How should we handle streets in the editor that have a “local traffic only” restriction? If it’s not a dead-end street, waze can route through there. Of course you can drive on and it will plot another route, but still…
Making it a private road will give it a penalty so the routing will probably avoid it, but that is not really correct. Or make a short “private road” segment on both sides of the street?
Is there a policy how to handle this? I couldn’t find anything on the wiki or the forum.
Private road will help. Read “Private” like “restricted access”, not like “owned by someone”. If there is not just one street but a neighborhood that is restricted - think a gated community, campus or military base it is a good idea to map only the entry points (“gates”) as private (but all of them!) or, if the layout is more simple, set all streets involved completely to “private road”.
You could see it like this.
For private street there is a penalty for going from private to a normal street.
So when your destination is on a private road there is no penalty.
When your destination is ‘behind’ a private road you will get a penalty and waze will try to route around.
How are the settings for a road that is “Pedestrian zone”. You can drive for example from 18h till 11h in these roads. And they are just for deliverys.
Any sugestions? they are common in the most cities.
As the primary target for Waze is commuting traffic - home to work and back - it is a safe bet to ignore the 1% of traffic that makes deliveries in these areas. However… if the citycentre is defined as " Pedestrian Boardwalk" and connected to the rest of the streets Waze will TRY to direct traffic over these streets as well, but only if there is no other option. But bear in mind that there is always the possibility that “regular traffic” can be sent into these areas as well… also, the routing over pedestrian boardwalks SEEMS to be very different from routing over regular streets. It can be observed that the routing in these areas does not try to find the “fastest” route but a route that uses a minimum of closed streets - which is not necessarily the same.
For better results Waze should offer more options to configure roads, like “closed for trucks”, “closed from … till …”, “open for taxis and buses only”. Also the Waze client should be able then to define the nature of the drive - like “I am driving a taxi” or “I am a truck doing deliveries”. These are often asked for but there is no word on if or when these will be implemented. Again, 99% of Wazers do NOT need these and it is very much unsure if Waze will put in the effort.
As a waze user I love the fact Waze can route you through restricted roads (like the examples you mention). Many GPS will avoid these roads so it’s an advantage for Waze. It’s not because you’re using waze that you’re blind : you are still paying attention to signs and if you don’t want to take a road, just don’t take it ! Waze will recalculate your itinerary in a few seconds.
I see your point.
However, there are many narrow rural roads in Belgium that cut through agricultural fields. They are access roads to the fields and farms and are usually “local traffic only”. Sometimes they connect to a normal road on both ends. In that case waze might route through there as a shortcut. You can choose to skip them, but many users tend to follow the instructions. If waze regularly routes through such roads because it is shorter, most users will perceive that as waze having very bad and dumb routing.
So maybe a good judgement call is in order when editing the map. In case of these very small rural access roads that you would normally want to avoid, i think it is better to make them ‘private road’ to prevent waze routing through there. For other ‘normal’ roads that are “local traffic only” we can leave it up to the driver to decide.
For ultra-local traffic, in France, we choose “service Roads” which are, by definition, build to desserve ultra-local destinations.
But If your agricultral Road is not paved, use “dirt Road”.
It’s just the name ‘service road’ that differs. For routing, service road doesn’t do anything different then a normal street…but you know that
For Netherlands and Belgium the behavior of a private road fits the best to avoid unwanted routing. Only if the private road is your destination you will be routed on it (on a penalty base, so if there’s no other possibilty it will be ignored).
City centers (pediatrian boardwalk), where delivery traffic is allowed, can also marked as a private road. If your destination is in this area, you will be routed there, otherwise you will be routed around it…in other navigation solutions you get a message like ‘your deatination is in an area where traffic isn’t allowed’. With Waze it’s possible in this way
I think this is a good solution except that I’d rather choose “dirty road” instead of “private road”. With dirty roads, you let the wazer choose whether he would like to get routed through this way or not. With private road, you don’t have much choice : you will never be routed through it (except if your destination is on the agricultural road but I doubt it will ever happen).
Around my place, there are several agricultural roads and some are paved, some are not and some are only drivable if you own an SUV (well, I don’t own one and I went through this kind of roads but I really thought my car would turn over… but this is another story) . I chose to let paved roads as “streets” but marked the other 2 kinds as “dirty road”.
Do you all readers agree to take this convention and put it on the wiki ?
And that is exactly why you should not use the same type for both. The suvdriver that enables dirtroads will drive into town and get directed where he does not belong. The deliverytruck that drives into a pedestrianzone and has to enable dirtroads for that will find himself stuck in the mud when Waze sends him over a dirtroad on his way to the next town.
Lol, I must have been confused on some point as well. Thought you proposed dirtroad for citycentres.
So… Using dirtroads for dirtroads is… ok of course. Private road can be used for roads you cannot even maneuver with a suv - too narrow, steep, dirty or simply forbidden.
This is indeed a good example of a road that is perfectly drive-able and would be no problem to get routed through, but is actually “local traffic only”. Maybe we should indeed not set these roads as “private” by definition. Although i have seen user complaints about waze plotting a route through these. Some users perceive it as a fault in routing.
Yoho, in which case is it an advantage that waze can plot routes through “local traffic only” streets?
Examples of the type of roads i was talking about i certainly want to set to “private” because you would not like to be routed through there, they are paved agricultural access roads that are so narrow you can not pass opposing trafic (and certainly not with a big SUV): Example1 Example2 Example3
We should interpret the road type in waze according to it’s intended use, not literally.
road type = “dirt road” = hard to drive by normal car (need to enable if you want to use these roads)
road type = “private street” = want to avoid routing through there; for example because the road is really narrow and you can not pass opposing traffic (tractor access roads)
So, for example, for roads:
dirt road, hard to drive by normal car: type = dirt road
dirt road, easy to drive by normal car: type = (private?) street
paved road in such bad shape you might damage your car if you don’t have an SUV: type = dirt road. If there are houses in the road use type = private road, so you can still get routed there only if it is your destination. example It may not be really clear from this distance, but this is a really bad road, hence the 20km limit.
paved or unpaved road, drivable by normal car, but really narrow agricultural (tractor) access road “local traffic only” : type = private street. example
normal size “local trafic only” road : type = street
Perhaps there could be a setting in the application that can allow the user to set the level he wants to obey traffic rules. I find very useful that Waze runs on Symbian also and tried it yesterday for the first time. I was very surprised to be routed into Konijnenhoekstraat in Haasrode, while the entire area between Expresweg, Blandenstraat and Haasrodsestraat is limited to “Plaatselijk verkeer”.
The routing should by default follow valid rules and avoid turn suggestions into streets where entry is forbidden and users risks a fine.
