I agree. We should define the vehicle types available in the vehicle restrictions. Some are fairly straight-forward - taxi, bus, RV, motorcycle. At first look truck would seem fairly straight-forward too. I would think that any road that has a sign that that says "NO TRUCKS" or looks like this should be marked as no trucks. But not driving a truck, I have no idea how useful it is to just mark such roads and not mark roads with height or weight restrictions. In fact not driving a truck, I don't know what is actually prohibited by a "NO TRUCKS" sign or what is prohibited by a "No Commercial Vehicles" sign. So I do agree that those with experience with such restrictions should provide some guidance on what would be expected to be excluded when we are eventually able to select the vehicle type "Truck" in the client.

I agree that we need height, weight hazmat and no truck routes as I used to drive concrete trucks around New Orleans and made many mistakes of taking the wrong roads.


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I would wholeheartedly support vehicle restrictions, or warnings on roads. We have a lot of tractor-trailer activity here near the port of Savannah, GA, and it's going to increase with the planned expansion of the ports. I just resolved a UR regarding this same situation.

I want to quickly add something that was just pointed out to me... Apparently if there is a truck restriction on a road, the Waze will currently prohibit any vehicle on the road, rather than ignore the data. So don't start entering truck data yet!

As for a new feature, I've made noises in the approperiate forums regarding vehicle types, about adding a second truck type. I don't want to spam people. (On the other hand, maybe it is approperiate, or I didn't make a comment in the right place after all. Moderators?)

What I was trying to spark some thought on was how this will be implimented and editing guidelines. If the majority of delivery trucks can't fit under a bridge (although some of the smaller rental trucks can) should that segment be marked as if a truck were actually prohibited, as it would dramatically help with routing for the vast majority of trucks out there. Unfortunately, there is no good answer for exactly how high things should be for reasons already given. For what I'm driving, I wish it would be a little higher for personal reasons, but am looking for a good standard cut-off. The height of CTA buses and what they are allowed to drive under seems to be a good measure.

On a related thought, but this is more for the Waze staff, in hopes that they read this, is that in at least in major cities, routing through side-streets is discouraged, but not prohibited. (In suburban/rural areas, it shouldn't make a difference in how things work, except that some suburbs have prohibitions about trucks on all side streets that aren't posted. Rarely enforced though.) I've inadvertantly caused traffic to snarl briefly by bringing my truck down the wrong street in an unfamiliar area and having to go forward and back to get around a corner. (And the truck I'm driving for the moment doesn't even need a special license to drive. Anyone with a standard driver's license can legally drive it...)

krikketdoug wrote:I want to quickly add something that was just pointed out to me... Apparently if there is a truck restriction on a road, the Waze will currently prohibit any vehicle on the road, rather than ignore the data. So don't start entering truck data yet!

Ignore that comment. Another Waze mentor corrected my misunderstanding. Enter truck data, that's why this is there.

CBenson wrote:I agree. We should define the vehicle types available in the vehicle restrictions. Some are fairly straight-forward - taxi, bus, RV, motorcycle. At first look truck would seem fairly straight-forward too. I would think that any road that has a sign that that says "NO TRUCKS" or looks like this

No Trucks.png

should be marked as no trucks. But not driving a truck, I have no idea how useful it is to just mark such roads and not mark roads with height or weight restrictions. In fact not driving a truck, I don't know what is actually prohibited by a "NO TRUCKS" sign or what is prohibited by a "No Commercial Vehicles" sign. So I do agree that those with experience with such restrictions should provide some guidance on what would be expected to be excluded when we are eventually able to select the vehicle type "Truck" in the client.

Qualifier: The data I'm giving is USA-Centric and Illinois specific. I'm not qualified to speak about the rest of the world. But in general, the USA and Canada follow these guidelines. (With the possible exception of the truck-b plates. That may be an Illinois thing. I'd have to research it.)

Most of those "No Trucks" sign have qualifiers. The most common is "over 5 tonnes". A "No Trucks"sign without any qualifiers would prohibit all trucks of any kind, including personal pickup trucks, if they have truck (class b) plates. If a pickup has passenger plates, it's allowed. As for the definition of "Commercial Vehicles", there are at least two different definitions of Commercial Vehicle under US Federal law. The safest way of thinking about it, is that if it's larger than a passenger car and it's being used for a commercial purpose, it's a commercial vehicle. This includes all trucks (except with passenger plates) and pretty much every bus in existance, with the exception of the public transit buses. School busses are not exempt, as far as I know. And those last two may vary by region. [Edited to note that a rented moving van for personal use (IE: a U-Haul) would not be considered a Commercial Vehicle. Neither would a a Motor Home, when used personally. A Motor Home used professionally is a Commercial Vehicle.]

The truck I used in the origional example, can be operated by anyone commercially with a standard driver's license. With some height, width, and length exceptions, this would qualify as any vehicle up to 16,001 lbs (pounds) (7258kg) in weight.

The lowest Commercial Driver's License (and there is a non-CDL version if you don't need to haul people or hazardous materials) allows you to carry anything up to 26,001 lbs (11793kg), can be 13ft 6in tall (411cm), 8 feet wide (244cm), and 42 feet long (1280cm) -- or longer if you're hauling things like pipe that can't be broken down.

You then have a middle-class license that I won't get into detail with, and finally the 18-wheeler, A class license.

To think that anything but the smallest of trucks can get under the bridges is silly. Which is why I brought up the idea of adding to the editing guidelines a truck-prohibition that would include roads that are legal for trucks to use, but are in practice impossible with the average truck, and suggested the CTA bus as a standard.

Yeah, I think that adding bridge heights would be a major improvement, but I would also see it as a major headache for the staff. Maybe it can be done, I dunno. I'm just looking for a simple way to get things going for when things go live. And maybe give the staff some stuff to think on when designing the implimentation of vehicle restrictions.

A couple of extreme examples that violate the way things people expect them to be... I'm currently updating/fixing Lower Wacker Drive and the related roads in Chicago. This includes setting some road turns that violate in-house rules because they are legal and regularly used by all sorts of vehicles, including trucks that you would think couldn't make that turn... But somehow do on a regular basis. On a road with a Functional Class type of "Major Highway"!

And there's a segment of I-90 where the maximum height is 13ft 4in... (I suspect the actual height is higher, but that's the posted clearance...)

And the further you get from older cities, the less of a problem it is, until it's virtually non-existant. But for those of us who have to deal with it, it's a major problem.

Krikket

sketch wrote:Doug, just curious, have you ever used those truck-focused GPS units I always see for sale at truck stops? Do they have something like this?

I was under the impression that they were mostly for long-distance hauls, and not so useful for local driving, like I'm doing. If I had the cash, I'd consider getting one after research, but that's a whole 'nother story.

Krikket

qwaletee wrote:Overpasses aren't the only problem. In some areas, utility wires (cable, electrical, telephone, fiber) may not give adequate clearances, and are often not marked. This can get worse in the summer, especially with electrical cables, as they expand from heat and higher usage, and begin to sag.

I had a boss exclaim, "That man-bucket [a bucket used near the top of a utility pole to hold a person while working on the pole] is still there?!?" Apparently it was the third 10ft 6in truck to hit that bucket over a 3 year period... I've also seen trucks come to a dead stop to move hanging pennents aside, because they were strung out across the street too low...

Krikket

qwaletee wrote:Also note that some roads have multiple restriction options. This occurs especially when you have crossing ramps, with one rising above the other, or old fashioned arched supports. This tends to happen more with older infrastructure. So, you might get a 11' clearance on the left, 12' center, and 10' 6" on the right. I just recently took a tour bus in Niagara...

While driving the route today, this was kicking in the back of my head, and a thought occurred to me. For the moment, we're only collecting data for the US/Canada. (With the rest of the world to follow...)

While this is (obviously) a problem in some parts of the world, to the best of my knowledge, places where you end up with multiple height restrictions end up with the lowest common point used as the permitted height for trucks, if they are allowed at all. (I can't actually think of one where they are allowed, but that might be out there somewhere...) As an example: Storrow Drive in Boston, Massachusetts. (First example that comes to mind, since I used to live out there.) Due to the arched supports, most moving vans can pass in the middle of the road, but not the side lanes. But every year on "Moving Day", Sept 1st, some new college kid who doesn't understand height restrictions (or why a road might be marked "No Trucks" slams their truck into the bridge. (As an aside: then you hear the radio interview where the driver says, "But that's where my GPS told me to go! I don't know another way to get there! What was I supposed to do?"))

Krikket