That “best map editing practice” article says that it is not a good idea to split a two-way road into two one-way roads, but still, I see it happening all the time. Roads are being split for no good reasons. Or am I wrong, is there any good reason to do it (even though the Waze wiki says it shouldn’t be done)?
So that is why I ask, when should we un-split these two one-way roads back to a single two-way road?
I normally don’t un-split roads, but I feel like it is my duty to do it.
There are so many unnecesary split roads that I am afraid people will start to think, especially new users, that splitting roads is cool, when it is not. Split roads, in the majority of cases, lead to incorrect driving instructions at intersections, which I don’t think can be solved witout un-splitting.
Is there a way to discourage the splitting of roads?
What is the general feeling about this?
I agree, I have been unsplitting roads in my area.
It helps when adding new side streets.
Less Junctions with no turns,
less unconnected segments stopping routing.
much simpler layout to maintain.
Waze is suppose to be a functional map, not a direct representation of all individual roads that exist.
I made the mistake when I first joined of adding separate lanes and little turning roads that did nothing but add complexity and errors, I now know better
I feel that if two cars cant fit on the median, then the road should not be split.
some GPS trails from phones hidden inside cars are not accurate to within 10 metres.
How are they to know which road they are traveling down when the map roads are only 3 metres apart?
I think the easier question to answer would be “When should we keep a road split?”
if the median is 5 or more metres wide (two car widths)
or if the whole road width is so wide (many lanes) that someone might pave a parallel road when driving in the outside lanes e.g 4 lanes either side of a concrete barrier.
Yes! Exactly!
It doesn’t help in any way, on the reduced screen of a mobile device where Waze is actually used, to have two parallel roads, which are actually displayed (if you have time to see while driving) as one thick road.
Added to the “more than 2 car widths, or 5 metres rule”, I tend to think that, if the road has intersections then it is not worth splitting it. At every intersection there is a high risk of breaking the functionality of Waze.
Freeways, highways, motorways, those with no intersections are the good candidates for split roads.
I did some work unsplitting roads near Eight Mile Plains a while back, only to find they had been resplit a few weeks later. I think we need to get clear standards together on this that everyone basically buys into.
For questionable situations like this, I’ve just been locking the segments after the edits (with AM rights) so it at least reduces the chances of edit reversals. I would hope that another AM would first PM you to ask why it’s been locked before just going ahead.
The standard on this is clearly specified in the Best Map Editing Practice but still people don’t pay attention to it.
It might be that people just get into editing maps without ever going into the wiki or the forums, so they don’t know the standards. But hopefully one day they will be curious about checking the wiki or the forums.
But what about the people that do split roads unnecessarily even when they know it shouldn’t be done?
Agreed pipelongar, IMO I usually leave split/unsplit roads alone, unless they are so bad they really need to be fixed.
If I’m not editing the new roads I waze, then I’m usually kept busy enough fixing and/or joining up streets that haven’t been done properly by other AM’s or users.
I only wish we had more Wazers in Brisbane… or Australia as a whole…
I don’t think we really have a waze community going in Brisbane, and perhaps there is a similar problem elsewhere. I’m on facebook - find me by my username and mention you’re a wazer and maybe we can get a bit of a broader social base going on?
Going by the lack of Australian forum discussions, you think that would be the case. Whenever I wazer I may see 1 or 2 other wazers on in Brisbane, but that’s about it.
IMO I’ve stopped using Waze on my phone as it really didn’t benefit me and it’s still very young. No doubt it will be designed into a better system over time and more people will come to use and rely on it (touch wood).
There’s a community going in Melbourne as far as I know. I used to live in Brisbane and still visit from time to time and is quite familiar with the roads in the inner-city. I wonder if they’ll somehow still let me edit the roads there if I ask nicely. :mrgreen:
Well as soon as my latest map updates are live (meaning map edits done bloody weeks ago!!!) I will finish the rest of the side streets and then unsplit the main road going my suburb.
Ranford road in Canning Vale (Cannning Vale with 3x letter N also exists)
Attaching new streets to it is a pain, and while it is geographically correct - operationally it is better unsplit.
I’ve been thinking about splitting some roads myself to make the app route better than using 2 way roads and this is in Brisbane also.
I haven’t done any splitting as yet as not exactly sure about it I’m still thinking it over.
I notice a lot of people just add roads or edit roads and really don’t know the area, as I’ve found roads that in real life are split but the waze road shows that you can turn to drive in the wrong direction of a road, that isn’t good to have and probably the reason why roads are split in the first place.
The newer phones GPS units are pretty good, I have a Galaxy S and S 3 myself and I can see my plots are bang on the roads in the editor the only problem is where there are no roads and need to add them.
I think the primary roads need to be added but left unlocked for a few months to make sure that road does work properly, then it can be locked down.
Have you read the wiki? You’ll see why most roads are set as two-way instead of two one-way streets. OP, please do not take other n00bs comments as gospel. Have a look at the wiki for information on when to split/unplit. Most of the time, it’ll be a single two-way road unless the GPS tracks are far enough apart (5-10m) to warrant splitting. This is usually only the case on motorways/freeways or other dual carriageways.
Again, check the wiki for specific examples.
Rule of the thumb: at the 100m/200ft-zoomlevel, take a look at the gps-tracks (assuming there are enough) and check if the tracks show a clear white division. If there is no white visible there is ab-so-lu-te-ly no reason to split. Splitting doubles the number of segments, quadruples the number of nodes and TRs (turnrestrictions). In all, the number of potential errors increases along - even if you get it right the first time (chances are you won’t, sorry, you need routine), someone else will find it easier to make mistakes if it gets more complex. Searching for errors will be harder if roads are split. Trafficdetection, among other functions that need to know what segment you are on, works much better if there are fewer and longer segments and routing just takes more time to complete if there are so many more segments involved. It also bloats the database adding to Waze’s capacitywoes. Did I mention U-turns?
I haven’t split any roads or even un split them, as you guys are saying would have to check out the GPS plots but there’s none really, I drive the area so get 1 or 2 but people have mapped roads I went down one last night and the arrow for the car points the side of the road and wants to jump off the the road but can’t mustn’t be far enough off but the end of the mapped road cuts off up through people’s houses and land.
So the road isn’t even mapped properly, I’ll have to look at it later on for now and fix it if I can.
The reason for splitting some roads in Australia is due to us having primary roads that aren’t highways but still have the 5m island and are multi lane roads roads do come in and off each road but you can’t drive through the island.
Some of these roads are locked and I can’t change them but I’d have a think about it first before doing anything.
If you have any issues with roads that you can’t change or there’s a lack of AM’s around, PM jab_au
He’s a Country AM. He’s a good bloke and very helpful.
This problem (when to split/unsplit) is pretty annoying here in Canberra. We have a lot of Big Wide Roads which are not highways or freeways, but have very wide median strips in the middle. Frequently there will be a obvious gap between GPS tracks even on 60km/h streets.
Oh well, all I can do is try to be consistent - I’m sure y’all let me know if I’m swaying too far in favour of splitting/merging (assuming anyone else in Canberra is don’t much at all).
I now think it should come down not to what the app can do or likes but what is a benefit to the routing along a road or making it better to understand when using the app, whats the real point in the app if the road is split in real life but the app can’t handle that and the map has to say it’s unsplit road.
Australia has many roads all over the place that have the road islands in them mainly for safety.
The wiki is done by a person in the UK so while that’s fine they won’t know that 25% of roads in a city will be split roads.
If the map doesn’t reflect that then you’ll have problems when you need to route along or use that map to follow where roads are, it’s not really much use if there’s a road you want to turn into but the traffic island is in the way which doesn’t show on the map, that will only frustrate people overall.
Your wiki is not touched by anyone in the UK. If your community has decided to copy our sections that’s up to you, but there’s no reason why you can’t all collaborate and come up with your own.
