Timbones wrote:

TheMKLightning wrote:Just thinking, how about a Place (point) at the/each entrance to the car park labeled '[P]' alternative name also marked, for example 'NCP John Lewis'?

Yes, points can work well for car parks. They appear in search results but don't obscure the map.

I'm going to suggest something more radical: keeping with the 'don't drive inside landmarks' and 'only map buildings', how about these extreme rules for mapping Car Parks?

• Only map public, general purpose car parks, not tied to any specific businesses
  - Will also allow Airport Car Parks / Drop Offs, as they're never confused for in-town parking
  - This means no car parks for supermarkets or shopping centres!
• Only map car parks as Points, not Areas (unless a multi-storey, which is a building you drive in)
  - Points place at entrances to the car park, with minimal PLR segments as per usual
• Always labeled with their full name as written on the sign, e.g. George Street Car Park
• Never use [P] text at all, ever!

Rationale is thus: keep the map free of clutter, and only showing actual, physical 'landmarks' in the true sense. Users can search for a car park near them (or near their destination), and be sure to get one they can actually park in. The [P] flag isn't necessary in the search results.

A counter argument might be that people thing that drivers should be able to look at the map to find parking, but that doesn't seem practical to me.

Thoughts?

^ Yes, that sounds like a practical idea, especially when only accessible from one direction.

TheMKLightning wrote:Just thinking, how about a Place (point) at the/each entrance to the car park labeled '[P]' alternative name also marked, for example 'NCP John Lewis'?

Yes, points can work well for car parks. They appear in search results but don't obscure the map.

I would prefer it to have the full name though, i.e [P] NCP John Lewis. I'm unsure about keeping the [P] bit though, as the category search for parking has it's own special P icon.

TheMKLightning wrote:

Rule of Thumb: drivers should never be shown to be driving ‘inside’ an area place

How do we map a shopping centre with an integrated car park above or below the shops? Do we just take the roads to the edge of the building? Examples at St Davids and John Lewis in Cardiff

That's an interesting question, and one that should be noted as an exception. Navigating drivers to the entrance is probably sufficient, especially as they'll have zero GPS reception if parking is below the shops.

elljay23 wrote: Confused. The draft says "Enter the name of the building as the street name for the point places within it.", whereas the current guidelines say "don't name them". (I don't think the PLRs should be named.)

I mean, set the "street name" in the address of the Point Place to be the name of the shopping centre.
This is mainly for very large shopping centres / malls which have their own name and are more well known that the roads they are on.

For example:

• Trafford Centre - area place - address is B5214 - Trafford Blvd, Manchester
• John Lewis - point place - address is Trafford Centre, Manchester
• Parking lot roads remain unnamed

Is that over complicating things?

elljay23 wrote:Will the definition of a public car park be included i.e. "operated by the local council or NCP" ?

Yes, though there are other car park operators.

elljay23 wrote:Is the intention to change the current guidelines on naming PLRs?

There aren't any plans to change them. Is there any advantage to doing so?

elljay23 wrote:How would this retail park be mapped?

In this specific case, I'd suggest it was fine how it is (without the car park) given the size of the businesses involved. "Crawley Leisure Park" to the south could have some points added.

ditchi56 wrote:I can see I've got a lot of company and supermarket car parks wrong in the past.

They're not wrong if there weren't any guidelines at the time

ditchi56 wrote:For "gas" stations, it would be worth being explicit about about how we want to name them.

The brand should appear in the search results, and Waze have said they will put that back in "soon". Ergo, it shouldn't be necessary to put the brand as the name of the place. Petrol stations often have a proper name, some better known by locals than others. You may find the petrol station isn't displayed on the building, and supermarkets are particularly unimaginative.

Search results also show which road the petrol station is on (or off of), so that should aid differentiating between stations on opposite sides of the road. YMMV.

I'm happy with "Stn" as an abbreviation.

ditchi56 wrote:Should we make an effort to fill in opening hours (especially for petrol stations)?

Meh. Users can submit that information from their cars...

I can see I'm going to be revisiting a lot of my places when this is finalised, my OCD means I get a bit giddy when it comes to the detail on buildings and I enjoy nothing more than mapping and naming individual buildings on a University campus

I'm also a terrible car park mapper, I've toned it down a lot from mapping every last road to just the outer ones but it's going to be quite an adjustment to totally move away from area mapping for them, I'll adjust though, change is good... change is good...

The proposals make sense though, the key will be ensuring the message gets out to as many editors as possible I guess.

Timbones wrote:I think TheMKLightning meant "<car park name> Park and Ride", such that the words "Car Park" don't appear in the name.

That I did.