Hearing “exit” when being directed to a Freeway ENTRANCE is, and has always been, wrong. This is a deficiency due to the limitations imposed by the weakness of the Waze system. Anyone who says that it is “standard” or that it’s OK is a Stockholm Syndrome victim. I sincerely doubt that anyone here EVER used the term, “exit” to describe entering a freeway, before the existence of Waze.
Now, we have a tool, provided by the designers of the system, to overcome the lack of either foresight or perhaps programming, and I feel we should use it. It does nothing but improve the User Experience, when used properly.
Maybe that is a regional belief, but I don’t think it’s all that wrong. FWIW, most states do not have those little “FREEWAY ENTRANCE” signs at freeway entrances.
There are a couple freeway entrances near me where the sign “EXIT” appears at the point where the entrance ramp leaves the served road, “EXIT ONLY” signs above exit lanes, and so forth. Point is that I’m not sure the experience is the same nationally.
Would I like to hear “take the ramp on the right to I-10 E / New Orleans” or “keep right onto the ramp to …” or “Turn left onto the ramp to…”? Maybe so. Maybe not, it’s a little wordy. To me, exit vs. keep in this case is not a big deal at all. I’ve heard much worse in the grand scheme of things. The GPS in my father’s 2013 Cadillac told me to “turn right” to get off a freeway, the one time I ever used that thing.
Habituation is different from delusion. While I’d guess that most Waze users are now habituated to hearing “exit” instructions for onramps, I would not go so far as to suggest they are deluded into thinking it’s the most perfect instruction any nav app could give.
My only interest is whether the “exit” instruction is optimal compared with our only alternative for angled departures, which is “stay to the right”. I have no interest in whether “exit” is absolutely right or wrong. Probably most folks would agree that it is wrong, but that’s neither here nor there. The real question is, under what circumstances is “stay to the right” a better instruction than “exit”.
If we stay with the perspective of right and wrong, we need to consider other “wrongnesses”:
Because “exit” is Waze’s official default, it will be a common onramp instruction whether we like it or not. If we begin a process of overriding the default one onramp at a time, the Waze app will behave inconsistently until the day comes when all onramps have been overridden. Inconsistent instruction behavior in a navigation app is wrong.
From a database management standpoint, overriding default behavior on a large scale can create a world of hurt. Maintenance and verification – not to mention future flexibility should the default improve one day! – suffer. Overriding default behavior on a large scale is wrong.
Our only alternative, the instruction “stay to the right”, does not automatically mean “leave the road you are on and take this onramp”. In cases where the right lane splits off or there is an obvious forking of the roadway, sure. But in other cases “stay to the right” is hardly less wrong than “exit”.
Believe me, I understand the annoyance of hearing “exit” for an onramp! This is not one of Waze’s best design decisions. But no matter how wrong it is, it’s still the default, and we have to weigh the tradeoffs.
While I agree the word “Exit” is not what I expect, I don’t think it is necessary wrong since you are “exiting the current road” onto a curved roadway like you do transitioning from a freeway.
To say we should use this new tool to override 99% of the default freeway entrances screams hack to me. If we feel that strongly about it, we should have the default changed. Also, as others have mentioned, the other choices are not the perfect alternative, which I think would be “Enter” or something similarly opposite of Exit.
Essentially the term “Exit” is overloaded in current Waze navigation to mean:
signed freeway exits (Exit right to Exit 152: First Ave)
leaving one road for another at an angle (Exit right to Exit 152: First Ave)
In fact, I’m almost leaning to argue that because it’s overloaded:
You can “stay to the right/left” to an exit (Stay to the right to Exit 1A: I-405 S / Santa Ana)
You can “exit right/left” to an entrance (Exit right to I-405 S / Santa Ana)
If the numbered exit is the BC, then “Continue” (whenever that rolls out) would scale appropriately (Continue straight to Exit 1A: SR-1 N / Santa Cruz / Half Moon Bay)
And then by extension:
Staying to right/left should mean a decision between halves of a road–i.e., the best continuation is uncertain
Exit right/left should mean make an action to leave an existing road for another–the best continuation is absolute.
I’m sorry, but I cannot get behind the idea that the correct verb for an exit is something other than exit.
The exit number is part of the name of the exit. Numbered exits are referred to in this country as “Exit [number]”. Unnumbered exits would say, e.g., “Exit right to First Ave”.
“Overloaded” is a value judgment that I personally do not agree with.
A way to improve would be, e.g., “Take Exit 152 on the right to First Ave”, but that would require a whole lot of interpretation by the TTS engine that I don’t necessarily trust Waze to implement properly. Still, an editor can dream.
If I wasn’t clear–I mean overloaded in the computer science definition, that is, one term to mean two different things.
Exit today in Waze already means two things:
We need to acknowledge this first, especially #2.
The second part is now to acknowledge then what stay/keep mean:
I suspect you included the wrong PL, but in looking around Oakland area I still can’t find what you’re talking about.
No matter, it doesn’t make sense anyway. The false dichotomy of “keep == stay on a road when it’s not clear how to do so” and “exit == leave a road when it is clear how to do so” leaves no option for “leave a road when it is not clear how to do so” (presumably “stay on a road when it is clear how to do so” is “no instruction”). Regardless, I don’t think you can get anything clear out of it anyway.
Saying the term is “overloaded” doesn’t make sense in this context anyway. We aren’t using the word to refer to one or more specific objects or items. It’s not a variable or a glossary term. It’s not “level” when it also meant “elevation” or “split” when it also meant “divided”. We can’t just make up a new word. We have an infinite number of map situations and only three words to describe them.
In your example, if “keep” is for “stay on a road when it’s not clear how to do so”, how do you end up with 2 “keeps”? You can’t be on I-80 W and I-80 E at the same time.
The clearest and most obvious use of “exit” is for “exits from controlled- and limited-access highways”, whether numbered or not. If you are on a freeway/expressway and you are leaving that freeway/expressway (ignoring concurrencies for now), then “exit” is the proper command, and I cannot possibly imagine a world in which “keep” would make more sense. Not to mention that that is default normal behavior.
If you are on a freeway that runs concurrently with another freeway, and the concurrency ends (i.e., the freeways go their separate ways), I still believe the side that is a numbered exit, if there is one, should get “exit” in accordance with user expectations.
If you are on, say, an interstate that runs concurrently with an otherwise-non-freeway US or state highway, I do not think that should factor into the calculus as a concurrency at all, even if we did decide that concurrent freeways should have “keep” when the concurrency ends.
Some good questions are being raised and discussed, but I’m missing the connection with the specific focus of this thread, which is when and when not to override a default “exit” instruction for an onramp.
I’d like to suggest a moderator split off the conversation that doesn’t specifically involve onramp situations into the broader TIO thread.
I think we are close to a provisional solution to the onramp question in this thread and would like to see that happen!
As we seem to be converging (mostly) on a perspective, I’d like to offer suggested guidance again. This is verbatim from my last offering, except I’ve updated the title, clarified where it would go in the current TIO guidance, and added a suggestion for the “when NOT to use” section.
One aspect that was brought up in other venues that I have not seen discussed in this thread is the collector/distributor ramp and does a ramp to ramp junction need a TIO.
So if already off of the Freeway on the ramp segments, then does the user need an “Exit Right to Big Green Sign or Little Green Sign” direction which requires a TIO? Or does the current “Keep Right/Left to BGS or LGS” suffice which is what you get for a ramp to ramp connection that is < 45 degrees.
In USA there is not a Exit Left… unless there is a TIO so I omitted it as a default in my above example.
I have yet to see anyone submit a UR that they were told to keep right vice exit right, but I am a few shy of 45,000 URs so might get one soon . I have seen editors going around and putting TIOs in for an exit right basically because they can and there isn’t guidance out yet.
Yes but since the title is TIO: Exit vs Keep for On-ramps, I was surprised that the C/D wasn’t discussed here since it fit under the title. If off topic, then ignore my comment. I just wanted it discussed if that was part of what was going to be put in the wazeopedia.
There are many aspects to the use of overrides in association with ramps. However, as finding consensus on the entire spectrum of use with ramps may be hard, I was hoping to get consensus just on this one aspect of it. With that accomplished we could move to the other dimensions of the question.
If the suggested guidance is considered OK as far as it goes, I’ll take that as a yes! If the term onramp as used in the proposed guidance needs to be defined, someone speak up as that’s something I can take a shot at, although my feel is that it’s adequate as is. I’d love to get this subset of ramp guidance into the wiki.
. I have seen editors going around and putting TIOs in for an exit right basically because they can and there isn’t guidance out yet.