Started new thread.

Long-distance routing
(fixed link)
viewtopic.php?f=62&t=136807

chriseleven wrote:This of course clashes with the thoughts of RodNav. As I found out when the N2 between PE and Cape Town changes from a freeway to a major highway

Technically, it also changes from a Freeway (all the elevated sections through the centre of town) to a Major Highway on the way to Grahamstown too.

I suspect people often use Freeway on N roads as they then show up blue, which is as they show up in map books. This sort of makes sense, but isn't technically what that road is.

In my opinion, all N roads should be Major Highways (elevated to Freeway when appropriate), and if they go through towns and become smaller (like the N2 through Knysna, or through innumerable small towns [Mthatha, Butterworth, Idutywa, etc] in the Eastern Cape) it might be worth demoting their rank further still. In any case, they usually remain the primary road there, regardless of stop streets, robots etc. - they're still "Major Highways" even if you're only doing 40-60 and stopping every 50m!

Certainly, some cast iron standards would be helpful here, with examples from well known roads.

I note the instructions here http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php/Sout ... red_routes is this still the case?

In a related matter, the N2 just outside of Grahamstown literally washed away - there is a 30m wide crater where it used to be. A temporary bypass opened recently. I'll take a run out there this evening to get a track of the new road.

What should we do in cases like this where the highway is effectively closed (for a while) and then a temporary low-speed bypass/temporary road is constructed?

I agree with chriseleven on this one bar the freeway part. I propose a freeway be a major route (N or M) but WITH dual carriageway (the gap between opposing directions). This would let the user distinguish between what truly is a major route and a more minor (but still National) route. I.e. the N1 between JHB and Pretoria is a freeway and the N11 between Middelburg and Groblersdal is a major highway.

Thoughts?

See here:
http://world.waze.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... =10#p26947 as well as the entire forum topic discussion.

How would you propose classifying the N2 (see Ermelo -> Pongola -> Durban)?

The road is difficult because it has parts that are:
1. dual carriageway with medium and ramps
2. Dual carriageway with no medium (solid white line) and ramps
3. Single lane either way with solid white line and ramps
4. Single + dual carriageway with crossroads (stop street for the joining roads).

Ok, my initial post was a rushed response after reading the general direction of this topic. I didn't want people to get into making decisions about road renaming before reading the work that had already been done (please note, I was not part of the original discussion). Please take this road into consideration when making decisions based on the number of lanes a road may have.

Heres the post:

Here are examples of what I talk about:
I'm linking google maps as bing (waze) was missing the area not too long ago!
N2 Hluhuwe offramp, Dual lanes, solid white line (no medium) + on/offramps
https://maps.google.com/?ll=-28.011168, ... 6&t=h&z=16

10ish km up the road, you have single lane, solid white middle line and two dirt roads intersecting:
https://maps.google.com/?ll=-27.885347, ... 1&t=w&z=19

Follow this road all the way to Ermelo and you will see it change from the above, to the highways in and around Jhb (3 lanes, solid barriers + ramps).

This road is a freeway, and should not be changed, so we need to be careful when defining roads by how many lanes they have.

*edit: wrong link*

Right, so heres how the R512 (Malibongwe) was mapped:

The first time I drove this road, it did note exist. It was only mapped until Witkoppen. After that, it was a strew of "red" roads. Malibongwe itself, was mapped as a primary road, so I extended this to the city limits. I believe where the R512 becomes a "Minor Highway" is where it loses its "city name" (signboards will read R512 instead of Malibongwe Dr (R512), hence I decided to go with the convention and change the road to a Minor Highway.

This road and Heidelberg road have always bugged me, as by the definition they should be mapped as Minor Highways. I've always had in the back of my mind though, that there are just too many robots on the road for it to be considered a "Major Highway". Another reason was also that on the old client (~v2), roads were a lot bigger, so if there were many roads (other than ramps) connected to a major/minor highway, it would not be immediately evident what was going on (e.g. the intersection with Republic). They have since fixed this by adding an auto zoom and reducing the size of the roads that are displayed on the client (though I think they could probably still do more).

I also don't like the idea of freeways continuing through towns (unless it actually remains a freeway!). I don't consider a road with a four-way stop or traffic light to be a freeway. I consider the freeway to "end" just before entering the city, and then a new freeway starting on the other side (even though the road may be called the same name). This looks weird when you zoom out a lot (like theres a piece missing) but I don't think this should be of concern.

Major Highways are underused, and I think the definition could use some work. Not sure where to use it though ...

Thoughts/suggestions/critique all welcome

/Glipsie

chriseleven wrote:I think the road type need not "look nice" on the map but should be telling the Waze user which road is better that the alternate.

"Looks nice" seems like the wrong wording. You need to be able to distinguish roads so that you can make the correct turn.
Here is Heidelberg that I referred to:
https://world.waze.com/editor/?zoom=5&l ... TTTFTTTTFT
I haven't checked with v3 of the client, but with v2, setting Heidelberg Rd to "Minor Highway" made it cover the ramp to the side of it completely, so it was difficult to work out if you needed to "keep left to Harrow Rd" or "keep left to the ramp to the N1". These instructions are easy to follow if you know where you're going, but not if you're not. You therefore need the visual instruction to see which road to take.

I'm pointing this out as "something to take note of". Things have changed significantly since so I don't know if my concerns are still valid!

chriseleven wrote: Major highways should be multi lane highways/well constructed, wide highways between cities/towns that are not designated as freeways. I would like these to be differentiated from minor highways that could vary from reasonable roads to ones where you might need to drive very slowly due to road condition.

Are you referring to R roads such as the one you pointed out (R512)? If not, can you narrow it down to a certain road type (see the thread I pointed to earlier if you're not sure what I mean). I feel the way to go is to define roads based on their SA names, rather (Rxxx, Rxx, Mxx, Mx, Nx) rather than "does the road have 2 lanes". Can you also show an example of what you believe a "Minor Highway" should be?

/Glipsie


/Glipsie

I think Rod might be correct on the road types and preferences given to routing.

I think we'll have to to hunt through the Wiki & forums to get the ammo, but as I understand it, Freeways are major arterial routes with the ONLY access provided by means of ramps, and with no other intersections or stop signs and traffic signs.

If I look at loads like the N17 for example, or major portions of the N1, it does not qualify as this. There are plenty of crossings, intersections and obviously other access as it goes through countless 'One-Horse' towns along the way.

It's likely easier for the USA where they have DOT classification and information on likely each and every road, but in the good ole ZA, our documentation is a bit lacking in some cases.

We need to think what ramifications this would have over both long national routes and some 'local wazers' using short commutes, especially with some of the client 'exclude' options set.

There are some current discussions on whether 'Avoid Highways' will only avoid 'Freeway' segments, or in fact all Freeway and Major / Minor highways too.
One such discussion at https://world.waze.com/forum/viewtopic. ... ifications. This is mentioned in the thread :

jasonh300 wrote:Avoid highways no longer avoids all highway segments. It only avoids freeways and seems to favor major and minor highways, probably due to speed data. This all changed a couple of months ago.

So there's really no reason to downgrade a major highway when it passes through a town. It serves no purpose and makes the map look like it has been carelessly edited.

In our case we do not have 'Major Highways' going through most of the smaller towns along all the major (N) routes, but if I was a local, I certainly would not like to get routed along all the back roads instead of the main street in my one-horse town, just because it's designated as a Freeway and I have 'avoid highways' on.
If we downgrade it to a Primary Street, it will affect long distance routing, so I would tend not to downgrade it beyond Minor Highway.

When browsing around, I see a lot of paved tracks in smaller towns, meaning there are some Wazers there, just likely no-one editing or fixing things in their area.
Even if their 'rush hour' lasts for 5 minutes instead of 2-3 hours, it doesn't mean that they do not find the app useful

I just wish we had a live test bed somewhere where you could mock up some scenarios and use a dummy client to 'route' you through this and see how TTS or the engine is affected by some changes.
This could even be used as a test-bed for an 'AM Competency test'.
(Fat chance, but anyone from Waze reading this, think small side-project, old servers and infrastructure changes) Maybe one day, you never know.

Carel