Alternative Junction Naming Scheme for UK

[dmcconachie]

My client currently tells me to "exit left" regardless of how a slip road is named, or if it's even named before.

I've never seen my client (v2.0) say 'exit left'...

Actually happens too often in my opinion, eg I get exit instructions from a single carriageway minor highway!

[dmcconachie]

Actually happens too often in my opinion, eg I get exit instructions from a single carriageway minor highway!

It happens wherever you use the "ramp" road type. It also gives an "exit left" when leaving a roundabout to join an entry slip.

That's how it should work! However I get an "Exit left" instruction travelling North and bearing left at this fork
Nary a ramp type in sight!

[dmcconachie]

While there are many A-roads that don't have junction numbers, there are also a few motorways that don't either.
For example: A57(M) in Manchester, A58(M) and A64(M) in Leeds, M45 near Coventry, M275 in Portsmouth, and A167(M) in Newcastle.

Just sayin'

Exceptions can't drive the rule! :-p

[dmcconachie]

Darren, have you raised this issue, and have you received any response at all?

Yes - let's await their input before we all get even more heated and start tearing each other new ones!

[dmcconachie]

Whilst I'm having a moan about the TTS it also reads A461 as "A four sixty-one", rather than "A four six one" - is it just me that cringes, or does anyone actually read it as "A four sixty-one"?

It isn't officially supported here - once it is we'll be able to request changes like this!

[dmcconachie]

We can try, there have been a few SQL style requests I have made, none have yet been done. Plus part of me shudders at the thought of a mass edit like that. I have visions of a basemap-style cockup!

[dmcconachie]

Well done Dave, good to get these things documented. I made a couple of small edits, I confirmed "Ter" on the TTS this morning and you'd missed a closing parenthesis. #OCD

[faitaru]

Right. Took way too long to reply to this.

First off, despite being name checked in the OP by Tim, I 100% do not support the use of the city field for road junctions. Yes, it was my idea. It is however a crap idea. It looks stupid on the client and I have issues with using a field for an unintended purpose like that.

Moving on... I have no problem with the current junction naming scheme. It's not perfect, but it was the result of a fairly lengthy discussion back whenever. I can appreciate that it's not always ideal for dual carriageways, but for motorways I feel that it works perfectly fine.

I was gonna multi-quote a bunch of stuff from various posts, but I can't be bothered, so I'll just list points as I think of them.

Using US naming guidelines:
Completely wrong for the UK. The problem is this: in the US a freeway/interstate exit is for a SINGLE road. If there are 2 roads, there are 2 exits. In that case naming an exit as "to Whatever" is fine because you immediately know which road it is. In the UK most motorway exits are for multiple roads. I would think a good 60-70% of them have roundabouts which serve anywhere between 1 and 6 different roads. Naming an exit slip with the road it leads to can only work if it leads to a single road. If it leads to more than 1, then you've either got to list them ALL, or make some stupid decision based off [what?] to decide which road you think is most important or which road you think any given wazer is likely to take? That doesn't sit with me. It's pointless anyway, since as soon as you hit the slip road you're given the next instruction for the approaching roundabout/junction which lists the road number you want to take.

A1(M) J46:
What you've done here Tim, is suddenly created different naming schemes for on and off slips. You've also got a lot of redundant info in there for traffic reports now. This is one of the problems with using the city field. Yes it doesn't appear in nav, so you don't get redundant info there, but in all traffic reports you're going to get "A1(M)" and "J46" appearing twice. No need for it. Also north and south labelling has been agreed on for a heck of a long time. There should be no situation where we resort to spelling them out instead of using (N) and (S). Waze have been adding new abbreviations for TTS in the US, so I expect they will do the same here. I'd also like to see J46 remaining as J46 for this reason, rather than any sort of expansion to Junc46 or Jnct46 or Junction46.

"to":
Any road named "to Somewhere" looks horrible to me and naming in this way should not occur in my opinion. Replacing "to" with a colon in the middle of a slip name I would find acceptable, although I would not push for that change.

(CW) and (ACW):
Obviously the M25 and M60 are exceptions for the normal road direction naming convention. However I think there is some confusion over the signage that has been discussed here already. Around the M60, there are signs which say things like "M60 (N & E)". The "(N & E)" on these signs is nothing to do with the direction of the road. It is signing you to the fact that you will hit the north and east sections of the M60 by going that way. It works in much the same way as a sign that might say "London (W)". You are not heading west, you are heading to west London. (CW) and (ACW) can be added to the TTS by waze.

Dual carriageway junctions:
In the original discussion on junction naming last year, it was suggested that on A and B dual carriageways, if there was not a junction number present, then other info could be added to make identifying the junction easier. E.g. "A40 (W) Polish War Memorial Exit" or "A1 (N) Exit to A14". I guess this was never copied over to the wiki, which is why in most cases it has not been adopted.

The exciting quote section:

I think the current format is very confusing.

In what way? How is "M1 (N) J10 Exit" confusing?

"Medium traffic on M62 (W) between M62 J31 and M62 J32"

In reality this would never happen. The only times you would see this would be if you had 2 junctions VERY close together with no other towns/cities nearby. The best you could hope for in traffic reports is "Medium traffic on M62 (W) near M62 J31" or "Medium traffic on M62 (W) in the neighbourhood of M62 J31".

tl;dr
In conclusion, I like the current naming scheme and don't see a reason to change it unless a better alternative can be produced. In my opinion, the city field is not a better alternative. I also don't think copying the US directly is a better alternative.

[faitaru]

I disagree. The driver only needs to know the most major one or two road names so he can be confident that he has the correct junction. Remember, junction numbers are small...

Junction numbers are small on the signs, sure. However, and I don't know if this is the case for everyone else but it certainly is for me, if I'm giving someone directions or explaining where something is off a motorway, my sentence would start with "You need to come off at junction..."

Okay, so it looks like my ideas have been shot to pieces. I concede that using the city name is just not going to stick. I'm not ready to give up on the ramp names though...

So, how about these?

• Motorways - "Exit: J44 to A64"
• Dual-Carriageways - "Exit to A19 - Selby"
• On Ramps: "Entry to A64 (W)"

Why? I think that if we start ramp names with the word "Exit" we'll get "exit left" instructions instead of "keep left". The only downside is that you have to loose the current road name (which is unnecessary for navigation). Could always add "from M1" on the end maybe?

Example: "Exit: J44 to A64 from A1 (N)" would be displayed/read by the client as "Exit left at J44 to A64 from A1 (N)"

I think you're confused about something. My client currently tells me to "exit left" regardless of how a slip road is named, or if it's even named before.

Basically it seems to me that you take issue with the fact we're currently including the current road name at the start of a slip name. Changing "A1 (N) J44 Exit to A64" to "Exit: J44 to A64 from A1 (N)" is doing nothing but rearranging the information and in my opinion making the name more confusing.

I can assure you that not all exits from highways in the United States lead to only one road.

My bad, over generalisation there I guess. I've driven a lot in Chicago and SF, and I've also driven across America along interstates in the south, and in my experience exits which lead to more than one road were few and far between. I think my overall point was the fact that the greater majority of junctions from UK motorway lead to roundabouts or complicated interchanges with many roads leading off them. I just feel that labelling a junction with just the "major" road that it leads to is not overly helpful, especially when you're going to immediately get instructions for the road you want to take as soon as you hit the slip.

Purely because (in my view) inexperienced drivers look for the following information when exiting a motorway: junction number and destination (route name and/or town name).

Someone who is not familiar with a road may not remember that they are on the M1 (not everyone is as experienced as you) and when they see "M1(N) J10 exit" they may miss the J10 because they are looking for Luton Airport or whatever and not the M1.

I guess I have no reply to this other than to say I entirely disagree with that. Even on the old 2.* clients with the info down the bottom, I feel that it is clear enough for people to be able to read the whole thing without "missing" any of the info. On the new 3.* clients it's even clearer, especially if it's just "M1 (N) J10 Exit" with no other extra info. It fits nicely on one line in a nice big noticeable size. Besides which they will have the exit left image, along with the client telling them to exit left in 1 mile/half a mile/whatever.

[faitaru]

My client currently tells me to "exit left" regardless of how a slip road is named, or if it's even named before.

I've never seen my client (v2.0) say 'exit left'...

It's in the 2.9.* and 3.* versions.

My client currently tells me to "exit left" regardless of how a slip road is named, or if it's even named before.

I've never seen my client (v2.0) say 'exit left'...

Actually happens too often in my opinion, eg I get exit instructions from a single carriageway minor highway!

It happens wherever you use the "ramp" road type. It also gives an "exit left" when leaving a roundabout to join an entry slip.

Exit left in my experience only gets said when you've enabled the hidden TTS option.

Incorrect.