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Visitor perspective

Post by Horizon911
Hello community,
I spent a few weeks in Bulgaria driving around a few 1000s kms as a tourist. Obviously, using Waze. :) There was a lot of work done by the local community to allow for this, so thanks for it! :)
I've got there a few observations that might make driving around easier:
  1. Some parking lot operators benefit (not very reasonably) by charging 3 lv. (or even more) per hr.), while at the same time there might be a free parking nearby.) I saw this especially nearby tourist attractions. (City of Plovdiv)
    Hence: It would be great to have *paid parkings* easier to identify. (e.g. by adding "$" symbol somewhere in the parking lot's name.) What do you thing?
  2. Please correct me if I am wrong: Some public paid parkings (e.g. Sofia) handle payments via *SMS only* (blue zones, green zones). The complication is that you can send make such SMS *only from Bulgarian-operated SIM card*. As a result, it makes these parking lots unusable by foreign visitors.
    Therefore, I'd like to ask BG community to consider: Make SMS-only parking easier to identify. (by addiding something (not sure what exactly) into the parking lot name.)
    Note: I noticed that some other cities (e.g. Burgas) offer paid parkings but they allow for SMS + other payment methods. (Not sure if it applies to all or some paid parkings there.)
  3. POIs in cyrillic alphabet only:
    Sometimes it was difficult to find POIs as their names were in cyrillic only.
    Just thinking: Apart from linking to Google places. (which certaily helps); It could also help to have an Alt Name(s) also in latin alphabet. (Not sure, if this is allowed in Bulgaria or not.)
Other than this, thanks for the great work and looking forward to the next visit of Bulgaria. :)
Horizon911
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Re: Visitor perspective

Post by EloheiYishi
Hello, Horizon!

Thank you for your post and the ideas. We definitely try to put also Latin names at least for the search as alternatives, many times as the main name, especially if it's a world/foreign brand. The best for both places and street names would be for Waze to implement and alternative Latin name and the option in the Waze app to chose which ones do you want to see/hear when driving and searching. This also applies for the new Visual instructions, because we don't have enough space and it's honestly ugly to do it like this. They should have the same issue in Israel and the Hebrew signs. But let's see.

A similar issue is with the Parking lots - a lot of info and features there that are not utilized. There is an option for paid/free parking, along with public/private etc. But this has to be implemented in the app and shown. Otherwise we again have to hack the UI, as you suggest. We can think about it, but it would definitely be ugly. Although we have a lot of parking lots named (in Bulgarian) "Paid parking".

As for the SMS - this is just an option, you should always have an alternative paying method in Bulgaria. However, you should be able to pay with any International number by dialing in the correct format, but you might end up paying quite a lot to your mobile operator.

Let us know if you have any comments or other ideas. And sorry for the very late reply.
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Re: Visitor perspective

Post by sthefup
Hello, only about part 2 I have a little mark to make, I have the same issue in Serbia with SMS parking, but unlike Serbia where there was no other payment method in Bulgaria there are guys with green vests that can sell you tickets for those blue and green zones you just have to walk around and you will find someone. They also offer half an hour parking (SMS is minimum an hour parking). I think this will be helpful for you if you decide to visit Bulgaria again :)
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