Road types

[AndyPoms]

In CT I'm using the CT DOT Functional Classification Maps to do road typing. I've gotten through about half the state & have noticed a significant improvement in routing and a drastic decrease in URs reported.

Every state has Functional Classification information as it is part of the US DOT standards. The only trick is coming up with an acceptable translation from Functional Classification to Waze Road Type. The one I'm currently using is pretty straight forward, but there is one functional classification that could either go Minor Highway or Primary Street depending on what it traces back to (and sometimes you have to go back several towns to figure it out).

[gettingthere]

It's not 100% clear what is best.

* When the roads are classified as highways or freeways, Wazers can't effectively use the 'avoid highways' options in the client since it avoids these local roads that are set as minor highways on the Waze map.
* When the roads are classified as Primary roads, they may be ignored in the routing algorithm when setting a longer route and the roads are not at the beginning or end of the route. Exactly how the routing works is not public information so we need to observe how it works and draw conclusions with partial information.

With this said, in the metro San Diego metro area we changed most of these Minor Highways to Primary Roads. When the road gets out of the 'city' the are still classified as Minor Highway. These are mostly state and county roads that most drivers don't even realize are a numbered route. They are generally referred to be their local street name and no one would think of them as a highway.

The other benefit we have in this case in San Diego is that we are at the 'end of the line'. So it's more likely that these Primary Roads are at the beginning or end of a route vs. the middle of a long route since most people don't pass through San Diego to get anywhere else do to it's location at the Southern end of California and to the West is the Pacific ocean.

So basically you will may need to do some tests in your area to ensure that changing from Minor Highway to Primary Road does not cause issues from longer routes through your area.

[gettingthere]

Yes, it depends on the area. In San Diego the route number for non-freeway state routes, specifically minor highways is not important to the locals and these roads are not thought of as highways. So Primary St works out well and allows the avoid highways option in the Waze application to be useful.

The other side effect is that the turns from the Primary street are not incorrectly announced as exits. They are not exits, they are regular turns at traffic lights.

[gettingthere]

I'll have to play with it a bit. My job right now requires me to drive around all day so I see a lot and can test out the routing. I normaly dont use the nav part since I know the town a lot better then most.

Obviously using the Nav is important when testing this. In addition, you may be losing out on one of the main functions of Waze which is traffic avoidance. Although if there are not many Wazers in your area and / or little traffic that may not concern you.

[harling]

In my area, if a road has a route number, it is designated as Minor Highway at minimum. Other main roads that do not have highway numbers are Primary Street.

[invented]

In Ontario, we had a mass downloading of highways to lower-tier municipalities in 1997 and 1998. It is these roads that existed at that time that I maintain as the minor highways. The major highways represent all the current King's Highways.

Then there's the guy in Toronto that does whatever he wants.

[shrekfx]

I was added a couple roads that werent on the map and was changing the label of a couple primary roads from street to primary street and noticed the "main" roads in town were listed as minor highways. Is this normal? I dont want to be changing something that might confuse other map editors and want to try and stay on the same page. Town I'm in is Sioux Falls, SD Thanks

[shrekfx]

O.k. that helps a little.. Here in Sioux Falls, the primary roads are the arteries of the city and some do head out and turn into state or county highways, but not neccesarly be counted as a way through the town to do out of state traveling since we have 3 interstates. One is a bipass that goes through sioux falls, and the other two go from north to south and east and west. Most roads except for cliff ave and minnistoa ave actualy end at one point and start up at a different due to rivers, golf courses or housing developments. I'll have to play with it a bit. My job right now requires me to drive around all day so I see a lot and can test out the routing. I normaly dont use the nav part since I know the town a lot better then most.