A query about supermarkets - generally they seem to be marked as area places on the map, so I’m guessing that’s the right way to do it (makes sense, as quite often a large supermarket could be said to be a ‘landmark’ for the motorist). Mostly the area seems to cover only the building itself, but I’ve spotted a minority which encompass the car park as well - am I right in thinking that the former is correct, and the latter is not?
Local businesses - is it desirable to map individual businesses/shops within a town as point places? I can see how it would help drivers find their way to popular businesses, but I can also see how it might clutter things a bit.
Places are always a subject of great discussion. The Wazeo gives a bit more detail, but should only be used as guidance. Often there is a reason for how they are added, so if they have already been added, it is better not to change them unless obviously wrong (It irritates the original editor )
Area places for anything big, place points for the smaller ones. That said, an area place should not include a car park, the car park should be mapped as a seperate car park, correctly named, addressed and set up (usually for a supermarket - restricted, but some are public car parks as well) and with the access PLR roads in place.
We do want as many places added to Waze as possible. Ours, when present, are often more accurate than the google ones Waze insists on using.
This is a boring job, but it adds to the “Independence” of Waze whenever we have something of our own and do not rely on google to provide the data.
Gotcha. Wazeo suggests a building area of 40m x 40m as a threshold between point and area places - seems like a sensible sort of cut-off, is that a good rule-of-thumb to work to?
When you say that a supermarket carpark should be mapped separately - do you mean just as appropriate PLRs, or as an area place as well? Most of what I’ve encountered so far has the supermarket as an area, with the carpark just as PLRs - but I’ve encountered a minority which have a separate area place covering the carpark, which strikes me as a way to clutter up the map with unnecessary areas. The example supermarket which is linked from the Wazeopedia is in the former style - so I’m guessing that’s preferred?
The size is a good start. Under a certain size (and I can never remember what it is) the area will not appear in the app anyway, so it just clutters the WME.
All car parks of any size must be drawn as areas. You might notice that car park places only have the button to convert to area, not like all other places which have 2 buttons to convert both ways. This is necessary as a lot of car parks are originally added as points.
Waze is working on (and has been for many years) a way of noting how many Waze users are stopped in a car park (I assume they must also use the ratio of Waze users to non users in the area) v how many cars it can take. They are trying for a system to indicate when a car park is full. This can only work if the car park is an area so Waze knows if you are in it or not.
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