Upcoming Parking Reservation Feature in WME - Updates

Map Editors Community United States
1

Dear US community,

Hope you’re doing well :slightly_smiling_face:

Prefer reading this post through a doc? Here it is.

As you know, we’ve been working on a new Parking feature, to allow US drivers to reserve parking through Waze.
This feature is planned to launch to beta for Android users in the US, in version 4.100, currently planned for December (dates shift around a lot these days, so please bear with us if this changes).

Here are more details about the new Parking Reservation feature and WME:

  • The provider’s parking venues will be added to the map in the coming days:

  • Around 70% of them already exist on the map, thanks to you :clap:

  • The rest will be added as new venues - an automated process will create PURs and auto-approve them

  • At a later point, we’ll launch a daily feed to update all the provider’s venues. It will create new venues when needed, as PURs for you to approve.

  • A few weeks after the launch, new parking-related attributes will show up for each venue WME. These attributes will not be editable. These are the new attributes:

  • Last update date

  • Booking rate

  • Discounted rate

  • Booking rate duration (e.g., 3 hours)

  • Rate schedule (e.g., Mon 9am - Fri 9 pm)

  • These attributes will be updated daily through the feed.

  • The daily feed run may create some duplications, here’s why:

  • The Provider lists sub-locations within the same parking lot as separate venues, i.e. - an area or floor in the garage is listed as a separate venue.

  • For us, in WME, those are translated as duplicates.

  • We have a 2-fold solution for this:

  • We’re working with the Provider to change the way they list sub-locations. We explained that for our map, those are redundant and should be removed.

  • Editors of a certain level will be able to merge those duplicates.

  • Here are the guidelines we ask you to follow:

  • The latest venue is the one to keep, since it contains the most updated information.

  • If you see that the feed mistakenly created another instance of the same venue, we ask that you merge the old venue into the new (old → new).

  • In the future, we plan to add a merging enforcement, which will only allow editors to merge the old venue into the new (old → new).

  • What if I find mistakes in attributes I can’t edit?

  • We currently don’t have a Reporting type (PUR style) set up for parking.

  • As a pilot - We created this sheet where you can share issues that come up and the team will take them up with the provider.

  • If we see that many issues come up we will regroup and find an automated solution.

  • What if I find mistakes in attributes I can edit? Will the daily feed overwrite my changes?

  • No. As explained over the call we held earlier this year, the feed run should consider community-made changes as primary and won’t overwrite them.

We will keep you posted on the timeline for:

  • The daily feed
  • Showing the new attributes in WME
  • Adding the Merge enforcement

Please let us know if you have any questions or comments.

Brett and Anat, on behalf of the team.

2

Hey friends,

With our last post, we promised to update about the timelines for the daily feed, merging parking lots and showing the new parking attributes.
We’re happy to share updates about 2 out of those 3, and more :tada:

  • L4+ editors should be able to merge feed-imported parking lots, right away, as soon as they’re added to the map. When will that be? Here’s the answer :arrow_right:

  • In the coming days, ~11K parking lots will be added to the US map:

  • These will be added via an automated process, directly to the map, not as PURs.

  • The parking aggregator provides the information for the venues so the details don’t follow your conventions - they’re not harmonized.

  • Our team will do the harmonization based on your standard guidelines. This task will take a few weeks to complete so you may notice parking lots with names, addresses and descriptions that don’t follow your conventions, during that time.

  • The daily feed run is planned to launch shortly after we add the ~11K venues to the map. The feed will:

  • Update venue details; mostly their pricing and hourly rates

  • Add new venues, when needed, as PURs for your approval

We’re still waiting to get the timeline for showing the new parking attributes in WME’s left side panel. We’ll keep you posted on that!

Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.

3

Hey friends,

Another update:
The new venues were added to the map through the automated process last week.
Our team has started working on adapting their names, descriptions and addresses to your conventions.
This should take a few weeks, as they work through around 20K of these venues.
While they review them, they also encounter and flag issues, so this review is even more helpful than we expected :slight_smile:

Regarding issues - keep raising the strange mapping incidents you’re running into!
We take these up with the provider in hopes to have less and less of these as we move forward.

Thanks and happy holidays :slight_smile:

4

I just added a cluster of issues to the sheet. It does not appear there has been any review since the end of January and there are several new entries. I might be good for staff to take another pass. Thanks.

5

I wonder what happened to my sheet notifications :shock:
Thanks for letting us know!!

6

@Anat-S-Staff Should we still report provider issues in the sheet? There have been no staff comments since 2024. I’ve got a new one to report, so where’s the best place?