Hi All,
I’m working in the centre of Chester a lot at the moment and there’s a time based access only system in place on a few of the very central roads. The restriction is No Vehicles except for access (so basically access only) Mon-Sat 8am-6pm, and it’s currently implemented as a time based restriction in two main places - here as turn restriction and here as a segment restriction.
I’m not convinced a time based restriction is the best way here, as it means waze won’t navigate to the places within the restricted area throughout the day. I wonder if private roads would be a better solution, and although this mean that waze wouldn’t use the roads for non access only navigation outside of the restricted time, I would argue these central roads shouldn’t be used for that anyway.
Any views/recommendations?
Andy
It would be ideal if you could make it a private road during the restricted hours, and a street during the open hours. Given you can’t do that, it’s best to set all three streets as a private road. With the restrictions, Waze won’t be able to route anyone to King St, Water Tower St or Northgate St during the restricted times.
I would make all three streets private then Waze will be able to route in if the destination is on one of those streets, ie for access. It won’t route through at any time, but those in the know will go their own route anyway.
It’d be worth locking them as high as you can and drop a NOTE report via the Live Map to give a brief to editors why they’re set to private in case someone reports they’re not and another editor thinks they should be set back to streets with no restrictions.
Thanks, that’s just what I was thinking, but it’s good to get confirmation from more senior editor 
Hi, just being nosy and having a look at this because it was an area I worked on a while ago after a few user reports and wasn’t sure then on how best to resolve it. You seem to have hit on the best compromise, but I noticed that despite being made private roads, part of Eastgate St and part of Northgate St still have restrictions on them as well. With these being one-way streets, won’t that still result in Waze being unable to route to anything beyond them even for access during those hours?
Hi, there’s a part of Northgate St that’s actually closed with a barrier between 10:30 & 16:30, so no cars can through. So this then means that there’s a bigger area which is just access only (private roads), but a smaller area within that’s closed completely between certain times (segment time based restriction).
There’s also an area of Eastgate that closed off with rising barriers and it was originally set as closed at all times via a time based restriction. I’m unsure of the times that this one is open, so I’ve left it alone for the time being. It only stops people from looping back to Northgate, so not too important in the grand scheme of things. I may try and ask someone what times it’s closed, if I can find someone helpful.
Hi Andy, thanks for sorting out those city centre routes.
Just spotted a blip, where Waze is favouring sending people up King St, possibly not the brightest suggestion. See how narrow it is on street view (this is a two-way street)
https://www.google.com/maps/@53.1929699,-2.8951596,3a,75y,84.81h,85.88t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1skjPkgznYgXMoAC6NQyCl3g!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en-US
this is a Waze’s current routing, going all the way round Fountains roundabout to then go back up King St:
https://www.waze.com/en-GB/livemap?zoom=15&lat=53.19188&lon=-2.89627&from_lat=53.19188&from_lon=-2.89627&to_lat=53.19299&to_lon=-2.89283&at_req=0&at_text=Now
whereas the correct approach to Northgate St is round Delamere/George St (because straight along Upper Northgate St is restricted to buses/taxis only)
https://www.waze.com/en-GB/livemap?zoom=15&lat=53.19332&lon=-2.893&from_lat=53.19188&from_lon=-2.89627&to_lat=53.19332&to_lon=-2.893&at_req=0&at_text=Now
Now the southbound Upper Northgate St is currently mapped as a parking road, this is great, no-one will ever be routed along it (https://www.waze.com/en-GB/editor/?env=row&lon=-2.89374&lat=53.19453&layers=2469&zoom=7&segments=264868414)
Suggestion: Could we also mark as parking road the upper end of King St? (https://www.waze.com/en-GB/editor/?env=row&lon=-2.89402&lat=53.19303&layers=2469&zoom=6&segments=231366589)
This would stop any route that crosses that length of street (such as the issue here) but it won’t stop routing to an address on the top end of King St.
other than that, things look to be working well. It’s nice to see it otherwise correctly routing, even through the barrier and down St. Werburgh St (https://www.waze.com/en-GB/livemap?zoom=15&lat=53.19338&lon=-2.89293&from_lat=53.19338&from_lon=-2.89293&to_lat=53.19091&to_lon=-2.88952&at_req=0&at_text=Now)
– Matt
Hi Matt,
Thanks for your help with this.
The reason why Waze doesn’t route down Northgate St is more to do with the time based restriction it on rather than it being parking road - I’m not actually too sure why its a parking road, I haven’t edited that road.
I see your point about this, Waze is obvious working out that it’s quicker to go down the faster A road rather than round Delamere. In order to stop it doing this, we could put the restriction back on this segment to stop anyone turning down Kings St at all, but this would stop routing to the houses on Kings or Water Tower.
I’m not certain if this would work, but another option might be to put a short normal street segment between this segment and Northgate St which might stop routing through King St, but allow routing onto King St - I might need advise from a more senior editor on this!!
Also, was it you that raise the UR about this on Northgate St?
Andy
yup that was my UR, I couldn’t understand the curious suggested route I got earlier today. Now I think we’ve worked out why.
Not sure the access time restrictions do come into play on that stretch of Upper Northgate St, since it doesn’t apply to all vehicle types. But the change of road type certainly does, from parking road -> road again (obviously this is a good thing because it avoids Waze suggesting all kinds of nasty cut-throughs via retail parks etc! https://wiki.waze.com/wiki/Routing_penalties#Segment_properties
I think how you’ve done it with private roads everywhere (no more restrictions into King St / Water Tower St) should stay, as it’s better routing into those roads than it was previously. We just need an extra penalty to stop routing all the way up along King St and out onto Northgate.
If we do have just a short non-private segment between top of King St and where it joins Northgate, that will effectively route all traffic to King St via the St. Martin’s Way end, even it they’re starting from Delamere/George St (because of the extra penalty leaving private Northgate onto that new segment before King St). But that might not be an issue, if someone has got as far as Delamere St they probably know where they’re going anyway. We might also excuse Waze as the turn from Northgate to King St is tightish and so best avoided; and the only parking for King St is at the bottom end anyway. So I can see that working, though I’ll defer to better judgement if it arrives shortly…
Also it is probably also clearer to the casual editor(!) that a short segment serves some magical purpose, whereas setting a long road to parking might look like a mistake, and that’ll get “corrected” at some point.
ps: though this section of Chester hardly warrants it, I stumbled upon https://wiki.waze.com/wiki/Private_Installations as an interesting read.
pps: I’ve just realised that at the west end of King St is actually King’s Buildings, and that’s the (only) street sign that anyone will see turning off St. Martin’s Way. See streetview or the council’s very helpful mapping tool (choose the OS for Ordnance Survey layer and zoom right in).
(I know this segment is a mix, the north side properties are numbered on King St, but the south side are King’s Buildings; I’ve left it as King St.
Thinking about it, it’s better to send visitors via Northgate for the upper half of King St, so they can drive down past their address and then end up at the lower end of King St where there’s parking. (The alternative is far worse of coming in from St Martin’s Way, driving up King St past your address, then finding yourself on Northgate with a big detour to get back to the bottom of King St again to park)
That would be accomplished by having the short segment in the middle of King St where it narrows, just east as King’s Ct comes off south. Any addresses to the west of and including King’s Ct would be directed in from the west off St Martin’s Way; any for the narrow east end of King St would drive via Northgate.
These changes are live now, the routing is working as intended:
Addresses on Northgate St are now routed via Delamere/George St, never via King St. example
Similarly for the narrow part of King St (so drivers can continue down to the parking by King’s Buildings) example
The lower end of King St, and Water Tower St etc come in via St Martin’s Way example
I’m mindful of the advice given for mapping private areas in https://wiki.waze.com/wiki/Private_Installations#Common_Best_Practices which suggests that roads in a restricted are should be left as normal type, and instead it’s a short section at the entry to the area that should be marked private (corresponding to where the restriction signs are). If the city centre here is ever changed to follow that advice, then in the middle of a normal King St that short segment should be marked private; along with new short lengths of private road west of King’s Buildings and another at the entry to the restricted length of Northgate to the north. That will maintain the current routing of bringing in all traffic via Delamere/George St, except for addresses round Water Tower St/the lower end of King St by King’s Buildings.