Help with Roundabout

Map Editors Community United Kingdom
1

I came across a UR and I thought dead simple this roundabout Permalink had a street name so I removed name and assumed it revert to a roundabout. But when i did that it did not so I assumed it would not act as a roundabout so undid my changes.
If I resort back to it being a street with no name will it tell users anything, at present its saying left, and left to go straight ahead. If that don’t fix it what magic do i work to make it a roundabout :slight_smile:

I tried running route checker but i guess that bases its information on the live map not what changes I make?

Thanks Ian

2

Its a currently set up as a circular one-way road, hence the instructions.

The council have signposted it as a roundabout but unlike most roundabouts it is a residential street with houses on it. The wiki says:‘To aid navigation instructions, roundabouts should remain unnamed. If the roundabout does have a proper, signposted name, then for this can be labelled using a ‘Junction/Intersection’ type Place that fills the centre of the roundabout.’

So we have a bit of a contradiction, because you need the name to navigate to.

I don’t know what happens to the instructions if you name a roundabout, perhaps someone can tell us.

3

Whether a street has is named or not doesn’t affect whether it is a roundabout.

So far as I know, the only way to make a roundabout is to draw a new one using the roundabout option on the road-drawing drop-down (same drop-down as for creating a new street, next option down).

It is possible to convert a roundabout to ordinary streets using Toolbox, but I’m not aware of a reverse process for converting an existing circle of streets into a roundabout.

The reason we don’t have street names on roundabouts is that it causes (or caused, don’t know if the problem still exists but haven’t heard that it doesn’t) confusing navigation instructions.

This gives a problem with a roundabout which in the real world has a street name and houses on it.

Map it as a roundabout with no street name and Waze won’t be very good at navigating to address on it. :frowning:

Map it as a non-roundabout and you don’t get roundabout instructions. :frowning:

I can think of a possible solution which may work but would need to be tested. First draw a roundabout, with no street names, in the normal way. Second, draw a “nested” roundabout just inside the first one, and give it street names.

The outer roundabout would link to all the surrounding streets. This would be the only one Waze could reach for navigation. Since it has no name, roundabout instructions should work OK.

The inner roundabout, being smaller and drawn second, would not reach the neighbouring streets. It would be impossible to navigate onto it since it would not link to any roads. However, if Waze were asked for an address on the circus, it would identify this point on the inner roundabout (with the name), and then might navigate to the nearest accessible point on the outer roundabout - the best of both worlds?

If people think this might work, I’ll give it a try.

Ian

4

I disagree that this is a roundabout at all and I can find no roundabout signs on Google Street View.

You can see signs like these at all 4 entrances to the circle. Despite many people incorrectly thinking so, these are not roundabout signs. One is a blue sign whose meaning is “Turn left ahead”. The other is a set of black & white chevrons meaning “Sharp deviation of route to left”. Both those descriptions are quoted from the 2015 Highway Code.

It’s true that these two signs appear at nearly every roundabout. But their appearance does not make a junction a roundabout. Nor, for that matter, does a road sign showing a junction laid out in an approximate circle. There is an official sign for a roundabout - a white triangle with red border and a circle symbol in the middle. There are none of those I can see here.

Now, having said all that, it’s never quite that simple. There are junctions that are genuinely roundabouts that look nothing like one - particularly roundabouts with a blocked-off segment. There’s an example here where the northern roundbout looks nothing like one. It was attracting URs in double figures before I remapped it like this and the URs stopped.

Similarly, there are plenty of one-way systems that are shaped like roundabouts but are simply not. In Watford, the left-hand part is not a roundabout: it has no signs as such and the roundabout instructions when I drove through were seriously unhelpful. I converted it to a one-way system a few days ago and expect to test it out next week.

So in dealing with a UR like this, you have to consider the actual signs, driver perception and the needs of routing. Here, the reporters belief that this is a roundabout is unfortunately mistaken. Since it’s a circular, residential street, it needs to me mapped as such in order to give sensible directions and routing to addresses on the street.

I see you’ve closed the UR saying you’ve made the changes - even though it’s still not a roundabout and shouldn’t be. You need to add a comment saying you haven’t changed it and explain briefly that despite the signs he sees, it isn’t a roundabout but a residential street and mapping it as a roundabout will affect routing to addresses there.

As for names on roundabout segments. Previously, this was very badly handled by the Waze app. You would get a mixture of different voice prompts - some indicating a roundabout, some indicating a turning - at different distances as you approached the roundabout. I have heard rumours that these problems have been fixed by Waze. However, the name still doesn’t get used in roundabout instructions at all. There are also not that many genuine roundabouts with destinations on them. Therefore, and mainly for simplicity, the rule remains do not name roundabout segments.

5

Makes sense to me have told the UR the correct info now :slight_smile:

6

I normally bow to Iain’s vastly superior knowledge :sunglasses: , however on this occasion I did my homework before answering :o . My technical web skills aren’t great but if you go to the junction of Windmill Rd and Belle Isle Rd and look north you will see a proper roundabout sign on the approach to Belle Isle Circus.

I think this is worth a try.

Cheers!

7

What does Iain think now?

8

Well done! It’s here, for reference. I obviously didn’t start far enough back from the Circle. I’ve now checked further back along all the approach road and this seems to be the only one of the four that has a roundabout sign.

As I said before, you do have to balance the signs that are available against routing and user expectation. With this example, I would still stand by my opinion that this is better off mapped as a circular one-way system than as a roundabout.

However, I also chatted with Ian on the UK Admins Hangout about this issue. The alternative he mentioned above would be to map it as a roundabout (un-named). We could then add walking trails with the correct road name and house numbers. I believe that Waze would then route to the segment closest to the walking trail - although there is some question as to whether it will route to the point closest to the correct point on the walking trail, or to the point closest to one end of the walking trail.

I would, personally, place the walking trail segments outside the roundabout rather than inside - effectively along the front gardens of the properties. This is a similar solution to what we need to do for houses that can only be accessed by a pathway; or for a named terrace of houses situated on a road with a different name.

If we change this to be a roundabout with walking trails (and my preference is still not), I’m not sure it’s worth messaging the reporter again about our inability to decide. :lol: Although if we do, we can always give them a link to this discussion. :mrgreen: