sketch wrote:Didn't we determine recently that "walking trail" and "pedestrian boardwalk" seem to have their definitions backwards from a routing standpoint? So a "walking trail" is routable for addresses, and likely or possibly used for routing to businesses and homes on alleyways etc., whereas "pedestrian boardwalk" is not (supposedly) routable, and to be used for... what one might call walking trails. Is that forgotten? "Walking trails" as they are used (i.e., for routing) are necessary in a number of cases. I'm in favor of "don't mess with them"-style guidance for that reason.

That's exactly my understanding. Waze routes to addresses on a connected Walking Trail, but (mostly) not on a Pedestrian Boardwalk.

So, a principal argument for not authorizing editors to remove noncompliant Walking Trails is that the Trails might be there to support routing. And believe me, I am not opposed to that use! I have used them myself for that at least three times.

But! But. Of those three Walking Trails, only one survived the recent Raid. The other two were disconnected or deleted. I am pretty sure the editors responsible did not break them because they felt the Incorrect Edits article authorized them to! Rather, I believe they simply saw Validator flag the fact they were connected, and said "Wrong!".

So, I doubt the practical solution to preventing overeager enforcement is going to be found in changing the Incorrect Edits article, or even the Road Types article, to say "leave any Walking Trails you find!". Rather it's going to be found in locking the good ones as high as possible.

So, I'd propose guidance saying that:

At this time, Walking Trails are routable and are functionally similar to Parking-Lot Roads. Walking Trails may be connected to route drivers over a path to specific destinations only if it is impossible to do so using drivable road types, or if relying on drivable roads only would take drivers so far out of their way as to cause complaints. When used for this purpose, unless the actual path already has a name that indicates it is walkable, the Trail's segment name should include the word "Path" to indicate to drivers that they need to get out of their car to continue. Walking Trails used for routing in this manner should be locked as highly as possible, up to and including at Rank 6.

Then after that perhaps incorporating stuff from the Incorrect Edits article about when NOT to use Walking Trails.

Where I feel we have not obtained agreement is with bike paths. Some editors really like adding bike paths. Lots of them, everywhere. I get the sense that most of us don't want to discourage those editors, so we make sure their Trails are disconnected but otherwise leave them alone, even though they increase the risk that drivers will receive bogus routes, to say nothing of encouraging cyclists to use Waze and setting an undesirable example for other editors. As you can probably tell I do not really like this tradeoff, but I appreciate there is disagreement. I really hope we can find some common ground on using Walking Trails for bike paths.

PesachZ wrote:There is a problem with along "path" to walking trails on segments which have house numbers and are there to super address search for those hours yet are not drivable. Is you add "path" to the end of the name, the search will not match.

Also they should appear different in the app than PLRs

Good comments, thanks. Easily and gladly incorporated.

That's not too different from what we have now. Validator flags any connected WT as bad, and if it isn't locked, it gets at the very least disconnected, breaking its purpose until somebody who knows better finds and fixes it.

The best we can do about that is making the guidance clear about cases that should NOT be deleted.

To be clear, I don't advocate blanket "delete all WTs" guidance, and regret if I've given that impression. Even my currently-commented-out WT section in Incorrect Edits said "consider leaving the WT under these circumstances...".

Honestly I think the greatest danger to carefully implemented, routable Walking Trails is not the wiki at all but rather Validator. We can try to make the wiki clear about when it's time for a connected WT, but I fear editors blindly following Validator aren't going to catch the subtlety.

Here's a strawman draft of a potential Walking Trails section for the Road Types (USA) article.

(EDIT 3/28/15: Replaced by new draft in more recent post.)

voludu2 wrote:A very interesting use of walking trails to improve routing is at the Statue of liberty and Ellis Island. The walking trails from two locations allows waze to choose the shortest route to one of two passenger docks for these locations. https://www.waze.com/editor/?env=usa&lo ... 0,82688312

Interesting application, thanks for pointing that out! However I tried routing to Ellis Island from New Jersey via Live Map, and instead of routing via a Walking Trail ferry it wanted to take me over the Private Road causeway that is signed (you can see it in SV) "ELLIS ISLAND DELIVERIES AUTHORIZED VEHICLES ONLY".

When one types "Ellis Island" into Live Map multiple choices come up. I just chose the first one on the list. Perhaps the testing in November was with a different destination pin...?

Regarding global guidance, I agree, but the way the Wiki is currently structured the top-level article on Road types and names is only a directory to regional/national guidance pages. There appears to be no such thing as global guidance on road types and names...?

Without an "official" place for global guidance, I'd be inclined not to be the first to separate global/technical behavior of road types from regional application conventions just for the Walking Trail. Perhaps the creation of global guidance can wait for later...?

In the interests of getting this published I'd like to suggest the following reorganization/rewrite. It tries to separate a basic summary of behavior in the beginning from details and application guidance later. If and when part of it gets moved to a global page this should make it easy.

The new suggested text for the Road Types (USA) article is:

*****

Walking Trails

A Walking Trail in Waze functions identically, or nearly so, to a parking-lot road, except with different display characteristics. Waze treats Walking Trails as fully routable and drivable, with an exit penalty similar to that of parking-lot roads that discourages routing of through traffic from streets and highways. Named Walking Trails can support House Numbers, and Waze will route to them. Walking Trails may be used in limited situations to support routing access to destinations not directly reachable by road.

(USA-only article continues here)

Limitations

The name of this road type suggests that, besides their usefulness in a handful of uncommon routing situations, Walking Trails may be appropriate for mapping all pedestrian walkways, hiking tracks, and bicycle paths. Surprisingly, this is not true. It has been shown that the presence of a Walking Trail just near destinations can distort routing to those destinations in hard-to-predict ways, even if the Walking Trail is disconnected from the road network.

Further, seeing Walking Trails on their display may encourage pedestrians and bicyclists to believe that Waze is meant to support them. It is not. Pedestrians and cyclists using Waze alongside drivable roads can corrupt Waze's speed data, resulting in faulty traffic indications and routing. As of March 2015 pedestrians and cyclists should be discouraged, not encouraged, from using Waze.


Applications

In rare cases, drivable roads alone cannot correctly or efficiently serve a destination. For example, when confronted with a train station accessible from either side but with no drivable crossing, Waze will always route a driver to one side even if the other side is closer. Or, Waze may route drivers to a roadless destination, such as a gazebo located in a suburban park, along unrelated roads that happen to pass near it rather than to the correct entry point for the access path. Finally, Waze can't route to destinations addressed along named but non-drivable footpaths using driving road types alone.

In situations like these, Walking Trails may be applied much like Parking-Lot Roads, connected to the road network as the final step in reaching the destinations. When used this way Walking Trails should be highly locked to discourage disconnection or deletion.

Another application of the Walking Trail type is to provide a searchable destination in itself. However, a Point Place typically makes a more appropriate destination marker for trailheads.

Finally, when very obvious trails cross roads -- such as in the case of converted railroad right-of-ways ("Rails to Trails") -- mapping a Walking Trail at the crossing may help orient drivers. In many such cases, however, the dangers associated with the presence of a routable Walking Trail, even a disconnected one, may outweigh the benefits (but see below regarding Pedestrian Boardwalks).

Naming

If destinations are addressed via a Walking Trail, it is essential that the Walking Trail be named accordingly so that routing to the addresses will work. For other routing situations, Walking Trails should be named to alert drivers that they must leave their car. For example, a Walking Trail connecting the two sides of a train station may be named "Station Access Path".

Discouraged uses

The potential for routing distortions and the negative impact of encouraging pedestrians and cyclists to use Waze make Walking Trails dangerous for ordinary use. As of March 2015, long bike paths or walkways, particularly those closely parallel with drivable roads or in areas dense with destinations, should not be mapped.

In suburban or rural areas, or where farther from drivable roads, Walking Trails may do less harm. The local editing community may choose not to remove these out of sentiment, or simply because uninformed editors might add them back anyway. Ironically, such Walking Trails can become unintended models for new editors who may go on to add more. Even if the local community chooses not to remove discouraged Walking Trails, such Trails should never be connected to the road network.

Short walkways, such as those found in city parks, may be less likely to distort routing if no destinations are nearby. But if no destinations are served, mapped walkways are decorative at best and clutter at worst, neither of which accords with Waze's general principles of utility and simplicity. It is best not to map walkways unless they support driving Wazers in reaching their destinations.

Substituting Pedestrian Boardwalks

As of March 2015, the Pedestrian Boardwalk road type appears to be less prone to routing distortions than the Walking Trail type. As a result, it may be safer to use Pedestrian Boardwalk for walking and cycling paths. Again, however, if doing so will not support drivers of motor vehicles in orienting themselves or reaching their destinations, and may encourage the belief that Waze is meant for walking and cycling, it is still best to leave walking and cycling paths unmapped regardless of the road type used.

Thanks for a more approachable version of the text. It looks great and I know my prose can always stand to be edited. My worry is that the simpler draft puts less emphasis on the reasons for the guidance and leans a bit more heavily on "don't do this". It's very slight though.

The general content of our different drafts is pretty much the same, so once that general content passes muster I'll see if I can combine the drafts in a way that will satisfy all concerns.

(Edit: if you don't mind -- the rewritten article you offered is quoted in your post as having been written by me...minor detail, but, could be confusing...)

voludu2 wrote:Why not use walking trails close to, but disconnected from drivable roads to help Wazers find the walkway without telling them to drive on it? This could create a route to the gazebo or the statue of liberty but give the destination flag where they should buy tickes to the statue of liberty ferry, for example.

First, there is the blanket answer for all questions regarding support for pedestrians and cyclists: that until Waze tells us that they have figured out how to keep non-driving Wazers from corrupting speed data, we should do everything we can to discourage pedestrians and cyclists from using Waze.

I walked a neighborhood with Waze on some months ago (I was doing a one-time map survey and it was a tight little maze of roads). Within minutes of starting my walk, the traffic-jam indications showed up on the display. One -- just one! -- lousy pedestrian using Waze managed to mess up routing for that whole neighborhood.

Based on that experience I believe Walking Trails should face a high "burden of proof" that they are a net benefit. Anything that could make a person think, "oh, look, Waze has walking trails, that means they support cyclists and pedestrians!" is something we want to avoid like the plague. Sure seems to me, anyway.

So that's a blanket answer for any Walking Trail.

The specific question about closely parallel roads -- I may not be understanding the purpose...? In general, laying down closely parallel but fully routable roads is not a good idea, even if one of them is broken up by disconnections. First, Wazers who ask for a route or get recalculated along that road could easily be snapped to the other road (the Trail) instead and things would go downhill from there. Second, when GPS data are noisy (either because of the location or the user's gear or setup) Waze has been known to snap drivers off even an existing route. Having a fully routable but "fake" road right alongside a "real" road will make that problem worse.

Basically, I'm saying GPS fix quality is simply not good enough to distinguish between a routable path right alongside a road and the road itself.

Now, if there is a path important for drivers to reach their destinations in a tourist area that local editors judge to meet the burden of proof for mapping, one can use a Pedestrian Boardwalk. At this time it appears to be relatively (but not completely) inert from a routing perspective.

(Of course, Waze could decide tomorrow that their programmers got "Walking Trail" and "Pedestrian Boardwalk" mixed up some years back and swap them, so that Walking Trails become inert and Pedestrian Boardwalks start to route like PLRs. That's another reason not to get carried away with the things.)

Not sure if that answers your question...?