There has been a question raised regarding how to map the NIH campus. The general guidance for private campuses is found here. There is an ongoing discussion about updating that guidance here.
I’m not any more familiar with the NIH Campus than anybody who has driven out Wisconsin Ave. But based on the website I understand the following: There seem to be 4 classes of vehicles that can enter NIH 1) Employees, 2) Patients and Family, 3) Visitors and 4) Commercial Deliveries.
Employees and the other classes do not mix entrances, i.e. Employees are not to use the gates for Patients, Visitors or Commercial Vehicles. There is one 24 hour Employee gate. There are another six employee gates (one currently closed for construction) that are time restricted to either business hours or rush hours. NIH is between two significant roads, Wisconsin Ave/Rockville Pike and Old Georgetown Rd. There are employee entrances on both roads and commuting times are likely to vary significantly depending on which road is taken.
There is one entrance only gate specifically for the Clinical Center Hospitality staff to assist incoming patients. This gate is open only during business hours. After hours patients should enter through the commercial gate.
There is a main visitors gate that is open only during business hours. After hours visitors should enter through the commercial gate.
There is a gate open 24 hours to the commercial vehicle inspection facility. This is gate is used for after hours patient and visitor entry.
It seems to me that we should map for the employees in this instance. It seems that few visitors or patients will be routing to specific points within the campus. Rather patients will be routing to the patient parking at the Clinical Center and will be told to enter through the West Dr gate. Visitors seem to have scant parking and will be told to go through the Gateway Center.
Thus my suggestion is to have the appropriate time restrictions on the employee entrances and exits with single private road transition penalties on the employee entrances and have double private road transitions penalties on the patient, visitor and commercial entrances (so these non-employee entrances are essentially non-routeable). I would move the stop point for the general NIH area place to the visitor entrance on Gateway drive. I would replace the point place for “NIH Visitor Parking Garage” with a point place for “NIH Gateway Dr Visitor Entrance.” I would add point places for “NIH West Drive Patient Entrance” and “NIH Commercial Vehicle Inspection Facility.”
However I’ve not been on the NIH campus so anyone with further information or ideas please comment on what would make sense here.
For my two cents, I think that we need attempt to accommodate everyone, but I understand that we won’t. Daily commuters and staff should be able to figure out the final routing of I need to take X Gate to get to my parking spot. There usually isn’t too much of a backup at gates. (Yes I have had 1.5 hrs in line at military bases in my day, but usually not too much of a backup). I think the newbie person going to NIH would be a patient or a visitor. So agreeing with CBenson’s second to last paragraph about Patient Entrance, I would have the generic “NIH entrance” be for the person who hasn’t been there before. They are probably the most confused figuring out things for the first time.
Would appreciate your thoughts, comments, criticisms, and good jokes…
Site Visitor off-campus parking
This is off-campus and so not part of the installation. Anyone can drive in and out during the open hours – there is no controlled access.
SOLUTION: put a point on the visitor parking entrance. TBR on the entrance because this parking lot is closed after hours. No private segments.
There are no choices in Waze routing for site visitors, patients and their visitors, or commercial vehicles. They have their respective entrances during regular hours, and they all use the commercial vehicle entrance after hours.
But Employees have 7 choices of entrance (though one is temporarily closed for construction). So the advantages of waze routing are only available to employees.
SOLUTION:
Use the preferred method for large private installations.
Employee entrances: EVERYONE ENTRANCE, with appropriate TBR and/or closures as needed. No places necessary.
Site Visitor entrance: RESTRICTED ENTRANCE, with place identifying “NIH Visitor entrance (business hours)”. TBR is more-or less irrelevant, as this entrance is not routable anyway.
Patients and their visitors: RESTRICTED ENTRANCE, with place identifying "NIH Patient entranc (business hours),TBR irrelevant.
Exits These seem to be available to everybody. EVERYONE EXIT. Most of these are paired with employee EVERYONE ENTRANCEs, except for the one that is somewhat separated on the outside end. No places necessary on the exits.
Wow. So much complexity for a tiny facility! I have actually driven by here when I was in DC, but I have not gone on the campus.
Upon first glance, I see that in Waze the Private Installation for NIH is --really-- messed up. They are using too many private roads all over the place. This is going to lead to inaccurate routing per Driving79’s experience in FL. This installation needs to be fixed. All the internal roads should be streets or primary streets. Private segments should only be used at the gates. It will take some careful inspection to figure that out. As others have pointed out, making everything inside such an installation is easy and robust – it’s just that we know now that it leads to routing errors and it is less flexible than marking gates.
Upon second glance, I think it would be nice to locate the primary parking areas that residents will use quite often. The majority of traffic will go there, I would guess. The parking structure on the lower right of the campus – at the intersection of South Dr and Convent Dr should probably have a parking lot road going into it and an AREA PLACE over it. (I prefer area places in such locations so people can see them on the client and point-and-navigate to them.)
I have not looked in detail at this campus, but voludu2’s analysis seems complete.
My original suggestion was going to say that this is is more like a COMPLEX installation per the existing Wiki. It should have a mixture of gates including a delivery gate that might just have a permanently high penalty so it is never routed… then CBenson’s message said (I think) that at certain times this is used by visitors after hours. Dang. Given that, I gave up and thought, “Just keep it simple!.”
My suggestion would be to consider marking all gates with the same entrance penalty and all exit gates with the same exit penalty, and let Waze algorithms route as they will. Then add time-based segment restrictions as best you can to make gates open and close at the right times per the website. If a person (of whatever type) is routed to the wrong gate, then signs will redirect them quickly (since it is a small campus) to the best place.
The reason I suggest that is that I have not tried to untangle the complex rules that CBenson mentioned in his original message – there might be a more optimal way.
NIH has been primarily private road segments from the time that the private road transition penalty was implemented.
I find the idea that the private segments are going to lead to inaccurate routing to be somewhat absurd. The campus has used private roads this way for as long as could be without any evidence of inaccurate routing. I have no reason to believe that it is going to lead to inaccurate routing now as it hasn’t for years.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t change the campus to private only for the gates for consistency sake when we address the restricted gate issues. I can see no reason for any primary streets in NIH. I also think the parking lot roads can remain within the campus.
Ok, Here is the information that I have received from some reporters in the area that should help:
Wilson Drive entrance for employees Monday-Friday 6a-9p. South Drive 24 hours employees. Gateway Center (driveway just past South Dr.) for all other visitors to NIH.
Q- Do patients and visitors get access cards A - Patients and families that need to visit more frequently than once every 6 months can apply for access cards but NIH is tightening up on how easily these can be obtained. Patients and families pretty much can get about as quick and efficient access as possible by going through Cedar Lane entrance. The access cards patients and visitors get electronically do not raise gates to get them through electronically; a guard needs to visually inspect their access card and physically allow them entrance.
Well I’ve worked at NIH since 1988…there isn’t a website to tell you percentages. There are signed to sort of help direct but it is a problem; particularly for patients. Patients, though, on the website are specifically given the intersectio there at Cedar Lane to enter in their GPS to get the right entrance. So most people like me, going to work on campus are the ones plugging in an in campus location in Waze. Then for us…M-F…we are going into campus at Wilson Drive if we are traveling South on Rockville Pike. Visitors…they enter in at Gateway Center …just South of South Drive. Vast majority going in at Wilson Drive…employees. After 7pm and on weekends all employees must enter in at South Drive.
Hope this helps. I can drive by on Tuesday afternoon if you need me.
I will help with the fixes, if you want, but would like at least a consensus to be reached. Also I would propose once done that the gates but locked to a fairly high level 3-5 and maybe the roads to at least a two so that the work is not undone. V/r subs5
I like the idea of different places with each purpose detailed in the name. I am a bit concerned about how folks would figure out how to find them though. I guess NIH is a pretty uniformed name so for NIH, this approach would probably work.
By the way – I think that the local editors and those with experience and deep interest should look at the Wiki guidance and forum discussions and decide what to do themselves for NIH.
Give it a shot. Then let the changes propagate and use Live Map to test a bunch of routes to see if it gives you the behavior you needed, if you can, even at the right times of day if you implement segment time-based restrictions. If anyone has access to drive the installation then do that too. Next check URs that might come in. Adjust as needed.
What’s cool about this installation is that it is relatively small and fairly complex.
My advice is to try to keep it as simple as possible. All the complex rules about four classes of user need to be collapsed into what works for most drivers. Try to implement time-based restrictions on segments only if those restrictions are for everyone or you have some grander strategy that works.
Finally, if you learn something about it, post on the Private Installation forum discussions that exist now to share what you’ve learned and suggest changes to the Wiki if what you learned can help others.
Agreed. Subs5 will be driving around there today. I think subs5 should take the first crack at adjusting the NIH campus based on that first hand experience.
Ok, I took the first cut. I talked to guard at Cedar Entrance, He actually thanked me since he gets lots of questions on the routings. I still need to figure out the times for:
North Drive Entrance is closed due to construction. It is labeled Employee Entrance. Not sure the hours or when construction will finish
East side Center Drive Employee Entrance Hours?
Lincoln Dr Employee Entrance Hours?
West side South Drive Employee Entrance Hours?
West side Center Drive Employee Entrance Hours?
any exit restrictions.
Constructive criticism welcome. I am going to ask the reporter who works there if he can answer the above questions. I will update you on what I get back.
So currently it looks to me that the campus is mapped for visitors. As there are no private segments on the visitor entrance it looks like everyone will be routed through the visitor entrance. I would still consider routing only through the employee gates by putting two private segments on the patient entrance, the visitor entrance and the commercial entrance. There is a private segment on the exit here, which will prevent routing out this exit.
I’ve been getting the hours and construction times from this page. The hours are given for both inbound and outbound traffic, so at least the time restrictions for the exits can be added.
Ok, I have added two private road segments in each Patient, Patient Visitor, Visitor, or Commercial Vehicle entrance/exit. There is only one private road segment for each employee entrance/exit.
All gate times are added to one segment each direction.
This should route the employees to the employee entrances/exits. It should take the patients, patient visitors, visitors, and commercial vehicles to the other locations. Supposedly patients are told to enter via the entrance at W Cedar Lane and West Dr. They are told to put in the intersection into their GPS devices (according to employees).
I think the mapping should prevent unnecessary traffic routing through the NIH compound. The mapping should also send employees to an employee entrance (although if they want a specific entrance due to parking by their building that is up to them). Finally the Patients, Patient Visitors, Visitors, and Commercial Vehicles should be able to get their routing with a little more penalty due to two private road segments being in the path.
I also have the North Dr entrance closed for bridge construction for the scheduled posted time.
The GIS and the NIH website is not very specific on the street names so I have left as they were except removed the street name on PLRs.
In short submitted for idiot checking since this idiot made the changes. V/r subs5
There has been many revisions to the private installation guidance and I will try to conform my vocabulary to the current revisions. What I am seeing is that all the employee gates are “modified standard gates” except for the north drive gate which is a basic gate. I believe this will work, but it might all done with standard gates.
The Patient, Visitor and Commercial Vehicle entrances should be specialty gates, which require three segments of private>street>private. The private segment penalty is applied at a transition from a private segment to another segment, so two connected private segments only have a single penalty. To induce the double penalty you need another segment type between them.
CBenson, Thanks, for all of the checking and instructions to make it correct. I inserted a street so that the two private roads are separated to insert the proper penalty. I did not change the employee exits since the guard told me that people need the proper access card to go out during the appropriate hours.
The 24 hr gate at South Dr and Wisconsin is a regular gate since people are supposed to be able to exit that way all time. Since it doesn’t have a penalty then that would be the default gate. To me that seems appropriate, but will follow your guidance if not correct. Thanks
Hmm, interesting. What that means though is the campus is basically set up as resident centric for entry (i.e. waze will route to destinations on the campus through any of the employee gates that are open at the relevant time), but visitor centric for exit (i.e. waze will route only through the South Dr gate from origins on the campus). Say you work at NIH and live in VA. Then depending on when you leave and the traffic on the Beltway, Rockville Pike, Old Georgetown Rd and River Rd, its conceivable that sometimes the fastest route might be out Wilson to Rockville to the Beltway, sometimes out Center to Old Geogetown to the Beltway and if the Beltway is really backed up maybe it would be fastest to go out Lincoln and head over to River Rd. Here is a live map route that adds Chain Bridge as an option that changes gates depending on what time you select. With the visitor centric exit scheme the only route out given will be through the South Dr gate. Of course the problem with changing it to a resident centric exit scheme is that any of the gates would be used for patient/visitor routing when they need to exit out the South Dr gate. I still lean toward resident centric routing, but am interested in what others think for this particular case.
I was trying to KISS and figured that routing out the 24 hr exit would work best for consistency. I can change to the other method if that is what people desire it to be set up that way.
As you work for NIH, I’m certainly willing to defer to you and monitor the URs.
I’m looking at the searches now. Didn’t realize there was some much other leased NIH office off the campus. The first search result I get for NIH is a Google result for “NIH 6130 Executive Boulevard, Rockville, MD.” The first search result I get for “National Institutes of Health” is a Google result for 30 Convent Drive, Bethesda, MD. The autofill result for NIH or National Institutes of Health take me to a Google result for “National Institutes of Health, 31 Center Drive, Bethesda, MD” I wonder how to have the waze places override these results.
Ok, for the record I don’t work at NIH, but am in the area fairly frequently. I was responding to some URs from NIH employees and they were very good about providing information to help correct things. Between their information, the NIH website (including links from you) and the guards at the gate, I think that a complete picture is now in place. We will see based upon future URs.
There is always room for improvement, but hopefully we are close.
As far as the other search engine results, I don’t know how to overcome them. Garbage in means garbage out which means more URs. (ex Walter Reed still pulls up the old closed hospital and not the Bethesda campus across from NIH since they renamed the Naval Hospital to now be Walter Reed. There are a few complaints about Waze taking a driver to old place when that is where they said they wanted to go from Google.)