[page discussion]Parking Lots Areas

Map Editors Community United States US Wiki Discussion
1

As we know waze has released a new feature with parking lots and updated functionality in the editor related to this feature is being rolled out. The USA wiki page has been released to the masses and will probably be updated multiple times as this feature and information evolves.

I am assuming that there has been forum work on this topic but have my seen it in the normal channels or public sections and would like to start an area that can be used for this feature discussion. Also as previously discussed it would be ideal to have any wiki page have a link to a section of the forum to see evolving discussions on the topic. (Of course there always the transition to wazeopedia)

Anyways to start the discussion off on this section I have two questions about current guidance:

-Currently we are not being recommended from adding further PLA till they don’t clutter the map in areas that they maybe masked by other areas is it acceptable to add? Or should guidance suggest discussion with your state managers about adding. I am aware of some parking lots that should be added but would like further guidance

-For places there is the option of adding “Parking for customers”. Is this selection going to be associated with this new feature. Should editors be using adding feature? And should an area that has an associated parking lot like a mall area have the stores inside have this selected?

2

As far as I am aware - the “Parking for Customers” is not associated with the new feature.

I don’t understand the following comment - “And should an area that has an associated parking lot like a mall area have the stores inside have this selected?” - when we map out the parking lots, we are mapping only the parking lots.

3

Here an example of an area that encompasses a parking lot but nothing is currently selected as parking for customer or mapped for parking lots

4

If I am seeing it correctly - there are no services selected at all - no website / phone number / etc. - I would consider this place as not complete.

If you currently search for L. L. Bean, however - it still shows you the “nearest parking lot” is at the “Hilton Garden Inn” - which is a bit unfortunate. We will want to map a parking lot area in only the parking lot to have it give better parking lot direction.

Again, for the parking lot areas to come, they would only be mapped to the parking lot.

5

Correct the place needs completion, but also current guidelines say not to add more parking lot areas. Hence my first question, using it as an example to spur guidance discussion.

6

Hi there, until this feature reaches production WME I was not planning on making an official announcement.
You are correct considering the planning of this feature was confidential, and then beta only, any discussion on the wiki was also kept out of public channels, and therefore there was no topic to link to yet for this page. Now that you have started this topic we can link to it.
To answer your questions, there are several reasons we are holding off creating new PLAs for now until the rollouts are completed, so even in your example I’d follow the general rule of not creating any new PLAs until the feature is finished rolling out to the client and production WME, and the guidance is updated.
As far as the parking for customers service item, that should be checked on any place which offers parking for its customers, not just regular street parking or a public lot/garage nearby. AFAIK for now that box has nothing to do with this feature, and is a separate entity. It should still be filled accurately when possible, but will not affect the performance of this feature.

7

Hi all,
I have been reading the Parking wiki https://wazeopedia.waze.com/wiki/USA/Places/Parking_lot and had a discussion item, which sent me here. I would like to discuss expanding and clarifying on the “Scope” and “What does not qualify as a PLA?” sections.

I am seeing a lot of new Parking lot areas added by new editors and that makes me ponder each of their edits. Do I reject their edit? Do I keep it? Does it need to be edited/changed? Being in an mature urban waze area, there are not a lot of things for a L1 editor to do, except add PL roads, and PL areas, and Place Points, etc. and they do so… (yes I try to contact them, but most do not have messaging set up).

Here are my points for discussion:

  • Strip mall parking lot. Does it even need a PL Area? If that is your destination, then parking is right there. (including big box stores, grocery store shopping centers, etc.)
  • Restaurant Parking lots - again, if your destination is the restaurant, then most likely, the parking lot is right there.

I agree that it may be good to have parking lot areas for large shopping malls, universities, stadiums, fairgrounds, etc. I do not believe they are needed for commercial office parks, or private enterprises (unless there is a need to show “visitor parking”).

And what about in the downtown areas? This is where the PL areas will be most beneficial (as opposed to suburban areas). There are Public parking lots/facilities/areas, which I think should be marked. What about the many private parking lots for the workers in buildings? Those should probably not be marked. Or if waze insists, marked private parking, and not displayed on the live map.

Anyway, I know there’s a lot of points I made, I just want to get a discussion going. In summary, I think that PL areas should focus on public parking venues in downtown areas. Additionally, in suburban and rural areas, only at venues such as large shopping centers (regional malls), universities/colleges, stadiums, fairgrounds or other event places. PL areas should not be for offices, restaurants, medium and small shopping centers (like big box stores, grocery stores, strip malls,etc.).

8

The short answer is, we do want the parking lot areas even in the strip malls and the restaurants and the big box stores. The app will recommend a parking lot for you to go to, and it will seem very strange to a user to be recommended a lot further away and not the one right in front of the store because someone decided not to add that area attached to the store. That’s said we are not adding lots of areas yet as you can see in the notice at the top of the page. For now the result of our discussions and communication with staff is there any parking lot is fair game however street parking would not be added you can see the examples listed for what not to add in the wiki.

9

Thanks for your insight PesachZ . I’m still not seeing the big picture. If I drive to my local Grocery Store/Big Box/whatever (in a strip mall with a large parking lot), why would I need a parking lot recommendation? In most cases (anything built in the suburban US in the last 40+ years or so), the parking lot is the 10 acres of blacktop right in front of the store. If I’m the shopping center owner, I don’t want non-customers parking in the shopping center lot. Aren’t PP and PLR’s and the “WME Closest Segment” guiding one to the correct place?

When I think about urban US, and European cities, this PL area makes more sense. If I’m in (suburban) London, and have to pop over to my local Sainsbury which has the parking lot underneath it, then it makes sense. If I’m going to a shop on the High Street, knowing where to park would be good. Makes sense there.

Maybe suburban US is more of a special case than the other ~90% of the world.

When I think about it, it seems that the developers are planning that the driver’s destination is now going to be the parking lot instead of the PP, which makes sense for the car (and Waze is a driving app for cars). ¯_(ツ)_/¯

10

The way the app now works is such that any time you navigate to (or search) a destination (place), it will offer you parking lot choices which you may choose, or simply navigate to the point. If you area say dropping someone off you’d want to navigate straight to the spot, but if you needed to park you’d choose a lot presumably. This will happen regardless of if the destination is a standalone big-box store, in a small strip mall, or a large shopping center. The app will behave the same and offer each a parking suggestion. It will recommend one lot and then be able to list others nearby.
For the feature to work it needs to know where all the lots are. If the restaurant I’m going to has its own lot in the back, i want that recommended to me so I don’t instead choose the municipal lot nearby. Knowing that restaurant had its own lot the app would recommend it or at least offer it as an option I could choose.

There is a lot more detail to how the recommendations work, but for them to work as planned the servers need to know all the options.

Of course if a lot is private for customers only, etc, it should be marked as such following the guidance in the wiki.

That said we are still not yet creating new lot areas en-masse until the features are fully rolled out, namely to hide the polygons from the map in the client, and also to prevent having to come back and update them all when the rest of the planned features become available in WME. PLAs which already are on the map (from Waze imports) should not be deleted unless they meet criteria for PLAs not to map as listed in this wiki page, and with SM+ consultation.

11

Did a bit of preliminary calculations to come up with an average of cars per 1000sq ft of parking lot area.

I measured various lots of different sizes and shapes, counted the spots and used toolbox measurement for the surface area.

I could be wrong and other states may have much larger or smaller spaces, but 3 cars per 1000sq.ft seems to work reasonably well.

This could be added as quick calculation in the wiki to make spot calculation for editors a bit easier.

12

We need to clarify the hours set for PLAs. Currently, there is not much said about setting the hours.

I did some testing (after one editor was setting the PLA hours to match the store hours) and found that the PLA is not shown, except during the hours that are set. So if someone is navigation to that business, and is starting before the store opens, the lot will not be displayed.

Further testing shows that a lot set to 24 hours or that has no hours set, shows at all times.

My suggestion is to add a note to the wiki that states the hours should only be set to something other than 24 hours if there is some sort of physical barrier preventing vehicular traffic from entering the lot during off hours.
I would say barrier, or sign which prohibits entry, or being on premises during certain hours.

13

I would like to suggest that a clarification be added to the Parking Lot page clarifying the mapping of Car Dealership lots. I believe that mapping them as PLAs is not in keeping with the purpose of the parking feature.

14

I agree, a car dealership should only have the customer parking lot mapped, not where all the dealer cars are parked.

15

The tool included in WME Place Interface Enhancements works very well.

16

I am not quite ready to be bold on this one, because it seems authoritative, and is enclosed in a box at the top of the page, but to reduce confusion, please note that parking lot place points ARE still being created, from the App, when a picture is taken at the location. Map editors should be aware, and not just delete them because they ‘don’t comply’ to standards. Some may just need a little TLC.

17

I have a suggestion, if I may, regarding the Parking Naming foundational guidance (https://wazeopedia.waze.com/wiki/USA/Places/Parking_lot#Naming) to pose to the Illuminati of Waze regarding PLAs–to make the Waze experience better for Wazers.

The current form, “[Parking Descriptor] <restrictions> - [Entity served]” creates an awkward looking entry when it appears on the Waze app, putting redundant information first, with the more important details last.

For example, “Most popular parking lot: Parking - Lowe’s”. At this point in the transaction, the Wazer knows it is a parking lot, saying it is a parking lot FIRST is impractical.

My suggestion is to put the most useful information first. For example, “Most popular parking lot: Lowe’s Parking”.

The Name need only include “Parking” or “Lot” (at the end) if matches a nearby business to distinguish it in searches.

This lot, for example, is not part of a business, but is easily identifiable by the named building (https://www.waze.com/editor/?env=usa&lon=-79.84133&lat=36.04925&zoom=7&venues=183632232.1836060181.4797487) In this case, adding “Lot” makes sense–“Wrightsville Building Lot”.

Proposed wording for the wiki:

The foundational guidance for naming a PLA when the lot serves another entity, is to follow this basic format:
[Entity Served] <restrictions> <designator> - [Context]
The framework is not recursive. In other words, there is only one entity served in any lot name, and the rest of the name is additonal context. <designator> is usually “Lot” or “Parking” as needed to differentiate it from a nearby business. The Name can be:

Completely generic - For single-business - single-lot, just specify the business name:

  • Starbucks Parking (type=Restricted)
    Purpose descriptive - Where there is only one lot of the type, specify the place first, then the purpose or restrictions. Add context details after a hyphen (-) if necessary:
  • Office Depot Customer Parking (type=Restricted)
  • Office Depot Employee Parking (type=Private)
  • LSU Eunice Visitor Parking (type=Restricted)
  • Airport Employee Lot - MSY (type=Private)
    Location descriptive - Where more than one lot serve the same purpose for the same place, specify the most useful details first, adding additional context details after a hyphen (-) if necessary:
  • Wrightsville Building Lot (type=Restricted)
  • Southeast Lot - Big Hill Shopping Center (type=Public)
  • Macy’s Lot - Big Hill Shopping Center (type=Public)
  • North Lot - Offices at Buildingtown Plaza (type=Restricted)
    Named - Where the lot is given an official name or signage exists: Match the signs or name exactly. Where additional context would be useful use a hyphen (-) to separate the official name and the context detail:
  • Burlington Lot 7 (type=Public)
  • Garage 2A - Mercedes Benz Superdome (type=Public)
  • Credit Card Lot - MSY (type=Public)

The rest of the page should be updated to match these rules. As it is now, the examples under “Restricted parking” (https://wazeopedia.waze.com/wiki/USA/Places/Parking_lot#Restricted_parking) do not comply with the currently stated guidance.

What are your thoughts on this? Improvements to the proposal?

Thanks!

  • Bill
18

I like this idea. My only question/comment is the (type=Restricted) is not for inclusion in the PLA name but just to let us know how to mark the PLA type, correct?

19

Correct, just to indicate the “type” on the More Info tab… There was a bit of a side discussion on that in our area.

20

In addition to the above, I would find it helpful for the Wazeopedia page to explain the ramifications of marking a lot restricted/private/public. For instance, perhaps a public lot shows on the app, but a restricted lot does not? Perhaps a private lot will never show in search results? Etc.

Also, as I do more of these, I feel that offices (i.e. non-retail establishments which won’t have members of the general public) don’t need the parking lots mapped at all. An example of this would be an office building where the only people who park there are the direct employees - the place point to navigate to the business should suffice in this circumstance. I can’t see a need for Waze to recommend a parking lot here. Unless, of course, there is some future functionality tied to parking where every single place point must have an associated PLA or …? This doesn’t seem to serve any navigational purpose.

With regards to naming, I think it’s important to name in such a way that it doesn’t duplicate search results. For example if I search for Macy’s, I don’t want to be given two options in the search results for essentially the same location - i.e. “Macy’s” and “Macy’s Lot - Big Hill Shopping Center”. Instead perhaps a better approach would be something else like the name=“Redwood shopping Center, Northwest lot” and have the description=“Near Macy’s” (which I believe will not show up in a search for “Macy’s”).

-Bob C.