Closed Gas Stations

Map Editors Community United States US Wiki Discussion
1

Recently conversations have occurred about how to best handle CLOSED gas stations. Since Gas Stations are an important feature in waze for the driver we want to ensure people are not accidentally routed to a closed station.

If we remove them from WME the google pin would be used and the closed part of it may not be carried over. We have been discussion in NY about best practices and thought it might be a good discussion at a national level.

Current thinking

Change the name by adding " - CLOSED"
Change to a point
Keep the Google Link
Remove Associated Brand
Change the category to other
Add comment that Gas Station is Closed
Change the hours open to only 1 Minute a week (example only Sunday 00:00-00:01)

I would love to hear thoughts

Some questions I have

How long to keep the place? Till SV & Satellite reflect changes?
Should a Map Comment be added?

Is there another way to address google search results?

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2

I think all of those a steps in the right direction. Seeing as MCs were not available in the past I think a Area map comment over the old gas station are is the best was to draw attention to the fact that we are awaiting a image update to remove

3

I agree with the above suggestions. I would also ensure a high lock to the closed gas stations to ensure that inexperienced or lurking editors do not add the gas station back. The area map comment would should also be locked as well. Making it an area would quickly catch the attention of champs who downlock for people asking for help in WME Chat. I would definitely keep the MC and closed gas station until satellite imagery updates. The MC shouldn’t have an expiration date since we do not know how often the satellite imagery are updated. Regarding the Google results, we can make a change within Google Maps to close the gas station via the feedback function. My two cents! Or 2 minutes of reading :smiley:

4

Personally the ideal way would be if we could flag a place as closed and maybe there is a need for work on how to handle places that closed, maybe this framework could be used for that? However that might be a larger discussion.

With places there is a lot more liberty I feel with deleting than maybe necessary. Especially with the advent of linked places I think we should examine how these closed places impact routing

One of the questions/challenges I think that was being raised was the google pins still giving search results. I feel that if we start a practice like this that it should be more based off that than street view satellite, since the frequency of these images updates varies by area and ultimately we are trying to prevent these from being a recommended search result.

Typically gas station are locked high already due to their significance L3/4/5. So I don’t feel strongly that additional locking is necessary beyond local guidance.

I’m not 100% convinced that a map comment is necessary. If we follow these steps and include a description that it is closed do we really need to add a map comment?

Best practice for places really shouldn’t be unlocking them. It should be send me the PL with the PUR and I’ll either approve or reject.

Forum Moderators as I see there was an older forum thread on this topic can these topics be merged

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5

John,
How are people routing to these gas stations? Are they using the search option in Waze? If so, does it really return Google results? When I checked just now, it didn’t give any Google results.

6

Below are an examples of me searching for a Gas Station using:

Search: Gas Stations option - Waze Place

Search: Mobil - Google Pin

Both for this place

(I have since linked the two)

7

I’m not saying you can’t search both ways for gas, I’m just wondering how many people will search by name instead of using the gas station search option.

8

Even if Google results aren’t returned, what about the other third-party providers? Wouldn’t it be possible for search to return Foursquare, Yelp or YP? Or do those only populate when you specifically use the tabs on the bottom?

9

I have seen URs for places that were closed and didnt exist in WME, including gas stations, so while I cant say how often this occurs, it does occur, I also go of the philosophy that there are many more issues out there than go reported. So if it is getting reported it probably is worth looking into.

I dont know if those results are as visible as the google results. In terms of those results clearly we are limited in what we can do to prevent them from showing up, but if we have a WME result it can help to have it more prominently shown.

10

I really think those people getting closed stations where there’s nothing in Waze are searching by name instead of the gas station tool. Linking would fix the Google result. What about the others?

11

Exactly so this would help address those incidents (as long as we have our own gas station in WME)

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12

Anecdotally, places I’ve seen marked as Permanently Closed in GM don’t show up in Waze’s search. Are we sure that this is a necessary procedure?

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13

Not everyone searches for PLACE/ POIs using the same terms:

Some search Mobil
Some search Joes Quickie Mart

Some search using the Gas Search tool
Others use standard search

So ideally we should cover all possible options when developing guidance

regardless of how often you, or your group of peers use one format
there is another group of peers that uses another

I often get instructions from clients to stop at the ‘gas station’ or ‘Quickies’ on the way out. Since I am not from the local area, that description is less than useful when trying to identify it in Waze, so I can set the destination.

That being said, I agree the general points originally listed, make sense for official guidance:

1] Change the name by adding " - CLOSED"
[I have been using “Mobile [CLOSED]” format]

2] Change to a point
The POINT vs AREA I can see going either way - I do a lot of auditing of Waze data when Im driving around, especially in new areas. So it would be useful to ‘see’ the Gas Station AREA marked as [CLOSED], however I could also understand the desire to not want to clutter the map in the app for closed businesses.

3] Keep the Google Link
The recent ability to link Google POIs to Waze PLACEs is a great way for us to eliminate out dated data from 3rd party search results specifically from Google.

We cant link 3rd party POIs to nothing tho, so the Waze PLACE is needed to direct those 3rd party results.

Services like YELP will sometimes show destinations as closed, when you can actually locate them in Yelp data. The biggest issue there is name variables - does Yelp call it Mobil, Joes Mobile or Joes Quickie in their data.

See my additional comments about alternate name usage below.

4] Remove Associated Brand
Often buildings are sold and reopen as new businesses, sometimes the exact business will take over an old location [re: Joes Quickie Mart / Mobile is now Johns Whoopie Mart / Sunoco].

Sometimes these locations are referred to by their old business names, especially by locals when giving directions [please stop at Johns Whoopie Mart, its the old Mobil station]

Some users may never look past the first page of instant results, others may review all the 3rd party tabs looking for that destination that they just KNOW ‘used to be near here’.

Visitors / tourists that return to previous locations [summer resort areas] wont know that Mobil is now Sunoco - and are searching for Mobil - it is possible for them to pull up a stray 3rd party result.

For this reason I also like to include the prior business name as an alternate - so that those stray 3rd party results get pointed at the current / correct PLACE data provided in Waze - which when formatted correctly will clearly inform the user that location is no longer open.

So all of this data should be included in the description when possible for a PLACE ‘holder’ in WME

5] Change the category to other
This makes sense generally, but may also create user confusion if they try to search by the expected category association, especially if this becomes guidance for PLACEs beyond Gas Stations

6] Add comment that Gas Station is Closed
For the same reasons mentioned in point 4, include as much detail as possible about the closed location, not just the fact it is closed in the description area of the PLACE.

7] Change the hours open to only 1 Minute a week (example only Sunday 00:00-00:01)
Agreed - this allows Waze to display the location is ‘Closed’ even if all the other comments / renaming is over looked by the user, the fact the store is not currently open for business is one more fail safe we can set up in WME

8] This sort of guidance should apply to ALL closed/ vacant PLACEs, not just specifically Gas Stations

9] As long as the building exists, the PLACE should remain - which is not quite “wait for the updated Sat Image” approach - as the Sat Image will still display a building there - Street View would of course display it closed once updated - however that might take several years to actually get updated

10] One point I am not sure about, is how often/ if ever the ‘back end’ connections for Gas Station price update services are ever recycled if a GS is sold/ reopened…is this another reason that WME should preserve original Gas Station places in WME?

14

How about this? Try to search for the place in Waze by whatever methods apply (name for any place, gas station search if it’s a gas station) and if external results are returned, modify the Waze place to show it’s closed by name, description and hours. If no external results are returned, just delete the place.

I don’t see a need to keep a place around if the building still exists. Besides, the photos would be outdated if something closes, so renaming it instead of making a new place in the event of reopening may just generate confusion. That’s also why I usually delete and recreate places if a business moves.

As for gas station prices, I have created GS point places in the app and they show up in price reporting on the next day. So keeping a GS place just for the price update ability seems unnecessary.

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15

As long as the gas station has the category as gas station it shows up in results hence why I like to change to “Other” also the brand is the name showing then and not the name for Gas Stations search.

I think shadowmaster brings up a good point which we don’t know enough about with the backend staff imported GS having a feed for gas prices. Deleting severs this link and we can not repair it later in if the station reopens. This workflow allows for a better handling of Closed then reopened GS as well.

I’m not exactly the biggest fan of alt names for other brands as if I search for Sunoco and a Mobil result shows up I am going to think it is broken. If it is no longer Sunoco it should not give results for that search. If we get URs complaining we can readdress but from a drivers perspective. I’m not going to complain that I searched for a Sunoco and waze didn’t give me the Mobil as the answer. There is a prominent gas station feature in the app and this is making more work for ourselves.

I am glad to hear that gmap results are not showing up that have been tagged permanently closed. This is newish and important. I think there is some value as mentioned with the gas price feed and future reopening of not removing right away but if the place is demolished I have no issue with it being removed as long as gmap results are not being given. So that could be a scenario if the building is demolished please verify alt sources are not still giving results then you can remove.

I think starting with gas station is best as they have unique functionality in waze unlike other places and if we find this is working or helpful then maybe evaluate expanding to all places but the turnover and moving of regular businesses is not quite the same issue with gas stations as you can easily relocated your scarf shop the gas station isn’t moving.