[Conversation split from this thread which was about a specific example]
Hi guys - not sure we are all done here.
Sorry for hijacking - but I’m going to dive in here because what’s been done doesn’t actually fit with the latest guidelines on places.
If I look at this strictly against those new guidelines on the Wiki then there’s several issues:
Shopping centre car parks are normally only for customer use therefore not ‘General Purpose’ i.e. I can not leave my car there and walk somewhere else. As such they should not be mapped! https://wiki.waze.com/wiki/Places/Parking_lot#Principles
Multiple places with the same name (‘Crown Point North’) will be indistinguishable in the client and confusing for the user.
one large landmark covering the entire site (all stores and car park) which is the ‘Shopping Centre’ place and has the ‘parking for customers’ service flagged.
individual point places for each store - again each of these can be flagged with ‘parking for customers’
no ‘Car Park/Parking Lot’ landmark - nope - not a one :o
Yes? No? Thoughts? Comments?
Andrew
PS No offence meant to any editors here - I’m just trying to get my head round Places as quickly as the next man! The car park definition in particular would suggest that there are lots converted from old parking landmarks that should now be removed.
I think it is unlikely I will be receiving any more information from HQ now and since the full places implementation has now been released it is time to create the UK places wiki page.
I’ll start a new thread with a view to discussing any differences between American (oops I mean general) and specific guidance for the UK. Read the wiki and start thinking now!
Added nodes to the loops, Dave so shouldn’t be an issue any more.
I created the car park because, well - it is there! BUT, I have marked it as a shopping centre/Car Park and named it as “[P] Crown Point North” which should give sufficient information that the car park is related to, well, Crown Point North.
I usually like to see car parks on the map, especially if I am heading in that direction. Whether the car park is “suitable” for my needs is my determination upon reading the signage on the entrance to the car park and within it.
You know, that old “looking out of the window at the front of the car”…?
I’ve thought about this further, and decided that my personal preference is to only map the buildings as places, and not any of the parking areas. Here are my reasons why, in no particular order:
Parking does not need to be mapped - that’s what parking lot roads are for.
Only map actual, designated Car Parks which have blue [P] signs and (often) payment machines.
Drivers are usually wanting to drive to a particular place, not to the car park of that place. Waze should be able to route them to the most appropriate parking, using parking lot roads to get close to the location of the place.
Some stores have their own dedicated parking for customers, while some stores have a shared parking area for all of them. It would be inconsistent to have some stores include their parking while others have separate parking place.
Parking areas can be implicitly mapped by the white space in front of a building. If it was mapped separately as place, or included as part of a larger place, then it gets lost. It’s odd to see that you’ve driven ‘into’ a supermarket, and not be able to match what is on the map to what’s out the window.
People can see buildings pretty well and judge how far away they are, while the edges of a parking area can be obscured and hard to see. Users won’t care to see the edges of the land owned by the place either, as (usually) the only interesting stuff is inside the building.
Ideally, the navigation point of a place should be at the entrance of the car park, which can be outside of the area place. “You have arrived at your destination. Now go look for a parking space. Have a nice day!”
For stores that share a building, a single unnamed area place can be used to show that building on the map, and the individual stores marked as point places.
To take this to the extreme, we could use area places for painting landmarks on the map (blue, green, gray), and points for navigable POIs.
NB: Petrol Stations are a special case, and need to be mapped in a particular way.
PS: Other mapping services (e.g. Google, OS and OSM) make a point of drawing around buildings…
(though Bing only shows points)
I would tend to disagree. What you see will depend on what has been mapped, how and from which direction you approach.
How we map “Car Parks” could be approached im a similar way to the way we map roads. Do we map private roads? Yes, because they exist and because we, or someone, may well be going there.
So whilst most “Car Parks” will have restrictions on them (Private, Supermarket, Public 1 hour, Public 2 hour, Pay and Display, Railway and so on) of one sort or another, there generally tend to have signage to indicate such. Is it our job to dictate to the user whether they should have the opportunity to try and park in a particular Car Park?
Therefore we either map none of them (and then be at the whim of new editors to add them haphazardly) or map all of them and do so cohesively and consistently.
I agree that mapping business car parks clutters the map but I think it’s useful to be able to see that a business/hospital etc has its own car park before you get there and where it is in relation to the building. I think non-Public car parks should generally be un-named so as not to clutter the map. It should normally be obvious from their location which business / public building / hospital they serve. If it’s not then name them “<x> Car Park” to be consistent. The distance you can move the navigation point for an Area Place is quite limited so for a reasonable sized car park you often can’t drag it as far as the car park entrance. For some larger sites like beauty spots it’s not always obvious where the car park is located so seeing it on the map I think is helpful. [P] should be reserved for Public car parks (operated by NCP / councils etc).
So my suggestion is do what we do now, but don’t name car parks that aren’t Public ones, unless it’s not obvious which buildings/areas they serve.
But there’s no real difference between a standalone public car-park, and one that’s operated by say a supermarket or DIY place or railway station where there’s no problem using it as a public car park if you pay - indeed the main car park in some towns is run on that basis.
Waze were quite clear at the UK Conference that we SHOULD NOT be mapping car parks that are not public parking (i.e. public = you can park there [paid or not] and leave the premises).
Most retail parks and supermarkets etc that have a dedicated car park do not allow this, though usually you can get away with it. Workplace parking shouldn’t be mapped either for similar reasons.
I pretty well agree with Tim but feel another option would be to map car parks separately from the buildings but not to name them (unless they are public car parks). Just a thought, am happy to go with exactly as suggested by Tim.
[EDIT] Seeing Dave’s comment, I am happy to pretend I didn’t even make the above suggestion and just to agree with Tim!
Since I first posted, I’ve thought more about this and I think some of the discussion depends on whether you are thinking about how things looks in the Live Map, or about how Places will work when you are searching for a Place/POI. For example:
On the search screen identical place names will be indistinguishable (my point) but could still be helpful for navigation when displayed on the map (CTCNetwork’s point).
The search facility is the main reason I do agree with the new guidelines on car parks.
If I use Waze to search for a car park, then I am looking for a public car park, and not to the many small private car parks that may be nearer.
If I search for a business or shop then I want it to take me to their car park (and we will know this exists because we tick the ‘parking for customers’ service on that place) or to the front door, and I then have to look out the windscreen to find parking.
I quite like this idea Tim - and I think that could work well for supermarkets and small retail parks, but I’m not sure about larger Places especially those with more of a campus feel and multiple buildings and car parks; e.g. a hospital.
I would also be concerned that if we do not include the car park in the ‘owning’ place then they will constantly be added back in by new editors who are not aware of the guidelines, much like footpaths.
I suspect preferences will be determined by how you use your navigation app. Some use them to actually navigate, some to see where they are and where they are going. Two subtly different approaches!
