Currently we only have region guidance on whether to put a fire/police station as a area place instead of a point. In regards to naming we have some guidance in a few state wiki’s. The problem we have is there are multiple ways of naming or lack thereof naming these area places but no standard. This page would solve that.
From experience and editors who volunteer in police/fire station. No one has showed up with a emergency or its been a rare case. So having the station name on the map is pretty much irrelevant. Its there for visual purposes.
The other problem we see is having the station name on the map, general consensus is it looks out of place. Example picture
The other issue we face is the way waze searches for places in the app.
If you enter these places: police or fire you get no search results
But if you enter in the search police station you get serveral choices which could be up to 100 miles away.
Example picture
This is a huge problem. The closest one to me from where i searched is 3.2 miles away.
Now if we name the area place Police Station with a alt name Ferndale Police Station, this is the result i get when searching
The closest police station shows up, If i search for the station name it comes up as first result now as well.
I am also proposing that we add Sheriff’s Office and State Patrol to this wiki page as well.
Please leave feedback and suggestions or page edit on naming of these places. Some might think having Police Station or Fire Station as the name is redundant since its the category but they are in such a grey area that we really need something in place whether it’s Police Station or the station name, anything is better than what we have.
I like the idea. I have been reflecting recently with his the fire department names often take up a lot of real estate on the map and how much value it adds. Having worked volunteer fire/EMS we absolutely had people show up at the station dealing medical care so them being mapped is fine by me and meets national guidance
A couple thoughts.
-Police/Sheriff Stations & State Police. Identififying the different law enforcement distinctions would be beneficial and not complicate guidance too much. (Some states have other law enforcement agencies that can be mapped at their discretion) Although for federal agencies this could be problematic.
-I think the full name being used in the alt name should be in the description.
-This should be in place when state guidance does not exist. I think some states have done a lot of work on this and they should be able to keep their efforts intact. (I just helped Map around 100 fire stations in LA myself)
I do not agree with the outright removal of the station name from the primary name field. Someone who needs to go to, say, New Orleans Police Department Third District Station, for example someone who works there or has some other business there in particular, will search for that and get only a result that says “Police Station”. Bad user experience.
I don’t necessarily mind the idea of starting every police station with “Police Station” to enable instant search to work well. But removing everything else from the primary name is a mistake.
A better paradigm would be to start every police station name with "Police Station - " followed by the police station name, in an abbreviated or shortened version if possible. The full unabbreviated name would be added as an alt name.
For example, what is now “New Orleans Police Department Third District Station” would become “Police Station - NOPD 3rd District”. Additionally, “New Orleans Police Department Third District Station” would be added as an alt name.
This way, it will come up as an instant search result for Police Station, but someone searching for “nopd 3rd dist” or “new orleans police third district station” would get a result that says “Police Station - NOPD 3rd District” instead of a result that simply says “Police Station” with no way to verify that it’s the right one.
I do not subscribe to the belief that “Police Station - NOPD 3rd District” is somehow “irrelevant” on the map. “Visual purposes” are still “purposes”, and at any rate the search result name is much more important than the aesthetic and therefore subjective opinion on which looks “better” on the client map.
To repeat my concerns from the other thread. A driver searching for a specific station isn’t going to be able to tell that the search result is for the station they’re looking for because it just says “Police/Fire Station”. It may look better on the map but it’s not useful for navigation.
This is exactly why we should have a standard. There is a ton of value in area places. Like you mentioned places like CA have naming standards but only CA goes by them. Having the ambulance stations as well as sheriff/state patrol would be a huge value to the map.
I do understand what you are saying, the purpose was to draw attention to what we can name these places
The only reason I wrote irreverent is the average user is going to search for these places. They aren’t going to be driving down the street and say look there’s “new orleans police third district station”. They are going to see that there is a police station.
If these place need a name for visual purposes i’m positive everyone can agree to something on that. I like your idea of naming them. Kinda how we have the ones that were created here but simplified.
I propose this then from your example.
Police Station: NOPD 3rd District
Fire Station: SFD 5
Ambulance Station: AMR Post 54
State Patrol: WSP District 1
Sheriff’s Office: KCS 2nd Precinct
Then respective names as a alt name.
This makes a lot of sense but if anyone has any input in why they should be named different than this example before i change this draft, give some input.
My point was essentially the same as sketch’s first paragraph. Without a unique name, the over-simplified search results wouldn’t be clear to someone not privy to the naming scheme.
I think the revised suggestion is a good compromise. Less of a footprint on the map yet still uniquely identifiable.
Would using FD/PD/EMS be considered standard practice for the Stations?
Near me there is a Belmont and a Boston. So BFD doesn’t work. Boston FD/Belmont FD may work but these are not on any abbreviation list so what are people’s thoughts and how would it work with Jane?
Jane will most likely say the letters, which is fine I think. I think “Boston FD” and “Belmont FD” will be best for that particular case.
Abbreviations should only be used where an abbreviation is commonly known; we shouldn’t make them up. But, I think generic abbreviations such as FD and PD in the primary name are acceptable for brevity’s sake.
It would be possible; that said, I do not believe our abbreviation lists are currently used for the ‘destination’ announcement (e.g., “In 0.9 miles, you will arrive at Police Station: Boston PD”). This may change, however.
I was a firefighter for 21 years. I disagree with the above statement, and apologize to nidnarb if I gave the opposite impression in PMs or other threads, as drop-in calls were actually pretty common.
That said, I do greatly appreciate the help moving this issue forward, thank you!
In the present version of the proposed Wiki, it lists “State Patrol” and “Sheriff’s Office” as categorical names, but there are no such categories in WME. The only option available to us as a law enforcement category for now is Police Station. All of the variants above would be in the category Police Station, just as in the proposal any facility named “Ambulance Station” would be included in the category Fire Department for purposes of being categorized.
Also, may want to consider staying away from making naming standards variances for subcategories for law enforcement agency types, because you can also get into Parish Sheriffs (LA), Constabularies, and probably other oddball types that aren’t crossing my mind. Just the same as there are a variety of subcategories for fire agencies that also sometimes depend on level of government be it municipal, county, combination, state, etc. (Fire Department, Fire District, Fire Authority, Fire Protection Agency, Fire Bureau), and we of course will still call any of those facilities “Fire Station” no matter what level they are operated at.
This is the train of thought that led to the initial development of this standard, naming everything as simply as possible based on what you would expect to find there: Police Station for law enforcement officers in category Police Station, Fire Station for EMS/firefighters and Ambulance Station for medics in category Fire Department.
Just some things to consider, but the discussion has also taught me a lot about the nuances of naming and search results, which are also important. Thanks.
I think you misread or we are looking at this wrong? I only see them as the place name not the category.
If we stay away from those places then what is the point in naming the other ones? Like sketch said we cannot just name these places Police Station or Fire Station. Look at how waze searches. Nothing comes up except the category when you search. You need to have a alternative or solution for those as well.
If you want these thing to be named the way you originally said then we need to have some kind of reason why it would be better than what we have already discussed in this post.
I probably should not have posted at midnight local time. Nothing sounds the same when awake compared to when you write when half asleep!
I’m not invested in what decision is made, just putting in my $0.02 to be used or discarded, that I thought might be useful for consideration.
Regarding categories, you’ll see what I mean if you look at the topic outline at the top of the proposed page. It’s mainly a formatting/semantics issue. The original document was divided into two sections, one for WME category Police Station and one for WME category Fire Department. Right now it shows this:
But should look like this to describe what types of facilities should be listed under each category:
Thanks for the discussion, it is fun watching the process unfold, wherever it might go.
As soon as I got into it, and started reshaping it as a national standard proposal, I realized how many more law enforcement variants there are than I mentioned before. “State Patrol” as a subcat name doesn’t fit well with other states than Washington (where nidnarb and I are). Other variants are Highway Patrol, State Police, etc.
I am keeping the immediately previous version of the edit as well, for comparison, since I am cutting out a lot of content and wanted it to still be easily accessible if needed instead of making anyone dig into the page history. When I am done you can see the previous version by scrolling down.
New version eliminated the redundant verbiage that was appearing in each section base on its original draft.
It’s 1:15AM here now, so I hope this makes as much sense tomorrow as it seems to right now.
Thanks Alan. Are category name changes on the table? I thought those were kind of untouchable.
I think using only “Fire” for fire stations might trend towards ambiguity. There are lots of businesses and places out there that use the word “fire” in their name, but nearly none who use “police” or “ambulance”. May I suggest leaving “Fire Station”, but condensing the other two down as you said, to “Police” and “Ambulance”?
Police: LAPD Rampart
Fire Station: TFD 8
Ambulance: AMR Post 54
