Has the subject of Ferry Routes been raised on the UK forum before?
It’s of particular importance to us here in Northern Ireland, as we have a number of routes across to GB, but also some local ferries (Strangford, Magilligan and Rathlin) which save a lot of time on routes which could be driven (well, maybe not Rathlin!)
American wazers seem to map them as major routes, but mark them as toll roads. I think it really needs to be a “Ferry Route” road type in its own right, with the ability in the app to “Avoid Ferries”. The app would probably also need to warn in advance on routes which have a ferry crossing.
Down here (where neither the map nor the mapping conventions are as well developed as in the UK…) we’ve mapped most short ferry routes (the kind that cross a river, like the Tarbert-Killimer ferry across the Shannon estuary, or the Passage East ferry near Waterford) as normal roads with the ‘toll’ attribute set.
I’d be opposed to mapping ferry routes that cross a major body of water (like the Irish Sea) because there are many possible paths the ferry might take, the driver has to get out of the car, and (as pointed out in the thread that Pip referenced) it should be obvious that one has to drive to a ferry port, choose a route, buy a ticket (possibly in advance) and then spend significant time at sea without a data connection. I also imagine that any big sea-crossing ferry will probably take a different route each time depending on weather, tides, other sea traffic and so on.
The general rule we apply is thus: if you can turn up without pre-booking, stay in your vehicle, and can only go to one destination, then map it as a service road with the toll flag.
This means cross-channel or sea-going ferries are not mapped. The GPS positions vary so wildly it’s pretty useless anyway. Basically what David said.
We might one day have a special ‘Ferry Route’ road type…
Just alerting to the fact that Newhaven-Dieppe was added yesterday by a L3 name I don’t recognise (possibly French, and therefore not understanding UK guidelines). I’ve PMd the user concerned and suggested it’s cut back to the border.
I’m considering converting the whole route from Freeway to Railroad, so it’s not visible in the client.
This same editor also added a route from Portsmouth, which I’ve already changed to Railroad. The two routes from a Dover have been given the same treatment.
I’d suggest they guillotine them half-way across so they can have freeways on their side, and we can have railroads on ours (or delete them altogether)!
