There have been discussions on the various forum posts and we have not actually had anything specific to alleys on the state wiki page. One of the outcomes of those discussions reflect rationale I have used for the “alley” behaviors and it has been formalized for one state here: https://wiki.waze.com/wiki/Wyoming#Wyoming_Alleys
This wiki page does not reflect any guidelines with respect to major urban areas versus smaller towns which normally means there is wide latitude to wording such as “careful consideration”. Tho it does reflect consultation with peer/senior editors rather than personal feeling. I would like to get feedback on inclusion/adoption of this for the Indiana State wiki page to formalize the sometimes informal guidance.
I’ve frequently wondered about alleys in IN. The referenced wiki page provides a logical foundation to build upon, though as you mentioned, some clarity may be beneficial regarding “careful consideration.”
Overall, I think it would a good addition to the IN wiki.
As stated, the referenced link provides a good starting point, but still needs a bit more explaination on the “consideration”.
Personal preference steers me away from mappnig alleys. It clutters the map, makes editing harder (more segments to deal with), and ultimately there’s little reason for anyone to be mapped to an alley (unless in a city). Small towns, rural areas, and residential areas really don’t have much need for them, routing-wise. Obviously, if an alley provides benefit to a user, then I see its use. I can think of several alleys in Evansville, which are high-use because they lead to parking lots for businesses. The lots are accessible from main roads, but easier to navigate via the alleys… But by no means the end-all, be-all method of travel.
To play the Devil’s Advocate and be fair, I also see where having the alleys could be useful for the speed data. (Brian enlightened me on this one) When I leave my house, I drive the alley… Slow. If I were to snap to one of the surrounding roads, it’s going to give false speed data.
Keep in mind, I have limited experience, knowledge, and editing area… So I’m by no means an authority… Just a guy with an opinion.
The legacy reason most often used is “map clutter”. It has been repeated often - and perhaps for good reason. Even tho I don’t fully appreciate the the replacement of the old road color scheme, the newer WME color scheme certainly de-emphasizes alley/PLR for rendering. As for “more segments to deal with”, dealing with segments regardless of number is simply part of map editing. Trying to eliminate/avoid app clutter rendering without knowing specifics of what/when/whether something gets rendered in the app is not always the best reason for which segments to avoid mapping. And those rules can change. Our toolsets/scripts have made editing life infinitely better, so some of the entrenched legacy assertions may not be as relevant today. I’m not saying the reasoning is all bad, but that is why I am raising this for comment.
However, for historical reasons, alleys came in from basemap import. Many were whacked on sight due to no guidance back then and based solely on personal preference. In urban areas where alleys were part of the “urban fabric”, they were usually cleaned up - to the point you see them now. Effects on routing weren’t clearly understood - and actually pre-date the current HN resolution guidance as detailed on the referenced page. If the verified HN issue had been know/dealt with as part of basemap cleanup, a great deal of UR complaints of “STOP routing me to alley!” would be non-existent.
“Careful consideration” is in reference to adding them back in. One of the “careful considerations” might also be “what does the rest of the area look like?”. Uneducated editors are likely to follow the lead of what others have left behind (before reading the wiki). So will they delete “carefully considered” additions because they see no others around? Or will they simply add more because some “carefully considered” additions are currently there? If we use GPS tracks as part of this, what happens when the wazer density increases in an area? Are we going to go back and re-investigate whether we should NOW add them in? That’s hardly worth the effort. Treatment of alleys should be a much more mechanical process. If a vehicle can be on it, mapping it can prevent some annoying behaviors for incorrect routing away from there, or incorrect snapping (undesirable speed data) on adjacent drivable ones. I agree that most people in alleys are likely to be local - so perhaps routing instructions are not the best guide. But doing our best to allow waze to accurately capture speed data is essential to the benefits waze provides over other mapping apps. That seems a more compelling argument on the side of necessary-but-I-don’t-like-it “clutter”.
I do like what Wyoming put together. But maybe we can go a step further and create a standard for all of the GLR. Michigan (one of our neighboring GLR states) has already put an alley standard on their wiki page as well. https://wiki.waze.com/wiki/Michigan#Alleys
If there would be a consensus GLR-wide, I would certainly be in favor of it. However, the use/mapping of alleys seems to evoke very strong and long-held positions on both sides - even within particular states. Much of the objection has to do with the 2 points above - clutter and address location or routing interference. The better we understand the second point, the less we can rely on the “clutter” argument. And since there is also some expectation of mapping consistency, “clutter” cannot be quantified for guidelines. One final point on this is that alleys do not meet the “your car shouldn’t be on here” criteria, so we should have more objective/consistent criteria at least by locality - per town, county,metro area or other definable boundaries in any case.
There are pros and cons to mapping Alleys, currently in a majority of the situations there are more cons than pros. I agree with what Wyoming says
Alleys should always be mapped if:
they have an official name.
they are the sole access to a home or business.
Alleys may be mapped if:
they are acknowledged by the municipality.
there is evidence from Update Requests, Map Problems, or GPS traces that the alley is traveled regularly.
I found this from a NJ wiki on alleys, but they have since taken out the explanation on why they use the parking lot road type.
Alleys should always be set to “Parking Lot Road” type. Parking Lot roads will suppress traffic jam indications which is beneficial not to clutter the map with people sitting in an alley waiting for someone like is done in a true parking lot.
An Idea I have is if on the software side of Waze they could add into the code that parking lot roads named "Alley can only be traveled on if the driver has their home set as the aderess that is close to a street and a parking lot road names alley (ex. within x-amount of feet). And if the wazer that is traveling to that address does not have it set as their home then they will be routed not to the parking lot road named Alley but to the street in front of the house.
Cons:
Map clutter: A way to fix this is to have on the app not display parking lot roads named alley unless you are within .25 miles of reaching your destination that is in a alley
JD I agree with what you said on uneducated waze editors on how they delete from and add to the map, we could possibly lock a alley that was carefully considered but that only adresses the editors who delete the carefully considered alleys not the ones who add many more thinking they are doing good, and getting many more edits.
Pros:
With alleys you stop the false speed limits to be associated with the streets.
Some Alleys are the only way for people to reach a house potentially
Some Alleys are traveled regularly
Alleys are good to have if the coders working for Waze can make it so that people who have the address as their home location go to the alley and the guest is routed to the street address. And the excess alleys are only shown to those driving through them to get to their house.
It would be nice to have these guidelines in place before the GLR Raid in Indy so that we can have them posted up on a board so when we are going through all of the streets we can adhere to the guidelines making everything in the GLR on the same page alley wise.
Agreed that it would be good to see if we can get guidelines in some form to be discussed/agreed to by the meetup if possible. For now, getting some agreement for Indiana could be a good first step.
I can say that any guideline/solution that involves changes to waze routing itself should not have a bearing on guidance, since those changes are beyond our control in a timely fashion.
I would also say that guidance around GPS tracks/usage/MP/URs does not make for the best guidance in this circumstance. Usage patterns may vary from initial placement (deletion?) and periodic evaluation is not worth the effort given the large number requiring evaluation. We don’t gauge usage as a criteria to the merit of mapping streets, given that we expect them to be used or be represented on the map when someone travels to the area. There are things we expect the routing engine to do with what is on the map, and that should be our focus. We don’t expect the routing engine to use these unless they are the only/best way as a final destination - however there are many elements that are also on the map for thru-routing or where there are considerations as start points or potentially for re-routing. It is quite easy to focus on final destination considerations only - but to lose sight of the others is to be a bit too short-sighted perhaps.
Illinois is apparently working something out for alleys. I noticed that alleys in NW Indiana are based on what was determined to be an alley by a census workers in the 1980’s when block level geography became important to statisticians.
Simple way to determine whether the alley should be there:
Is it paved?
Is WSV available?
Are there consistently GPS tracks?
If all of those questions are no, then there shouldn’t be an alley
From a standards/objective point-of-view, for #1 paving is immaterial. They are often improved - tho to varying degrees to be sure. It could have bearing on whether they have a “dirt” check mark if that is ever added to waze. The use of dirt/4X4 trail is treated routing-wise as PS, so this is currently an inappropriate designation for alleys.
For #2, there are roads we map that aren’t available to SV, so its use in determining map-ability of alleys is also not the best/most reliable test.
For #3, we use presence of GPS tracks on non-driveable roads to determine the likelihood of speed pollution, but not for other driveable roads. Again, we don’t apply the GPS tracks issue to the mapping of parking lot roads or even long driveways - we have other criteria.
You raise some good points and helping to develop an objective standard is a noble goal since we spend an inordinate amount of time debating this topic.
However, the most frequently cited arguments are “clutter” - certainly not an objective standard - and “google maps (or your favorite GPS) always routes to the street - not the alley”.
We know why Waze routes to the closest driveable road - and it’s a behavior we actually rely on. Blaming this on alleys is misdirected. Getting all Waze house numbers verified - ie ensuring the Waze stop point is used for destination - is actually the key. This should be understood for ANY address - in cities where alleys are mapped or not! I often see URs where people in suburban areas are misdirected to wrong streets in a subdivision because the HNs are unverified. It is a systemic problem and not mapping/removing alleys only masks the larger issue.
And one last point. I posit at least one objective standard “clause” that may have bearing on this.
An alley should be mapped that is parallel to any street classified as PS or above in order to prevent potential speed pollution. All HNs should be verified on that street in order to prevent unexpected routing to the alley.
Proposing some practice on mapping other alleys not meeting the above criteria in dense areas where other alleys are mapped could then give guidance (tho perhaps not an objective standard) as to the mapping of other alleys.