So I’m getting mixed comments on Mapping Emergency & Authorized Vehicle Only / Service Roads. Hoping to get some insight and see if others agree with me. I’ve traveled through other states where these type of roads are labeled on the Waze map. Others have agreed labeling these are beneficial, I’m just looking for an official stance on these types of roads. Since Waze’s primary goal is fast & quickest routing when traveling from A -> B, But providing safe means of travel while Wazing from A -> B is more important than getting there as quick as you can. I feel labeling these roads are beneficial to many, not just police or road maintenance people. For example, say you are driving down the road and experience car trouble. You are a lot safer pulling off onto one of these roads rather than sitting on the side of freeway with cars racing past you, which as a Police Officer I not only encourage but see people do all the time while I’m at work. Furthermore, the wiki doesn’t mention anything about not labeling these types of roads, at least, I couldn’t find anything on it. There is nothing dangerous or illegal about seeing them on the Waze map. If anything, it lets people know, “Hey you are not allowed to turn around here unless given permission to do so, otherwise make sure you keep on driving” They are clearly labeled just as I have seen in other states “Authorized Vehicles Only” & include no Waze routing through them. The roads also have physical signs posted at each location as well stating they are for Authorized Vehicles Only. I have consulted with a Waze Champ and stated the placement of these roads are okay as long as there was no routing through them and were listed as Private roads (which they are). Plus, its a benefit to other Wazers to see these roads on the map as these are known hiding/sitting spots for police. Take it from me… No One Enjoys Getting Speeding Tickets :lol:
I’m not sure there is an official stance at this point.
You have correctly stated what needs to be done to have them on the map. They should be not be routed through and thus should be typed as private roads.
You give a number of benefits to having them on the map. However, be aware that for the most part when traveling at highway speeds at most settings waze won’t display them. So the average wazer isn’t really going see the benefits.
Another consideration is that recently Waze has been routing across Private Roads that are attached to the Mass Pike (I-90) when users either have 1) Avoid Tolls enabled or 2) There is very heavy traffic.
One user was routed off and “Authorized Vehicles Only” gated ramp & another was routed through a MassDOT Maintenance Facility.
Waze doesn’t work w/ simple ‘on’ or ‘off’ turn restrictions. It applies penalties to routing actions that are restricted. The only way to make sure nobody will be routed down a mapped road is to not ‘junction’ it to the highway.
How can that be? For example: If I’m driving down a road that connects to a T-intersection BUT has a concrete divider going down the middle of the main road with traffic going only in 1 direction on each side of the divider and only allows turns coming from 1 direction. With the proper turning restrictions enabled, Waze will not route you to turn onto the side road Thru the concrete divider? Same rule applies to this, no?
You would think that would be the case, but it’s not impossible based on how Waze operates. Don’t get me wrong, it’s extremely rare as the routing penalty is very very high, but it could still happen.
Actually, it will. A restricted turn just has a penalty. If the penalty is less than going a different route, Waze will route you through the restricted turn. It will even route you down the wrong way on a one-way street if going another way is worse than the penalty applied for going the wrong way. This is in part because there are a number of incorrectly marked roads and turn restrictions and Waze wouldn’t be able to get you anywhere in some locations that haven’t yet been cleaned up. Also, there are times when a traffic backup gets to be so bad that police will route you where you aren’t normally allowed and Waze is basically following the same practice. I agree that it’s illegal and in cases with barriers, basically impossible, but that’s just how Waze works.
A private road should have enough penalty to avoid routing through it (service roads aren’t the same and I’ve seen those being used for those Authorized Vehicles Only connections between divided highways), but with enough traffic problems, Waze could potentially route you through it. We don’t know the penalties applied, or at least if anyone does know, it isn’t being made public here. So we don’t know how difficult it is to be routed through a private road. Without that knowledge, it makes it difficult to have an official stance on using them. We could just leave them disconnected and that solves the problem. You’d see the road, but couldn’t route on it no matter what. Consider the use of those is fairly limited, we’d get few MPs caused by driving over disconnected segments, but we’d still get them. So which is better? No MPs, but possible bad routing? Or good routing, with possible MPs? Personally, I think having it connected as a private road is a good option, but that is certainly not an official stance and there are better options that could be done if Waze was willing to add them.
I like your answer. I can’t believe waze doesn’t have a “Can not turn here option” rather utilizes "a suggested routing algorithm"I don’t have a problem disconnecting them from the road to make it as close as possible to the connecting road without actually connecting so that it definitely doesn’t get routed thru but it would be nice if I don’t have to go back and update them all unless that is the official stance on the issue. Worst Case Scenario: if it does route someone thru one of the roads it will still announce and show “Authorized Vehicles Only” I would assume people have enough common sense knowing they can’t take the road unless “Authorized” to do so. However, we all know what assuming does…Makes an ASS out of U & ME. Well, not so much you in this case, just me… :lol: Perhaps selecting a different road type would be more beneficial? Listing them as a Dirt Road vs. Private Road vs. Service Road? Anyone know the “weight” each road type holds in the routing algorithm? As far as routing purposes, which one does Waze consider as a “Last Resort” per say?
Private Road has the most penalty of those other than that people can choose to avoid dirt roads, which presumably would prevent routing on those entirely unless they are at the beginning or end of the trip. At this time, private road is the right one to use. And unless someone says it’s the official method, I don’t think disconnecting them would be a good thing to do. Others are just going to come along and reconnect them. Personally, I think that drivers need to just know not to drive through them regardless of the GPS.
Please remove these from all interstates and freeways in PA. Each one is an opportunity for an error and genuinely add nothing to the user experience that I can see.
Is this Wazes “Official” stance on mapping these? I had “banished(6)” allow the placement of these roads? Why the conflict? Furthermore, why can these be mapped in other states but not here in PA? I think I’ve shared some genuine benefits of why having these mapped would be beneficial on the map, plus the likelihood of a routing error occurring is relatively low or slim to none from my understanding which was slightly covered in posts on this forum, Unless you can please provide better situations where these would cause definite errors on a regular basis? Is there anything in any of the Wiki’s regarding these roads? If so, could some clarification be added to them on whether to map these or not and how to add them?
Waze has stated they want everything mapped, including all dirt/4x4/offroads, fire service roads, emergency, roads, railroads, walking trails, etc. However!! They also state they cannot control routing from not using these. That’s a huge conflict. They only way to resolve that conflict, at this time, is that they can be mapped, but never connected to the drivable infrastructure until such time that the routing algorithm can be totally prevented from considering these segments being used in routing.
That is why we have railroads mapped but not connected. Along with other non-drivable stuff per the guidelines in the wiki.
Banished often gives advice like this which toes the line of the wiki guidelines which most editors would not recommend. He spends a lot of time mapping railroads which have questionable benefit to Waze today. It may have future use, but today, it is very limited.
There is ample evidence that mapping any type of “usually not used for routing” or “emergency vehicle only” or other types of segments which should not be used, will be get used for routing under the right circumstances.
I would not map something which 1) has no value to the vast majority of drivers, 2) should not be considered by Waze for routing. This includes roads which one can drive on but should not. I classify those very similarly to non-drivable segments.
Ah, Okay, so essentially… Mapping these roads is okay, just do not connect them to the drivable infrastructure. I will go back and disconnect them but leave them mapped should an algorithm be created in the future. Not sure why such an algorithm can’t be created now, seems like a simple fix but in the meantime I will go back and disconnect them. Thanks. Perhaps we can get this topic moved to United States forum so more can view this and we can establish uniformity across the waze map when mapping these roads? http://www.waze.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=129
You may, but keep in mind 1) other editors who don’t know this may try to connect them to the roads, which is why we lock railroads at rank 5 or 6. You won’t know until Waze starts routing people over these segments and you get Update Requests from drivers complaining, 2) there are likely many other necessary edits to the real drivable roads which are more important. I question the need to have such segments added at this time as they add no value.
Regarding #2, it sounds like they are already mapped, so disconnecting sounds like what you’re saying should be done instead of deleting them or leaving them connected. Or are you saying that leaving it as-is if there are other edits to do instead? If you think they should be disconnected instead of being left as-is, do you think this should be standard policy for these types of roads for all of the US? If so, I can work on disconnecting ones that are mapped along my routes. That would cover a good chunk of the east coast. I don’t plan on mapping ones that are not mapped already, but I can disconnect them if that is what we want the policy to be country-wide. Or do we want to wait until all of the champs get a chance to weight in on it before making that change?
And is why these types of roads, walking trails, boardwalks, etc should be drawn, disconnected from the road network and locked to a level other than 1 or 2. They are waaay too tempting for the newbie editor trying to find something to do. Deleting them does nothing, because a newbie editor will say “Oooo, here’s something i can do!” and add them. It’s quite easy to get into a “Lather, rinse, repeat” cycle if you just keep deleting. Drawing, disconnecting and locking them re-directs newbies toward other things that are, hopefully,less damaging when their edits go wrong.
Well, you can’t route onto a disconnected segment and if it’s locked at least at level 3 (though 5 may be better), it’s unlikely to get reconnected. Although I understand some of the problem with getting routing working correctly so it doesn’t route down the wrong roads, it really shouldn’t be difficult to mark specific kinds of roads so they can never be routed on. If there isn’t a means of doing that directly, then add a million point penalty to routing down any type of segment that is not allowed to be routed on. Or, if you think a million points isn’t enough, make it a billion. It would be basically impossible to be routed on anything with that high of a penalty and we already have a penalty system in place, so it shouldn’t be that hard to implement. It should be just a matter of adding a penalty to those road types in the database unless they hard coded everything. In the end, they just need a flag for non-driveable that can be applied to certain road types so they aren’t routed on no matter what, but the penalty system is already in place and could be set up very quickly for the time being until they have time to program a non-driveable flag for road types. Either way, until they do something with it, as long as they are disconnected, they aren’t actually harming anything.