US Forest Service Roads

Map Editors Community United States
21

I agree that there are distinct regional differences that make it difficult for waze to implement universal standards. We’ve had South African posters point out that that they have highways (roads that need to be designated as highway for waze to route between towns) that are dirt roads. On the other hand in urban/suburban US areas there is not really any reason to have roads that are unpassable for a standard passenger car on the map, thus dirt works well for any unpaved road (this allows the suburban driver to avoid gravel roads so they won’t diminish their social status by dinging the paint on their Range Rover).

It certainly makes sense to me for waze to add an unpaved check box along with the client option to avoid unpaved roads. Then have a 4x4 road type, that could also be separately avoided in routing.

Whatever is done, there is no way we are going to get all editors to mark dirt roads that are driveable by a normal car as streets as long as there is a road type option that is labeled “Dirt road / 4x4 Trail” under the category “Other - driveable.” No amount of explanation in the wiki is going to over come the label “dirt road” for many editors. If this road type is only for 4x4 use then the label needs to be changed and the client option should also be changed to avoid 4x4 roads or the like.

22

I just want to add that, while we don’t have too many unpaved roads in New Jersey, in many northern climates where snowfall is typical in the colder months, these types of roads may be impassible, since they are difficult to effectively plow. Because of this, we should have a way to tell the routing engine to avoid such roads unless a driver affirms to be savvy about them - like saying checking a box to include unpaved roads.

To the best of my knowledge, there is such a switch in the current Waze client, but it requires unpaved roads to be of the “Dirt/4x4 Road” type in order to have any meaningful effect.

As far as revamping the standards for a bigger classification revision, I would vote for a checkbox (or some other yes/no style control) that would declare any (or at least numerous different kinds of) road as paved or unpaved. This way, we can still keep information about the road’s purpose, while being able to tell it may be seasonally impassible.

23

Right, switch from road types to road attributes. See also “facet-based categorization”. I don’t know if the routing engine is extensible enough to handle this.

24

I’m hoping that time based restriction control will enable us to handle seasonal closures.

25

Oregon has at least one, that I am aware of, gravel/unimproved state route/highway.

26

This morning I went to the USFS’s ABQ Air Tanker Base. I got to watch some tankers on the runway being prepared to load up with retardant as there are some small local fires they are keeping an eye on. I talked with a USFS GIS staff member. He offered to have me also talk to USFS road engineers as needed. We discussed a number of things including me cluing him into what Waze was about and how it could benefit USFS if data were more accurate.

This is a quick overview of items just to document them. I’ll have more interactions in a while once there is (hopefully) a break in fire activity.

Naming Convention

He suggested using the standard “FSR-x” for Forest Service Route, which would have to be added to the Text-to-Speech engine. He said that convention for road naming in the FS is not absolute across forests and over time. We will need to refer to databases he can provide. The value for “x” may just be a number; however, it can be recursive on road stubs, such as 23 for the main road then stubs, 23A, 23A1, 23A2, 23B, 23C, using alternating designators. The third level of “23A1” is road 23, stub A, secondary stub 1. The exact choice is of this format is picked by different road engineers, so we cannot accurately predict something standard.

To be clear, the process would be that the Waze community would come up with a standard like “FSR-x” and then translate all the numeric from the different forest databases into the “x” part.

Maintenance (functional classification)

They use a five numbered designation. It is not clear how to get this data, but that is a next step I am working on.

1 = closed
2 = unpaved (the broadest category that starts with a trail vehicles made to something more substantial)
3 = passenger vehicle (something a regular non-4x4 could travel, paved or unpaved)
4 = paved (I don’t yet understand the overlap of this with level 3)
5 = highway (none or few of these exist in their inventory)

Potential Focus of Effort

He suggested starting with the Motor Vehicle Use Maps (MVUM) which shows roads that are encouraged for public use. Other roads are by default under Travel Management Restrictions, which means they are not intended to be traveled. There is no gate or sign that says they are not to be traveled, it is just part of their internal process. Debate apparently exists, as it does in the Waze forum, as to if such “restricted” roads should be mapped. The debate has to do with various things, but might include helping someone lost find their way out to MVUM roads.

Landmarks

He said that he has a recreational site database we could have. I am going to investigate others with him such as USFS facilities, watch towers, runways, tanks, water features such as lakes, etc.) I know not everything should be on the map, but wanted to give some ideas.

Ponderings

(1) If USFS road naming conventions turn out to be regional and may be handled in the US regional forum structure.

Suggested Actions

(1) I will interact more with the contact and road engineers. Let me know if you have ideas for questions.

(2) The contact will give me databases associated with the Cibola Forest (it is in NM around ABQ) first so we can take a look at it. If there is value that this community sees in having data, then we can get it for all of the US. I checked and they have roads in Alaska and Puerto Rico.

(3) The contact will give me a database of things for Landmarks, particularly recreational sites at first.

(4) Create a WIKI resource with a set of online info list for USFS with whatever naming standards are decided upon.

27

As far a road maintenance goes, the difference between types 3 and 4 could be that some of the unpaved roads are packed real well with hard gravel making them sturdy and level enough for a passenger vehicle, even though not actually paved (type 3), while type 4 roads are actually paved.

I’ve seen the type 3 roads in many national forests mainly for access to camping areas, trail heads, or other more remote recreational points of interest, so that people can access them using their regular cars.

28

What he said, or at one time they (or someone) applied a few coats of tar-oil that while not truly paved does provide for an often paved like surface that is gradually degrading to gravel or dirt quality but with less dust than a true dirt road.

29

Yeah, I’ve heard that called “seal coating” – it can reduce the road maintenance significantly over a paved road, especially if the area is prone to frost / potholes. That said, it usually doesn’t take as well to weight, so those roads often have axle weight restrictions.

30

Aren’t we getting too complicated on all these road designations and characteristics?

I generally think what we have now is acceptable. The only thing I would change is to rename “Dirt/4x4 road” to just “4x4 road”, and remove the “service road” designation. In general, I don’t think the user really cares about the surface of the road. And if the surface of the road is poor (not talking about 4x4 routes), that means that the speeds on those roads will be lower, and thus, Waze will learn to avoid those routes. Also, the amount of information that needs maintained and can be out of date goes way up.

I just think we need to keep it simple, and not go crazy with road attributes.

31

Wow… summer has really taken a bite out of my Waze time! :smiley:

Now that it has rained a bit and there is less smoke in the air, I was invited over to the US Forest Service (USFS) to talk with a couple of GIS staff. We had a great discussion about potential ways to improve consistency on Waze for USFS roads that matches the functional classification and intended road management practices of USFS.

There are a couple outcomes from this that I wanted to share here in case there are any comments or ideas…

(1) I am going to work with the USFS staff to create a Wiki on USFS roads. This will be draft and not connected anywhere. It will show locations of data on the Internet and provide some guidance on how to mark roads. There is a functional classification on these recreational road maps that seems pretty easy to map into Waze road types.

(2) I have the offer to provide the source GIS files from USFS for the whole US to Waze developers so they can see if they would be any value for importing. Who knows if this will work or not. I will check to see if Waze developers are interested.

32

I’ve woken up again on this topic now that the chaos of Sept/Oct and repercussions have faded a bit.

I’ve put in a request on the TTS forum that we reserve FS-xxx for Forest Service XXX. I will write a draft Wiki with materials I’ve collected from USFS.

One key resource are the USFS Motor Vehicle Use Maps (MVUM) that identify specifically where USFS allows use of their roads by public motor vehicles.

http://www.fs.fed.us/recreation/programs/ohv/ohv_maps.shtml is the general page.

http://www.fs.usda.gov/main/cibola/maps-pubs is an example of a forest-specific page, in this case Cibola Forest where you can see the list of MVUMs.

This is also a potential source of information for Waze Events as they post when particular roads are closed. The actual hard copy maps are inexpensive, about $2.50 each.

A couple pages later, you can get down to the specific maps, like this one for around Albuquerque: http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/gis/mvum/CibolaNFSandiaSouthMVUM.pdf.

There you will see roads lised like 242DC1 and 05631. Specific information is given that says that certain roads are only open to motorcycles, while others are “Open to All Vehicles / For Motorized Dispersed Camping.” This PDF is an example of maps that will give you the exact USFS road name.

33

I’ve started a new draft Wiki page at this location:

https://www.waze.com/wiki/Forest_Service_Roads

Something I discovered that I didn’t know was new is their Interactive Travel Map. This is a cool GIS system for USFS roads. You can zoom to an area of the US, then click buttons to show which roads work for highway-legal vehicles versus 4x4 vehicles, motorcycles only, etc. The maps show rivers, lakes, camp sites, and other landmarks that might be valuable for travel on USFS roads, camping, etc.

The link to that resource is on the above Wiki page!

34

I have a good first, incomplete, draft up at the USFS Wiki page. Comments?

https://www.waze.com/wiki/Forest_Service_Roads

35

Damn… that’s an excellent write up!

36

Very good draft. Two questions:

  1. Can you provide a link back to the original site or PDF from which you obtained the maintenance level images? They may be under copyright, but I also recall there being a lot more information on that site in case anyone wants additional detail about maintenance levels.
  2. The suggested Level 1 road type is “private” for existing roads, and “do not map” for new roads. For consistency, if a Level 1 road is closed to vehicular traffic, why keep any any existing Level 1 roads if we are not mapping new ones?
37

Thanks for the comments, good points.

The image under Functional Classification is linked to the original document. Click on the image to see the source PDF. I was going to add a caption to say that at some point, but have not gotten around to it. I pulled the images out of the USFS PDF document.

Because the image is issued by a federal government entity on the Internet and the document has no copyright notices, it is safe to believe that these images have no copyright. They go through formal review processes. These images were likely taken by USFS staff. The document is their property, so it is our property. It is on the Internet. I could add a note about that in small text if it would make it better. I have not seen that practice yet in this Wiki. What do you suggest?

This issues is probably broader than type-1 closed roads. It is also roads that are not in the Motor Vehicle Use Maps… USFS staff suggested that if roads are not on the MVUMs, then they should be private or not mapped. I guess any type could not be on the maps and therefore not mapped or private. Type-1 are supposed to be decommissioned and not maintained.

There was a discussion that for “closed” roads, we ought to help people who might be on a road get out of the forest, route them to open roads. For that reason I put in this wording. Not sure if it is the best or not. I am open to help here.

In addition, don’t forget there are a bunch of roads on the MVUMs that are marked for motorcycle traffic or ATV traffic only. Wazer’s could be riding on these. They should probably be dirt road types, but I have not done enough digging into the maps to figure out how to explain them the best way. I wanted to add a section on this, but am still figuring it out.

38

Thanks. I had originally read your draft on my phone, so I never tried to click on the image. Now that I’m on a computer, the mouseover and link to the document is much clearer.

It seems that it would be easier to create an all or nothing policy for level 1 roads or any level that wouldn’t be on the MVUMs. If a motorcyclist, ATV, or lost wanderer does happen to be using the road, it may be worth mapping everything and marking as private. I only checked the MVUMs for a few “local” national forests in Northern Michigan, but the map legend shows the five levels. Level 1 is labeled as “trails open to motorcycles only”. If you feel that there may be any Waze use on a road even if it is just from a motorcyclist or ATV, I would imagine that it’s just easier and more consistent to say that all level 1s should be mapped and marked private or not mapped at all. In any case, based on the small number of maps that I checked, it looks like we are dealing with a tiny fraction of the forest service roads anyway, so it’s probably not a big deal either way.

39

The problem with ATV trails, And I have a lot of them here in Utah. Is that they are not accessible by cars and trucks. And if a trail is connected to a road, Waze may try and route someone on that trail. It’s the same issue with walking and bike trails. They cannot be connected to the regular road system. And it’s not always obvious at first to a driver that the road you are heading down is not passable by a normal car or truck. I’ve headed up one of these trails when hunting, and realized my mistake a few hundred yards in when it suddenly narrowed. That was a couple hundred yards in reverse, hoping no ATV’rs would come up behind me as there was no place to turn around and no room for them to pass on the side. I entered it thinking it was a logging trail.

Cat 1 roads should in my opinion be removed from the system. At least until Waze guarantees there can be no routing onto such a trail. The current system of penalties is not sufficient.

Also of note in regards to Waze and FS roads. Very seldom is there sufficient signal in forest service lands to even use Waze. When I head into the hills I have Waze open, but rely on my Tom Tom instead.

40

It would seem that the same logic would then apply to level 2 trails (currently dirt road/4x4 or private), which on the MVUMs that I checked are labeled for vehicles 50" or less. Is it worth mapping level 2 if no passenger automobile traffic is allowed?