*UPDATED* Ramp naming convention proposal

[MReiser4670]

I used to eat at the pizza hut near that interchange all the time on the back way to coatesville

I still maintain adding a pause for a slash will benefit us the most, then we use the word "to" for multi road exits, but only if the sign groups the city and road separately. Using Morgantown for the example, the sign has the two road shields and then "Reading" with "Morgantown" underneath it. If you look at the sign, the text "Exit 298: I-176 / PA-10 / Reading /Morgantown" will read the sign verbatim.

If the sign had I-176 with Reading under it and then next to it PA-10 with Morgantown under it, then having it say "Exit 298: I-176 to Reading / PA-10 to Morgantown" would read the sign verbatim.


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In my opinion, we just need to do our best to recreate the signs as the driver sees them. I can't imagine adding control cities where there aren't any listed, and sometimes there are discrepancies through interchanges that create confusion unless the driver can simply hear what they see.

My local PA Turnpike exit is a great example. This is how the signs read all the way through the interchange in all directions:

Both EB & WB exiting the turnpike "Exit 343: Willow Grove / PA-611 to Doylestown / Jenkintown"

Go through toll

SB "PA-611 S to Willow Grove / Abington"
Center "to Home Depot Dr"
NB "PA-611 N to Doylestown / Horsham / NAS JRB Willow Grove"

Getting onto the turnpike from PA-611:

NB No BGS, just a big Penna Turnpike sign with a tiny I-276 crest attached. So "to I-276 / PA Turnpike"
SB "I-276 / PA Turnpike to Philadelphia / Harrisburg"

Go through toll

WB "I-276 W to Harrisburg"
EB "I-276 E to New Jersey"

Note that there are 6 different control cities exiting the turnpike and 3 entering. Also notice that Jenkintown doesn't even show NB or SB after the toll even though it was one of the control cities on the exit signs. Also notice that PA-611 SB traffic gets Philadelphia as a control city, but it doesn't show EB or WB after the toll. I can't imagine any other way to name these ramps but to merely repeat the signs as they are seen.

[R4CLucky14]

I'm ok with the double colon idea for exit ramps, but I do think it looks odd like others have noted. Even though it is two more characters, I personally prefer "Exit 220: I-310 S to Boutte / Houma". Due to screen space available, it's not optimal, of course, but it's more accurate. For really long signs with multiple routes and control cities, a colon or "to" isn't going to make a difference on what fits on the screen because most of it doesn't anyway.

I think that's a great idea, actually. It makes sense and removes the confusion from the different punctuation alternatives.

[R4CLucky14]

I believe, even if they aren't synonyms, to match the BGS, this would be best:

Exit 298: I-176 / PA-10 to Morgantown / Reading

I may be different, but I read BGS's like anything else. Basically, I would read I-176 and then PA-10 next to it, then I would read Morgantown, with Reading underneath it.

I believe the TTS should match how the user would typically read the BGS. As far as the to is concerned, it makes much more sense than any of the other formatting suggestions I have seen.

[R4CLucky14]

The only exception I employ for not putting ALL the info on the sign into a single segment is when a ramp exits to two distinct exits and the BGS for the first ramp shows both the exit numbers.

For example, ramp exits with BGS showing "Exit 12A: I-95 N / Cityname1 ; Exit 12B: I-95 S / Cityname2" and then down the ramp is a split in some manner into both ramps. This BGS is too long for a single segment name to be useful and to have TTS fit into an announcement before the next split into the actual ramp happens. TTS would be too late.

The standard agreed to in previous ramp name threads (I think it was agreed to) is to not name the first segment, and let the next ramp segments be named and propagate "backward" so that if the driver is heading to 12A, they will get "Exit 12A: I-95 N / Cityname1" for the first exit and the next, which will match part of the first BGS they see, and will match the second BGS they see.

The only issue I have with this is if the first sign makes it unclear that A and B comes from the same ramp, as letters are also used (around here) if the exits are within the same mile marker of each other. Some BGS say Exit ### A-B: xxxxxxxxx, but others may just say Exit ###. If the client told me to exit at Exit ###B, and the sign said Exit ###, then I would probably miss the exit, presuming B is further down the road.

Therefore, I believe if the first BGS doesn't help indicate it, perhaps the first ramp should at least have the exit number on the first BGS.

[R4CLucky14]

The double colon proposal is not an interim solution. I feel strongly that the double colon is more logical than the slash in some places.

I-110 S takes you to Biloxi. What's the clearest most logical way to signify this while using the fewest characters possible?
"I-110 S: Biloxi"
"I-110 S / Biloxi"

It's the colon. A slash implies an option, a choice. You are not choosing between I-110 S and Biloxi, you are taking I-110 S to get to Biloxi.

And, you know, now that I've been thinking about it, I don't like the "to" either. It can be ambiguous: is it "US-90 to Gulf Shores" or "US-92 / Gulf Shores"?

The only objection to the double colon, as I see it, is that it's not accepted in English sentence constructions. But we aren't constructing sentences here. We're trying to get our points across logically and clearly, both visually and aurally.

Actually, it's probably the worst I have seen visually. A double colon really makes no sense visually, esp. in this scenario, at least to me. At a quick glance (which is all driving allows), a double colon will not tell me where the information required is, as I'll read after the colon, and half the sign is missing. . .

I also agree that the to is very ambigious, esp. when signs actually have "to". However, this actually works well in those cases, to me, at least.

For example, we have a BGS that says "US-129 N to US-321 N" with the cities "Fontana" and "Atlanta" underneath it.

With double colons (not an exit, it's the straight through):

"US-129: to US-411 S: Fontana / Atlanta"

If it was an exit, for example, we would end up with a triple colon:

"Exit 00: US-129: to US-411 S: Fontana / Atlanta"

That looks rather complicated to me, honestly. I would personally perfer:

"Exit 00: US-129 to US-411 / Fontana / Atlanta"

The to conveys to US-411, but also to Fontana, and to Atlanta, with a quick glance easily denoting where the exit number is, and a longer glance allows seeing at least US-129 to US-411 really easily, to me, at least, again.

With the double/triple colon, it really blurs to me, without being able to quickly glance, since a colon (which is really distinguishable) means absolutely nothing now with that. Before the colon was an exit number, quick to read, after was the sign (thus, a colon marking a very good starting place, since, to me at least, they are very easy to depict), but with double colons, I need to identify the colon I am looking at in order to be able to know where the sign begins. It's not a good visual reference.

[R4CLucky14]

...Take the above exit sign example and suppose I-XX and US-YY overlap and US-ZZ leads to both City 2 and City 3. Then you going to have the segment labeled:

"Exit ##: I-XX / US-YY: City 1 / US-ZZ: City 2 / City 3"

To me, that gets really confusing because we are mixing the slashes for the overlap and using a slash to parse the second road out (US-ZZ) and then using another slash for City 2 / City 3. So the slashes lose their meaning rather quickly becuase they are used in multiple scenarios....

I've got some signs that are nearly as messy. The way I'd like to hear this read to me is:

"Exit to the right at exit xx <pause> I-XX <pause> US-YY to City 1 and US-ZZ to City 2 <pause> City 3"

Just like the second colons actually sitting there meaning the word "to", the second slash really is meaning "and." If we just had that TTS field which could read different text than the segment was actually named...

I don't know. I'd perfer to hear:

"Exit right at Exit xx <pause> I-XX <pause> US-YY <slight pause> and US-ZZ to City 1 <pause> City 2 <pause> City 3"

Even though it does not convey where the roads go to (which isn't important, what is important is good directions that match what the driver is reading and seeing), it does clearly convey the reading order of the sign, exactly how I would read it. . .

[R4CLucky14]

Hang on, Alan, when did we decide to add this to the wiki?

http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php?titl ... ldid=14856

This is a place where I thought "to I-10 E: New Orleans" was a no-brainer.

I disagree. The parsing engine drops "to" from the TTS (It would say "Turn right at eye 10 (pause) New Orleans"), from my experience, at least.

I believe the "to" is to stop the Select All feature from selecting ramps.

As far as the colon, I don't think it's appropriate. I believe "I-10 E to New Orleans" operates much better for on-ramps with control cities. Without a control city, I would suggest not naming the ramp. It will use the name of the highway to turn onto, exactly as if some wrote "to I-10 E".

That's my personal opinion, at least.

[R4CLucky14]

The "select all streets" function is indeed why the leading "to" was put there in the first place.

I'm going to be testing ramps without the leading "to" in my area with the next map update. I'm provisionally for getting rid of it; the only thing I'm not sure about is whether leaving ramps without control cities unnamed is a good idea. This is okay for singular ramps, but with complex urban interchanges, it's often not so simple.

As for the "to" in the middle, well, half the point of the colon is to stop things from running together. "I-10 E to New Orleans" isn't a huge problem, but is it "US-20 to Little Farms" or "US-22 Little Farms" or "US-22 / Little Farms"? Or are you going to some place called "Two Little Farms"? Sure, that last one will give us a pause.... eventually. Maybe in a year or so. But the colon is here now and, I think, makes more sense anyway. And, if we're just going to separate shields from text with "to", then, how do we make sense of "LA 3139 to Earhart Expy" when LA 3139 is Earhart Expressway?

Good points. But the colon already is being used for a specific place. If we divide the signs as you did:

[EXIT][SIGN][CITY]

The colon is specific used to set off the exit, thus:

[EXIT]:[SIGN][CITY]

If we use the / to specifically split multiple entries in each section:

[Exit ##]:[Sign 1 / Sign 2][City 1 / City 2]

Thus, we are left with only one needed operator left. I believe repeating the colon is a good idea, but a bad design and use. I consider it a hack, to make it work as expected, rather than us expecting Waze to follow a standard. That brings me to suggest "to", but I am definitely open to another operator. Currently, thus this is my suggestion:

[Exit ##]:[Sign 1 / Sign 2] to [City 1 / City 2]

But other potential possibilities:
[Exit ##]:[Sign 1 / Sign 2] | [City 1 / City 2]
[Exit ##]:[Sign 1 / Sign 2] - [City 1 / City 2]
[Exit ##]:[Sign 1 / Sign 2] & [City 1 / City 2]
[Exit ##]:[Sign 1 / Sign 2] ~ [City 1 / City 2]

That's my opinion, at least.

[R4CLucky14]

I don't see any reason to drop the "to" in the onramps. It's not spoken in TTS (which would sound awkward) and it's accurate if you read the display because you're on a ramp "to X-##". The name doesn't display on the map if the segment is a Ramp type.

Dropping the "to" will still screw up Select Entire Road if there's no control city.

I suggested dropping the entire name, not the "to", if there was no control city. The TTS would be exactly the same.

[R4CLucky14]

Another problem, though, is that some interchanges undoubtedly exist that are too complex for the first ramp in the series to be left unnamed.

These normally have control cities, and, thus, would be named...