticed speed when you're entering the tunnel and tracking you accordingly the road on map. Surely the road already must be in place in order to track adequately. Perhaps something similar can be implemented into Waze?
So just a road marking isn't enough in any case.
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Post by harling
martinchaney wrote:There needs to be some way of marking segments as tunnels so Waze knows not to expect GPS reception in them. As it is, Waze is generating automated map errors because it thinks people are getting more directly from point A to point B and thinks there's a missing road.
My introduction to the IGN editors was the addition of a freeway segment connecting two ends of a tunnel in a straight line, intersecting and junctioned with a couple ramps and service roads along the way. They obviously saw the GPS track and concluded that there must be a new bridge there...
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Post by harling
Please forgive my late re-entry into this discussion.

The main thing that distinguishes tunnels from other segments is the lack of GPS data--and the problem we are trying to solve is not how to detect tunnels or designate them on a map, but how to route through them when faced with that lack of GPS data. (In fact, if equipment were installed in certain tunnels that provided both accurate GPS information and data service, they wouldn't require any special handling at all.) A guideline of applying a negative elevation to a tunnel segment is harmless--as long as the routing engine doesn't start making assumptions based on it.

As I have mentioned ad nauseum, there are sections of the Central Artery in Boston where underground ramps crossing both above and below the main tunnels, all directly below both street-level and elevated roads. It's a perilous area to edit, and any one-size-fits-all rule about relative elevation is almost guaranteed to fail at some point. [I am not aware of any place where we have run out of negative elevations and need to assign a non-negative elevation to an underground segment, but it could happen. I am certain that we have had to use a -5 in more than one location.]

As for the more important problem of navigation, I'm still convinced that the only manageable way to navigate a network of branching tunnels (in which GPS and/or network connectivity are unavailable) is to treat the entire "dark" graph of segments as a black box with M inputs and N outputs, and each of the (MxN) combinations has its own total length and transit time. The segments are visible to the driver, editors and routing engine for the sake of calculating distance, displaying the map, generating turn instructions and (maybe) generating the "black box" data structure itself, but any attempt to treat each internal segment between points A and B independently, as is done above-ground, will be a combinatorial nightmare.
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Post by harling
kentsmith9 wrote:
harling wrote:Please forgive my late re-entry into this discussion.
The main thing that distinguishes tunnels...
Lots of good thoughts in there, but I am not sure I saw a suggestion to change in our current page. :mrgreen:
Frankly, the time of championing my own ideas regarding Waze (e.g., reviving the Best Practices page) ended a couple years ago. I have plenty of ideas, and read many good ideas from other people, but in my experience all the talk in the world has resulted in very little actual implementation. If anything I post is noteworthy today, I'll leave it to someone else to include it wherever it belongs, and not bother writing functional specs and such until I'm on the payroll.
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Post by jemay
What about any discussion about the Landmark - Tunnel? Should that be added or help in identifying the tunnel?
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Post by KB_Steveo
Thread is over a year old. We should probably start a new one and fix the link in the wiki page mentioned in the last post now that the tunnel check box is in production.
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Post by KB_Steveo
I also have a question. Do we have a minimum length for something to be considered a "tunnel". This is why I'm asking https://www.waze.com/editor/?env=usa&lo ... 413&zoom=6 Klondike Rd, in particular... a seagull could fly through that....
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Post by KB_Steveo
I don't have an issue calling it a tunnel, I'm just trying to start a dialogue. Something this short, do we need to click the checkbox, or is setting its elevation to -1 good enough, etc.

*edit* A dialogue that doesn't get lost in a GHO. :D
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Post by kennedia
Is there any reason this page cannot be published in the wiki? Of course it can always be adapted over time.
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