UK Editors - HOV is NOT a type of bus!

Map Editors Community United Kingdom
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The Waze app does not yet support the vehicle types available to us when setting segment/turn restrictions, and god only knows when it will. However, progress is being made and the first vehicle type likely to be implemented in the app is HOV - and that brings me to a little rant.

HOV is not a form of bus!

HOV stands for High Occupancy Vehicle. It is for circumstances where special lanes or segments are available only to vehicles carrying more than just the driver. HOV lanes are apparently popular in places like North America, Australia and New Zealand, where they have large, multi-lane highways with lanes “to spare”. According to the Wikipedia article I linked above, we have nearly one whole mile of HOV lane in the UK.

With that in mind, I’m getting pretty irritated by Bus-only segments that have HOV-2 and HOV-3 allowed! :twisted:

When the app does acquire an HOV setting, there will, no doubt, be very little explanation provided to the end users. How many people will turn on the HOV setting because they have passengers - and then get routed up bus lanes?

There are also other “abuses” of restrictions I am seeing a lot of:

  • Width/height/weight restrictions implemented by restricting “trucks”. Is that a 3.5T small van, or a 35T articulated lorry? We have repeatedly pushed Waze for quantitative vehicle restrictions. We’ll keep trying, but we don’t have them now.
  • For the above purposes, also restricting “hazardous materials”. I’m pretty sure that 10kg of blasting caps in somebody’s boot counts as hazardous materials. They might not be able to go through the Blackwall Tunnel, but a 7’ width restriction doesn’t matter.
  • And, again, “towing vehicles”. When I towed a little trailer on holiday, it may have restricted my maximum driving speed, but had no effect whatsoever on what route I could use.
    Please people - I know the options Waze are giving us are pretty useless for many cases, but they are all we’ve got at the moment. I think it’s a good idea that we put in proper restrictions now, so that when the app eventually catches up we will be ahead of the game. But it won’t be so good if half the restrictions are wrong.
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Also, to add to Iain’s wise words above: there is no need to add vehicle or time restrictions to turns if those segments already have those restrictions. Turns with restrictions are hard to spot in the editor, and so should only ever be used when it is the turn itself that is restricted. For example, where trucks are not allowed to turn left because of limited space, but are otherwise allowed to enter the segment from another direction.

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Regarding the use of “truck” restrictions, I’m willing to entertain the idea that we can have a standard set of dimensions for which truck can be used. Or, to look it another way “not a car”.

Looking at the government’s Guide to Lorry Types and Weights, anything more than 3.5 tonnes is considered to be a “Lorry” or heavy goods vehicle. Anything less 3.5 tones is “light goods”, including vans and pickups. There are other legal things around this 3.5 tonne limit (e.g. driving license, so I think this is a good starting point.

I’ve not yet found a clear differentiator for other dimensions yet though. Perhaps we should leave those undocumented, unless anyone else has some suggestions.

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There’s the VCA categories used to approve all new vehicles, but these are similarly weight-based:
http://www.dft.gov.uk/vca/vehicletype/definition-of-vehicle-categories.asp

I’m not aware of any classifications by size, other than those for abnormal loads:

  • a width of more than 2.9 metres
  • a rigid length of more than 18.65 metres
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Talking about buses etc reminds me of another issue I’ve touched on previously…

Does the vehicle type of ‘Bus’ include private hire coaches? and related to that;
What is the ‘Public Transport’ vehicle type?

Thoughts:

  1. Trams
  2. In the UK we have some restrictions for ‘local buses’ which prohibits coaches and vehicles that can usually use most bus lanes; “Where coaches are excluded from bus lanes, the word ‘local’ must appear on the bus lane sign.”
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Yes.

Local buses, excluding private hire coaches. Use when signed “local buses only”.

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So for the avoidance of doubt - a typical road restriction signed “no motor vehicles except buses and taxis” should have these unticked: Public transport, Taxis, Buses?

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Correct :slight_smile:

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Following on from another rant by Iain, let’s review this topic on vehicle restrictions:

Firstly, vehicle types are not supported by Waze, and they have no plans to develop it. So, the only type that matters for now is “Private Vehicle”. All other arguments for types are, at this point in time, moot.

Secondly, most of the vehicle types listed in the editor are either irrelevant or poorly defined. “Truck” is very broad and could be defined as “anything above 3.5 tonnes” but is unlikely to be a perfect fit much of the time. Bus drivers don’t use Waze, and I doubt many coach drivers do either. The only type that might be applicable to our country is “Taxi”, and maybe some kind of “Goods Vehicle” (or two). HOV just isn’t a thing here, and motorcycles are treated as cars.

Thirdly, use of vehicle restrictions can be confusing to editors, and we frequently see restrictions with the opposite intent. For example, a bus lane that prohibits buses and taxis, and allows all others. :evil:

We could translate some of the terms in UK English to be easier to understand, such as “Truck (3.5T)”, “Lorry (7T)”, “Local Bus”, “Coach” and “Not in use”. However, this may cause problems for editors who use UK English in other countries, and it won’t help those who haven’t changed their language from wrong English. We also cannot deviate from the meanings that Waze thing they have.

If/when we do eventually get vehicle types, they might become something entirely different to the options we have now, so there’s little point in trying to get them perfect now. What we really need is height/weight/width restrictions, but we can keep dreaming for them.

So, I propose that editors are advised to not bother with vehicle types at all, because they do not add value to the map, and mistakes can easily break routing for users. The one exception we might allow is a two-way road that is restricted to buses in one direction.

What say ye?

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Fine by me

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I say “ok, fine”, but the wiki has to support that. It can’t be left in the default state of encouraging editors to add restrictions where there are some, resulting, as you note, in some confusion.

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Don’t agree - I don’t think we should not use them at all, but just be more restricted :wink: in our use and have a set of consistent guidelines tailored to the UK. So, I’d like to put forward an alternative proposal:

    1. Only use restrictions where the restriction applies to private cars.
    1. When the are used - restrict all types and only untick allowed vehicles types that are clearly defined and relevant to the UK:

  • Public Transport (i.e. local buses)

  • Buses

  • Taxis

  • Motorcycles

    1. Add a clear note to say what the signed restriction is, e.g. “Buses only”

So, how does that help?

Most of the incorrect restrictions (like the example that triggered Tim’s post) relate to restriction that don’t apply to cars are restricted, specifically height and weight restrictions, so 1. says we remove those completely. Sorted.

It also means that if you see a restriction in the editor it means that cars and therefore Waze routing is restricted making things a lot clearly.

  1. would mean that the dubious and confusing vehicle types that seem to cause these issues and debates e.g. HOV, Hazardous Material, Lorries, RV) will always be ticked. So, end of debate. :slight_smile:

And 3. Not strictly part of the debate but I’ve often felt it’s useful to understand what the restriction is intended to represent when you’re working in the editor. The notes are also visible to all editors if you use the URO+ script. If there is no note you must open the Edit Restriction dialogue which is only available if you have the editing rights and high enough editing level for that segment.

Still here? OK, so here’s some of my thinking behind this.

What’s the alternative? I like to call a spade a spade, and map a street a street. I don’t want bus only streets mapped as pedestrian or private or even removed from the map because the map will look wrong. This would also have the potential to impact routing instructions if they are not mapped correctly at the junctions where they join unrestricted streets.

Vehicle types may not be in the app, but like it or not, they are in WME. Not using a feature that’s is available to all opens it up to misuse by new editors who haven’t yet found the forums or read the wiki. This will always happen to some extent, but less likely for people to add incorrect restrictions if a correct restriction already exists.

And lastly, if Waze ever do add options for taxis and motorcyles in the app (and I note Tim’s comment that they have no plans to do this) then that information is already on the UK map. If we waiting until we know the feature is being released I doubt we could add them all quickly enough. Yes, it’s true that they may be different in the future, but if we focus on just the clearly defined vehicle type above I’m sure some clever people can export the data, and convert it to whatever may be required.

Well done if you’ve stayed with me to the end :smiley:
Food for thought?

Andrew

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Thank you John and Andrew, you both make some excellent points.

Thinking about the alternate suggestion above, ignoring all the “not-a-car” restrictions seem sensible, as it does not affect the main user. As you say, a street should be mapped as a street, with appropriate restriction for buses.

I’m not aware of any [commonly used] restrictions that only apply to motorcycles, so we can probably ignore that one. (Although, it’s still an important vehicle type to have in the app for other reasons).
I’d like to further simplify Buses to mean all buses, and ignore Public Transport. Or treat them as identical. Given that we’d never expect a bus driver to use Waze, the only reason for these options to exist is so we have an appropriate tickbox to tick.

That leaves us with only two vehicle types: Private Vehicle and Taxi. None of the others are relevant, IMHO.

Side note: It’s important to know and document how the different road types and restrictions work within Waze. For example, Private Roads can only be routed to if the destination is on it, but they look like ordinary streets to users (hopefully that will change in the future). Roads with restrictions are more strict, and you cannot route onto them even if the destination is on it (please correct me if I’m wrong).

What we need to do is come up with specific use cases, and the recommended restrictions to use. Examples:

  • Any Dimension Limit - do not add restrictions to the map
  • Access Only - Private Road, no restrictions
  • Buses Only - untick Buses, and Taxi if allowed
  • No HGVs - do not add restrictions to the map
  • Loading Only - Private Road, with time restrictions for when loading is not permitted
  • HGVs Only - untick Truck (common at services, could be translated)
    Does that work? Any others we should add?

We could translate “Truck” to “HGV”, and allowed editors to add that restriction for any sign that says “No HGVs” or “Unsuitable for HGVs”, regardless of the posted weight limit. Or we could just not use it.

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Neither am I - and since cars are allowed we can ignore those … but

I am aware of routes where cars are restricted but motorcycles are allowed so I am proposing we untick motorcycles in these instances. Some councils allow motorcycles to use some bus routes like this one in Bristol Google StreetView
and (less common perhaps) there are some motorcycle only routes like this bridge in/out of Portsmouth Google StreetView :shock: Great fun that one!

The other reason I specifically mentioned motorcycles and taxis is that I believe there is more chance of these being included as supported vehicles in the Waze client than others. There are more similar to private car than buses and HGVs and they could potentially be routed using the existing speed data.

That’s certainly better defined than attempted to use it for any height and weight limits, but I think I’d still rather not see any restrictions for roads that are OK for cars. Happy to use for ‘HGV only’ at service stations etc.

Yes, as I understand it restricted segments incur a routing penalty to enter them whereas there is no such penalty to enter a ‘private road’. They have a penalty replied when you exit in order to prevent through routing.

Absolutely. This will be the biggest help to ensure correct consistent by all.

Shall I put together a draft wiki page pulling all this together in one place for further review/comment?

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Please do. You can create a page within your own userspace…

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I haven’t forgotten - just holidays, work etc all getting in the way at the moment.

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Waze have sneaked in a new Navigation setting called “Vehicle Type” that currently includes just Private and Taxi. So, we need to ensure that restrictions for Taxi are at least correct.

There’s a good chance that they will add in “Truck” at some point soon, so we need to figure out what this should be. A discussion amongst champs concluded that “Lorries (3.5T)” would be best, as it covers all medium goods vehicles. We figured that HGV drivers probably aren’t using Waze…

Does this seem sensible to everyone?

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I did hope for a Commercial Vehicle setting so Waze would avoid The Mail and other Royal Parks in London. Since I drive a 3.5 Ton Sign written Van. :wink:

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Yup I concur

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Sounds reasonable - but do we need to agree a height and width that applies or are you proposing only to restrict the vehicle type on roads with weight limits?