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Post by PesachZ
StephenR1966 wrote:
PesachZ wrote: Don't disconnect any roads unless they are physically not roads anymore. That's the whole point of the closure system, so we no longer have to disconnect roads. Waze has asked us not to disconnect segments.

If the proposed change goes into effect, then people will be allowed to be navigate up until the closed intersection, but not across it, as the only segments actually closed would be one leading AWAY from the closure, which are inaccessible because you can't drive through the intersection.

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Upon closer inspection of the example I see the crossing streets are all one-way roads so the proposed change to close the outgoing segments makes a lot of sense. I was thinking in terms of two-way crossing segments. How are we supposed to close the intersections without closing the whole side-street? Should we just restrict all the turns and the straight through arrow?

I offer this permalink from my area as an example. Harbor Drive is closed as are the intersections at County St and King St.
Two way segments can be closed in one direction only by noting the junction node IDs in order of travel direction you want closed.

For example this segment of King can be closed only in the direction leading away from Harbor Dr. by saying the closure should be in effect from node ID: 42525853 to node ID: 42525850



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Post by PesachZ
qwaletee wrote:For one way cross streets, there may be either extra work and/or a couple of holes in the system.

One-way street may be closed at their source, whether due to work on the street or because the intersection is closed due to work on the cross street. Thorugh traffic will generally not be permitted in such cases, but local traffic may be set up differently, in one of several ways:

1) the regular entrance may be open to local traffic, with only through traffic restricted

2) the intersection may be completely closed even to local traffic, but local traffic may be permitted to enter form the "wrong end" in the wrong direction

3) the street may simple be closed even to local traffic (intermittently or throughout the closure).

When it is truly-fruly closed (the latter case), it should get treated like a main street's closure - it is simply closed. Not complicated. But that's only if the closure is for the entire period, not intermittent. If intermittent, leave it open as per one of the the other two options, as appropriate.

For the middle option, when local traffic is permitted to enter in the normal fashion, but not through traffic, we get into the discussion seen above about possibly closing just the exit, which will prevent through routing. However, we must be careful in that case NOT to prevent traffic form entering that intersection. Otherwise, Waze will have no route into that local entrance. All entrances into the intersection may be allowed, or there may be a mix of open/closed. IN the NYC example earlier in the thread, since 5th Ave is closed, its entrances into the intersection are effectively closed, but the cross streets leading into 5th would need to be permitted at both ends, the cross streets leading away from 5th would need to open at the entrance, but closed at the exit. It is unclear to me how we enforce that. It seems to me the road closure spreadsheet would close the segment, and would be inappropriate, but we could use partial restrictions on the "exiting arrows" that lead onto or across 6th and University Pl.

Where reverse traffic flow is used, then it gets more complicated. It seems to me we would have to do the following:
1) well in advance of the closure, turn the affected segments into two-way, but with traffic restricted in the wrong direction EXCEPT during the closure, using two closre periods (e.g., from today's date through the last day of normal traffic, and from the day following the re-opening until say a month later)
2) use the spreadsheet to create three closures:
2a) the wrong direction until the closure period
2b) the wrong direction from the day after the re-opening until about a month later
2c) the normal direction for the period of the closure

After the reopening, delete the partial restrictions, and revert to one way. After the tile update, you can update the spreadsheet to indicate that the closure has ended, if you like. Just make sure to these steps before the month is up.

However, this only works if the closure is complete, 24x7, for the street closure period. If the street has normal night/weekend traffic (or vice versa), then I don't think the closure system works at all. We then only have the partial restrictions option available, which does not work as well. In a city like New York, that's probably no big deal, because at worst, Waze will give a wrong route for the area, but you can easily route around it. But if the streetscape is not such an obvious grid, and there's no local person direction detour traffic, it can make things difficult for drivers. This would be especially true if the roads are sparse with long stretches between public junctions.
Edit: this got a little lengthy, school to the TL;DR below for the summary

On paper your theories seem accurate, but in practice they may unnecessarily overly complex. Based on the results of some limited testing at a mega event yesterday with a area of hundreds of segments closed, and on a test rig I set up, it seems most of these concerns are not warranted.

Here are my findings;
When you start navigating a route while inside a closed area, the closed segments seem to be treated like private roads inasmuch as your route takes the shortest possible way to leave the closure area crossing the fewest number of segments, and proceeds to your destination. So routing from within a closure does seem to work.

When routing to a destination inside the closure, it seems Waze tries to get to your destination again using the fewest number of closed segments, similar to private roads. The displayed navigation line will only penetrate the closure for one segment, however the listed directions continue all the way to your destination. This will help if the closure of open to local traffic only as it will allow routes which terminate within the closure to go to their destination.
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/09 ... f5b8cd.jpg
In this image the only closed segment which is traversed is the the one with the destination.

As far as contra traffic flow (traveling in the opposite direction of usual traffic) goes, I am very skeptical to allow Waze to navigate contra flow on closed roads. The potential for disaster is high, especially on roads which are only contra flow for a portion of the day. This method also relies heavily on the editor reverting any changes immediately at the end of construction, knowing a firm completion date (which is almost impossible in public works projects), and hoping for timely tile updates. There have also been recent anecdotal reports of TBTRs not being removed from routing following the next tile update, even though other edits in the area went live. We would never want to route a Wazer the wrong way down a street inadvertantly, just to be able to ensure correct routing on a local construction detour for one segment. I can imagine if contra flow traffic is allowed, there would be some detour signage. If someone has a destination on this closed road, I would hope they would be advised of the detour situation.

The exception might be for long term 24/7 contra flow traffic, or clearly defined hours with a waiting period in between both directions to clear the road. In which case contra flow TBTR could make sense. Even then I would ensure that there is overlap of the two restrictions for a period in between to ensure we aren't accidentally routing people the wrong way if the switch is off by a few minutes. And the contra flow would have to be removed 2-4 weeks prior to the expected completion date to allow for any tile build delays. During those last 2-4 weeks the TBTR could be replaced with daily single direction closures if needed.

Aside from the contra flow situation discussed above, I see no reason for intricate TBTR or regular turning restrictions inward or outward of segments to properly block intersections. If the segment leading away from the main closure is closed as well, traffic will be navigated to the segment preceding the main closure fine. Wazers starting a route on that segment will not be navigated through the intersection (unless they are already facing the intersection and have no legal way out, with the U-turn restricted. In that case, as always, with no legal option, Waze chooses the best illegal option, but it will reroute as soon as the Wazer turns around).

The only proven benefit of changing the guidelines would be if there is another legal option in Waze through that intersection without traversing the segment on the other side of the main closure (e.g. a sharp turn to another segment on the same side of the main closure).

We don't have to worry about an intersection allowing local traffic, because as mentioned earlier, if the destination is on that closed segment, the route will penetrate the closure regardless. However if the segment leading into the closure is the one which is also closed [CURRENT GUIDELINES], then a Wazer starting his route on the segment preceding the main closure will be routed through the intersection.

TL;DR

Asides from contra flow traffic situations in special cases, with extreme care, there is no need to modify any turn restrictions or TBTRs for proper intersection closing, complete, or open only to local traffic.

Recent limited testing has shown that closed segments are treated similar to private road segments.

If intersection traffic is blocked - completely, or only allowing local traffic - closing the segments leading away from the main closure will do the trick.

Closing the segment leading toward the closure [CURRENT GUIDELINES] will also work in almost all cases.


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Post by PesachZ
voludu2 wrote:Thanks. And time-restricted closures such as: 0900 - 1500, M-F, from Sept 15 to October 3?
It can ... But each day will have to be entered as a separate closure.
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Post by PesachZ
voludu2 wrote:Thanks for being specific.

This sounds like fun. I'll do it, for a 5-day closure, and I am sure the waze team will begin to imagine how they can make their lives easier by enhancing this closure interface.

Not gonna do it for a 2-week closure.
If you have all the details it is sometimes easier to copy the closure to multiple days (if all the other information is identical) directly in the sheet by a SM/CM/Champ. I can help you with this one, send me a PM.
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Post by PesachZ
DoctorMew wrote:Here's a question--what do you do if you submitted a closure for a time period, but the closure opens earlier than expected?
First option look on WME at the area of the closure for a closure UR, the description will start with "[CLOSURE]" then provide details of the closure. Respond to that UR with any updates to the closure. The SM/CM/Champ who submitted your closure will be monitoring that UR.
Hint: URO+ has a very useful feature on the misc tab to give these and other specialty URs unique bubble icons for easy identification.

If there is no UR there, ask you SM/RC or any CM to fix it for you.

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Post by PesachZ
nzahn1 wrote:Any chance of getting view-only or comment-only privileges for the spreadsheet for users that submit closures?
Comment would be nice, as a way of marking corrections.

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Post by PesachZ
dude463 wrote:Is there something that's supposed to happen when we submit to this form? I can't see what's on it, I can't see what's already been address , and I get no confirmation other than the page refreshes with a thank you that I've even submitted it right. Sometimes the information you dig up to put on the form (the website with the actual official information) is pretty hard to track down, and if I go back later and haven't bookmarked the site I have to dig through again to find it, which takes time.

I'm under the impression that this is just a huge waste of time.
When you submit this form, it guys into a spreadsheet which is addressed by all the SMs, Champs, RCs. They can then verify the information and pass it along to Waze staff. The Waze staff then in turn place Temporary Closures on the segments selected in your permalink (which are not visible in WME). These closures then prevent routing on these segments and are shown in the client and livemap as red/white lines with barricade alert bubbles.

If the dates don't match, or the form was not filled out correctly, the editor verifying it will try to reach it to you for confirmation via PM, if you didn't provide your username correctly, the closure cannot be verified. Please respond to these PMs so your closure can be handled.

This process takes time to complete, usually a minimum of 48 hours. If you submitted a closure request and don't see it in livemap after 48 hours, please reach out to your SM or RC to confirm it.

After being processed there are also usually URs starting with the [CLOSURE] tag describing the closure, which are monitored by the SM or champ which processed your request placed at the location in WME. You can communicate update our issues with the specific closure through these URs as well.

Unfortunately sometimes the closure is not processed in time and won't be displayed, that's why reaching out to your SM is a good idea.

As orbitc mentioned, you can also request comment only access to view the entire spreadsheet.
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Post by PesachZ
pumrum wrote:As we move into the new year and a new set of sheet tabs, could we consider organizing the champ/SM sheet so that all of the data entry cells are in consecutive columns, rather than having formulas and locked columns interspersed? This would help to avoid missing important information, and make copy/paste from other sources much easier (and prevent copying over formula cells). Currently a copy paste has to be done in many parts because of all the uneditable columns in the middle

Obviously this is assuming that there isn't some back end interface that requires the columns to be in a specific order.

thanks!
We tried sorting them before and Waze switched it back

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Post by PesachZ
The closure form has also been updated, it is now possible to report daily closures and closures for only certain days of the week.

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Post by PesachZ
taco909 wrote:
orbitc wrote:Waze will update the production editor and high rank editors will be able to close roads live.
This will be an option within WME? :D
Yes "soon"[emoji1]

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