Get a sneak peek at whats next for Permanent Hazards on our April 7th Office Hours!
This is the place to discuss issues that are relevant for locations in the US. For any other discussions, please use the main forums.
Post by sketch
doctorkb wrote: That's fine, and it's just as possible for us to have a "Divers Lane" as you. The point being made is that this list was devised and was supposed to be followed for the last three years, with no-one bothering to point out this exception.

I'm actually more keen on establishing a standardized list of abbreviations that work in both the US and Canada (i.e. take official CanadaPost and USPS lists and resolve any differences), and making the result a Waze standard...
That's pretty much our goal here. Even within the US we have to resolve differences between the USPS and the MUTCD guidance. MUTCD is specifically for traffic control devices, so it should prevail. Nonetheless, for "Br", the TTS uses the USPS "branch" instead of the MUTCD "bridge", and always has in Waze. So we had to use "Brg" for "bridge". For a long time it seemed like we just had to live with this, but now that we will apparently be able to make some meaningful changes, we should use this opportunity to resolve the list in a way that makes more sense to drivers.
sketch
Waze Global Champs
Waze Global Champs
Posts: 6767
Has thanked: 1118 times
Been thanked: 1664 times
Send a message
ALL US EDITORS READ: New USA road type guidance
the guidance linked above is now almost a decade old, but the link gives me a laugh every time i see it, so it stays (:
assistant regional coordinator • south central region • usa
waze global champ • beta leader • and more • new orleans

bye bye fuelly badge! i'm an EV guy now!

Post by sketch
I am ready to submit a bunch of old-fashioned state abbreviations with periods (avoid conflict) plus every state abbreviation specifically followed by a hyphen (to attempt to get rid of that nasty pause issue).

I have SPECIFICALLY EXCLUDED a few things from my submissions, including:

K-
M-
N-

because Kansas, Michigan, and Nebraska use those (respectively) for their state highways, and pronounce them as such, and

R.I.
B.C.

because the alternatives without periods are already expanded, so there needs to be a way to say just the letters (in case there's, say, a N.D. Somebody Rd somewhere).

Also, I propose to add the following as "N H", "N J", "N M" . . . "N B", because NH ... NB will already say the state/province name, and to avoid "north H", etc.

N.H.
N.J.
N.M.
N.Y.
N.C.
N.D.
S.C.
S.D.
N.B.
sketch
Waze Global Champs
Waze Global Champs
Posts: 6767
Has thanked: 1118 times
Been thanked: 1664 times
Send a message
ALL US EDITORS READ: New USA road type guidance
the guidance linked above is now almost a decade old, but the link gives me a laugh every time i see it, so it stays (:
assistant regional coordinator • south central region • usa
waze global champ • beta leader • and more • new orleans

bye bye fuelly badge! i'm an EV guy now!

Post by sketch
qwaletee wrote: So to have an actual North H Street, we would have to spell out North?
No, "N H" would still say "North H", so "N H St". "NH" without a space would say "New Hampshire", and "N.H." with periods would say "N H".
sketch
Waze Global Champs
Waze Global Champs
Posts: 6767
Has thanked: 1118 times
Been thanked: 1664 times
Send a message
ALL US EDITORS READ: New USA road type guidance
the guidance linked above is now almost a decade old, but the link gives me a laugh every time i see it, so it stays (:
assistant regional coordinator • south central region • usa
waze global champ • beta leader • and more • new orleans

bye bye fuelly badge! i'm an EV guy now!

Post by sketch
I mean "adding to the list as new abbreviations", so no, that wouldn't be what I meant. I don't want to do anything to "N H" etc., because they already do and should still say "north H" etc. I want to add "N.H." as a supported abbreviation specifically to make it say "n h", because if it isn't specifically added, what it does say might be unpredictable.

Although if we're adding "N." as "n" anyway, maybe it doesn't matter, because "N. H" would say "n h" and "N H" would still say "north h".
sketch
Waze Global Champs
Waze Global Champs
Posts: 6767
Has thanked: 1118 times
Been thanked: 1664 times
Send a message
ALL US EDITORS READ: New USA road type guidance
the guidance linked above is now almost a decade old, but the link gives me a laugh every time i see it, so it stays (:
assistant regional coordinator • south central region • usa
waze global champ • beta leader • and more • new orleans

bye bye fuelly badge! i'm an EV guy now!

Post by sketch
Everyone, a user in Malaysia has posted of another example conflict: a street called "Jalan Kenanga SD 9/1" which pronounces the "SD" as "South Dakota". Apparently letter combinations on street names are common there, and they apparently use US English TTS. So that's just one example...

Just more reason to remove the simple two-letter forms as abbreviations... I still think it's best to leave those to pronounce as letters and instead use the old fashioned abbreviations when it's necessary to say a state name. I'm sure there are other countries who use US English TTS as well (because TTS is not available in every language, far from it).
sketch
Waze Global Champs
Waze Global Champs
Posts: 6767
Has thanked: 1118 times
Been thanked: 1664 times
Send a message
ALL US EDITORS READ: New USA road type guidance
the guidance linked above is now almost a decade old, but the link gives me a laugh every time i see it, so it stays (:
assistant regional coordinator • south central region • usa
waze global champ • beta leader • and more • new orleans

bye bye fuelly badge! i'm an EV guy now!

Post by sketch
I still want to have a full list of expansions for state and province names, just not using the current abbreviation list (2-letter postal abbreviations) because it's too easy to conflict with the existing map. I would want things like

S.D. – South Dakota
N.Y. – New York
La. – Louisiana
Mich. – Michigan
Pa. or Penna. – Pennsylvania
N.C. – North Carolina
Alta. – Alberta
N.B. – New Brunswick
Ont. – Ontario

Whereas, without the periods, they would remain as before

SD - es dee
NY - en why
La - la (the note that's after sol)
Mich - mish
Pa or Penna - pa or penna
NC - en cee
Alta – alta
NB - en bee
Ont - ont

And so forth.
sketch
Waze Global Champs
Waze Global Champs
Posts: 6767
Has thanked: 1118 times
Been thanked: 1664 times
Send a message
ALL US EDITORS READ: New USA road type guidance
the guidance linked above is now almost a decade old, but the link gives me a laugh every time i see it, so it stays (:
assistant regional coordinator • south central region • usa
waze global champ • beta leader • and more • new orleans

bye bye fuelly badge! i'm an EV guy now!

Post by sketch
voludu2 wrote: Right now, we can wonder what we can wish for in terms of improvements (different abbreviations in different countries? A special TTS field that accommodates phonetic rendering? "New Castle, DE" and "Havre De Grace" both pronounced correctly?) but we're still pretty much lost in a fog until the waze team gives us some navigational guidance on where it might be willing to go with TTS.
Unless Waze gives us a "custom pronunciation" field sometime in the future, we are limited to working within the bounds of the Nuance software.

If we want to change something, Waze can put in a custom abbreviation. Custom abbreviations are per language, and probably per voice. One particular string of characters can only say one thing, basically. It's case-sensitive, though (unless you tell it not to be).

As is today, "New Castle, DE" and "Havre De Grace" will say "New Castle, Delaware" and "Havre De Grace", respectively (although I'm sure it'll botch the latter). But there might be a street somewhere, maybe in a foreign country that doesn't have a TTS voice for its own language, called "Something DE 2", and that would be said "Something Delaware 2". That's the problem.

That's why I am pushing for abbreviations like "Del." for the state names. We can put "Wilmington Del." on a ramp to say "Wilmington Delaware". If there's a "Del Rey Blvd" or a "Camino Del Sol", it will still be pronounced "Del Rey Boulevard" or "Camino Del Sol" – because there is no period.

The period changes the pronunciation. This is the same reason we want "N." to say "N" while "N" still says "North", and the reason "St." says "Saint" while "St" says "Street". The latter is already done.

The Waze team is willing to make changes like this – because they fit within the bounds of the Nuance system. There is no need to wonder, we only need to know what we can and cannot do. And we know that already.
sketch
Waze Global Champs
Waze Global Champs
Posts: 6767
Has thanked: 1118 times
Been thanked: 1664 times
Send a message
ALL US EDITORS READ: New USA road type guidance
the guidance linked above is now almost a decade old, but the link gives me a laugh every time i see it, so it stays (:
assistant regional coordinator • south central region • usa
waze global champ • beta leader • and more • new orleans

bye bye fuelly badge! i'm an EV guy now!

Post by sketch
Only within the last few months have we gotten Waze to make TTS changes for us. All 100 pages of the topic were not made under the same assumptions. The thread reflects a longstanding desire and need for change; only recently are we actually able to make changes, so things are different now.

State names (except in highway designations, such as "DE-123" – differentiated by the presence of the hyphen "-") are only rarely needed on highway ramps. We only just recently got the state abbreviations added, so many highway ramps are likely not even yet edited to reflect this. On the other hand, roads unknown to us exist that will cause conflict with the simple "DE" state abbreviation. So, we set "Del." and similar instead.

A very good example is the letters N, S, E, W. There is currently no reliable way to make them say "en", "es", "ee", and "double u", and no way to do it at all that doesn't look bad. So, we should ask to have "N." etc., with periods, say just the letters, so we have the option to use the letters, but we don't have to change all the existing uses of NSEW for north, south, east, west. Why would we not try to do that?

Maybe TTS is good enough, but we can make it better. Maybe the Waze map would be "good enough" if Champs and other high-level users did not promulgate rules which make editing consistent. Why would we make a 100-page thread if now we just aren't going to bother?

Now that we have staff's ear, I want to finally get things done right. I don't understand what kind of logic would say that right now we should just give up.
sketch
Waze Global Champs
Waze Global Champs
Posts: 6767
Has thanked: 1118 times
Been thanked: 1664 times
Send a message
ALL US EDITORS READ: New USA road type guidance
the guidance linked above is now almost a decade old, but the link gives me a laugh every time i see it, so it stays (:
assistant regional coordinator • south central region • usa
waze global champ • beta leader • and more • new orleans

bye bye fuelly badge! i'm an EV guy now!

Post by sketch
voludu2 wrote:I don't think we should give up. I think we should keep it simple, harvest the low-hanging fruit that the waze team has now made available, and wait for more improvements before taking on some the stuff that would take a lot of work and probably need to be re-done in couple years when waze makes some TTS improvements.
State abbreviations and N. S. E. W. are quite simple. We created conflict by submitting all the two-letter post codes; it is our duty to remove that conflict and provide an alternative.

And then we can correct all the local pronunciations and other issues later on when it's possible. But there's no reason at all why we shouldn't do this now. Especially since we don't know what's coming, or if anything's ever going to come, to "fix" TTS.
sketch
Waze Global Champs
Waze Global Champs
Posts: 6767
Has thanked: 1118 times
Been thanked: 1664 times
Send a message
ALL US EDITORS READ: New USA road type guidance
the guidance linked above is now almost a decade old, but the link gives me a laugh every time i see it, so it stays (:
assistant regional coordinator • south central region • usa
waze global champ • beta leader • and more • new orleans

bye bye fuelly badge! i'm an EV guy now!

Post by sketch
Something weird happens when bare numbers are on both sides of a slash, in that the slash is apparently ignored. I think this is because the slash is implemented as a pause in Nuance as a comma – in other words, in what the TTS engine sees, " /" is replaced by "," or something like that. So the TTS engine sees "Hwy 13 / 264 St" as "Hwy 13, 264 St".
sketch
Waze Global Champs
Waze Global Champs
Posts: 6767
Has thanked: 1118 times
Been thanked: 1664 times
Send a message
ALL US EDITORS READ: New USA road type guidance
the guidance linked above is now almost a decade old, but the link gives me a laugh every time i see it, so it stays (:
assistant regional coordinator • south central region • usa
waze global champ • beta leader • and more • new orleans

bye bye fuelly badge! i'm an EV guy now!