Private Roads

Map Editors Community Hong Kong
1

I found that many road segments in Hong Kong are wrongly set to "Private Road"s, such as Taikoo Place (Permalink), Harbour City (Permalink), and City One Shatin (Permalink).

According to Waze USA Wiki, “Private Road” means super high penalty routing, which should be set in caution:

As such, we may have misunderstood what “Private Road” means in Waze. In the common (?) sense of drivers in HK, private road usually means a privately-owned or privately-managed road, that certain traffic regulations does/does not apply. It does not necessarily mean there is a gate between the public/privately-owned road segment that restricts access. The privately-owned road segment can still be freely accessible by the public, thus can be routed by Waze. Such privately-owned road segment should not be set to “Private Road”, or Waze will apply a penalty and avoid this route. Waze’s routing logic is global/universal, so I believe we should follow the guidelines on the USA Wiki.

In short, “Private Road” = No routing. Hence, I suggest to change the above road segment network (and other similar places) back to “Street” type.

2

Just for clarity. Private road has high penalty but Waze will still direct you there if your destination is there :wink:

3

Thanks for clarifying. I meant no routing for through traffic, instead of absolutely no routing. In the examples of Taikoo Place, Harbour City and City One Shatin, the private roads are freely accessible (no gates to restrict access between public road zone and private road zone) so they shouldn’t be disallowed to be routed through them (if, for example, routing through them saves a few minutes of travelling time)

4

Sorry Keith. I just put more words for clarity. Actually I agree what you said. Please go ahead to change them to street type.

5

That’s the thing. I discovered the private-road problem after you applied the Closure on Pan Hoi St, Quarry Bay :oops:

So we need to remove the closure to make changes to the segment and then add the closure back…argh :roll:

6

arrrrrrh…I’m a bit busy atm…hehehe I mean lazy :mrgreen: Please leave it and I’ll do it late. Please go ahead to change the rest of other area first :wink: :mrgreen:

7

I originally created these as Private Roads as, technically, they are indeed private.

Your point is well taken in terms of routing.

Keep in mind some areas will be gated and require Octopus Cards for entry / egress to capture parking monies - not the case with the specific locations you mentioned above but is the case with certain housing estates and University roads.

Something to keep in mind.

8

According to Waze guidelines, gated area should be marked as Private Road, or at least that single segment that passed through the gate should be marked as a Private Road segment. This is to discourage Waze routing server to guide through traffic to pass through those gates (usually private car park areas that charges users for entering). Of course, as Leo mentioned above, if the final destination is on a Private Road, Waze will still route to that road, but it will (almost certainly) be avoided if there’s another alternative route that doesn’t go via the Private Road segment.

I hope that clarifies the difference between what a private road is, and what Waze thinks it is. Unfortunately we cannot change the Waze logic of routing to HK specific (it’s global), so we’d better follow Waze Wiki/ Best editing guidelines

9

You guys say both correct. It makes sense not to mark the ‘private road’ not ‘private road’ :mrgreen: if it opens to public as a through road. I believe there are many cases in HK. I can’t find any similar example in Newcastle but we have some cases that roads within an estate is only allowed for access only for the residences and there are camera to prevent people to use them as a through road.
It also makes sense to mark the ‘private road’ as ‘private road’ if there is a gate. I hope what I said ‘make sense’ :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

10

Agree