Waze has a number of non-driving type streets (walking trails, stairways, etc.). What is the best practice for creating these? I would like to update UMD’s campus to show them (since the campus and the area around it have so many), but I am concerned that Waze will try to take cars on them. I have been unable to find any documentation from Waze on this.
There is a bit of documentation on non-drivable segments here. You are correct to be concerned that Waze will try to take cars on them, as waze will route over them. Thus, if on the map they should never be connected to the drivable road network.
The question becomes what do the walking trails, pedestrian boardwalks and stairways add to the waze user experience. Waze shouldn’t be used when walking as if you are walking along a road you are polluting the speed data for the road. So the question becomes does mapping these features help a driver in any way? If not they shouldn’t be mapped in waze.
There is also a property of walking trails (and boardwalks, I think) that if a destination is closest to the trail, waze will route to the end of the trail. But this is not well understood or documented and seems to be in a state of flux. This could be useful to say have waze route to the correct parking lot if you are routing to say the psych building, but it can also cause some odd routing results where there are walking trails.
Unless there is a specific reason to map the trails on campus, I’d leave them off the waze map at this point.
Ok. Do you know if there has been any push to allow for pedestrian or bike routing from Waze?
My understanding is that ultimately waze would like to have at least bike routing, but that would be fairly far out on the development map. As far as the user community goes there are both those that would like to see pedestrian and bike routing and those that would like waze to remain focused on car drivers.