As you all may have noticed the new Parking Lot Area (PLA) editing UI has just been released to production WME.
This feature is being rolled out in stages, first we started to see places with parking lot as a secondary category being split into two distinct places; one for the parking lot and one for the place, then we had the “Parking Lot input as a point” MP, then some of the client side features released in the iOS app, then we had some PLAs imported into WME by staff, and now we are getting the PLA editing UI. This is not the end, there are still more parts of this feature planned to be rolled out as well. The main piece we are waiting for, before going on a mission to add/convert all parking lots on the map as areas, is for the PLAs to be hidden in the client app UI. Until we get PLAs hidden in the productions apps for both Android, and iOS apps, PLEASE DO NOT CREATE ANY NEW PLAs on the map. We do not want to plaster the map with PLAs in the client. (This includes fixing the MPs for parking place points, please do not convert them to areas just yet.) This post, and the wiki will be updated, and you’ll hear from your SMs, and RC once it is time to let loose with adding new PLAs.
Parking Lot Area Guidance
There is a new wiki page published with all the details we have so far, and guidance for this new feature. You can see this new wiki page in the regular wiki here, and also in our new beta Wazeopedia here. A special thanks goes to Karlcr9911 and all the champs and SMs who helped shape and draft this wiki.
This is an evolving feature, and the guidance will be evolving accordingly. This wiki will be updated as changes are rolled out, and new information becomes available. There is a forum thread here for discussing updates to this feature and associated wiki guidance in the USA. Watch this space for changes as new details and guidance emerges.
(Moving this post over from the State Manager sub-forum):
I agree. So many businesses have a dedicated parking lot, it seems folly to be adding them.
My solution would be to reserve the “Parking for Customers” flag in a Place to places that have a dedicated, one-for-one correlation parking lot. When navigating to such a Place, the app doesn’t offer to find parking.
E.g., my local hardware store really doesn’t need to have a PLA, and there’s no place else in walking distance to park:
In contrast, having the municipal parking lots as a parking option for the Main Street businesses is very handy:
I agree each and every business with a small parking lot will be prohibitively complicated as we struggle with just doing the places alone. Will a place have indication that there is onsite parking or will the driver think that they need to use a nearby lot?
That is in part the reason for the naming convention. When you map out a new parking lot, for example, for the first example, it will tell them that there is a parking lot on side.
This will allow the user to be suggested to park in the onsite parking lot, if it is not mapped, they may feel as though that the next offsite parking lot may be the place where they should be routed to.
For the second example, for the PLA, it will tell them that there will be a community lot.
For some of the places that I can see in the future, this will allow the place point to now be actually accurate, instead of some meters away placed into the appropriate parking lot.
For some reason, there is a policy that we should put the place points on top of the front door. This seems nuts, because the majority of the time the app keeps trying to route me to my destination even though I’ve come and gone. I have to manually press the “stop” button, or it keep trying to route me back there.
This is causing the “problem” that is trying to be solved here, and it seems that a MUCH better solution is just to put the place points at the entrance of the parking lot so Waze knows I’ve reached my desitnation. I DON’T need to be routed to the front door - once I’m in the parking lot, Waze has done its job.
So instead of trying to create all kinds of new PLA’s and modify the app program and …, why not just put the place points at a more logical location?
And what happens if they are seven different parking lots which may be ideal depending on which direction you’re coming from or how much they charge or other services offered etcetera? Alternately what if that place you’re going to doesnt have its own parking lot but there are other parking lots nearby that may serve well for people going there?
Agreed, there are a few places like that. For example there is a local fairgrounds, with about 8 parking lots. I would love to see “Topsfield fairground, parking lot #7” or whatever. Your driving destination isn’t the ferris wheel, but it’s a parking lot. In those cases, we should make PLA’s for the parking lots.
But NOT for every Home Depot, Drug Store, bank, dentist, morgue, and laundromat. Those places should just have the PP put in the proper location (the entrance to the parking lot).
And even in the Setting the Stop Point for a Place page it is more stating for you to get where you need to go. For a strip mall for example, where there may be multiple stores along a stretch, you want to place it there.
These should be at or near the front door, the more importantly it is at the closest segment where a user would be dropped off if they were trying to get to that store.
I agree that I don’t believe that the current guidance contradicts your argument bobc455
The parking lot feature is going to do a few things - first - it will allow for the parking routing that you are asking for - second - it is planned for the parking lot feature to allow for multiple entrances / stop points so that if you are approaching a single location but there are multiple locations to approach that would be nice.
Also, as my own personal bias as you can ask many of the California / Country Managers when I started - University Parking Lots which at a location you may be directed to a specific lot or told to go to a specific lot which you can now be routed to and given the suggestion if you are trying to travel to a specific building.
Will we be able to link a Place with a Parking Lot outside its box? I have a specific example in mind of a public park which you are told on their website to park at a specific lot 1/4mi away because there’s no on-site or on-street parking nearby.
Is that parking lot used exclusively for that park?
I do believe that if you place the stop point of the area place in or near that parking lot, it will detect the closest parking lot to the stop point of the area place.
So another fun issue is that an editor received a report complaining that the parking lot was closed for a couple weeks for construction. I doubt we will ever have a RTC functionality for PLA but could benefit from some guidance on how to handle these as some parking lots could be 5-10 minute walk away from a destination and create a less desirable routing experience. Should the name reflect it is closed? Should it be removed from the map? Can we add a closure?
I am sure closures related to parking lots will be very difficult to monitor and keep track of except in the case of large commercial lots so I don’t know how much a useful this may be.
