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Routing through parking lots

Posted: Tue Jan 07, 2020 7:39 am
by IMDashti
I brought up this matter in some other forum, but I think it would be more appropriate to discuss it here.

In so many cases, parking lot roads (PLRs) might be a good way to route through. There are so many PLRs that are critical for parking just in limited times of the week, while being a waste of space in the rest of time, unless they can be used to route some traffic. There are PLRs that can make great shortcuts for drivers. Consider a school parking lot in a critical location. In normal circumstances, such lot may be busy one hour at start of school days and another at end of such day. In rest of school days and on school-off days, its roads are so empty that drivers may be tempted to use them as shortcuts. But the list of examples is so long.

Somebody told me that Waze can route PLRs under certain conditions. Is this true? If not, I like to get some feedback on adding routability option to PLRs. By enable a "routable" option for a PLR, it can used by Waze for routing, depending on traffic info. In cases where PLRs cannot or unsuitable to be used for routing, such option should be unchecked, which can be the default value for all PLRs.

What do you think?!!

Re: Routing through parking lots

Posted: Mon May 04, 2020 8:16 am
by GerardterBeke
IMDashti wrote:As I explained before, drawing routable PLRs as streets will cause some other problems.
Which problems?

Re: Routing through parking lots

Posted: Tue Jan 07, 2020 9:59 am
by Hugo_Moreira
If a road is marked as Parking lot, is is generally used only to get in and out a parking space, and specifically meant no to allow routes (except as a last resort). If Waze started redirecting cars into it, traffic will be jammed easily, because this areas are not planned to have high traffic volume.
From the Wazeopedia:
" Parking Lot Roads have a transition penalty when exiting the Parking Lot road segment. This should prevent Waze from routing you through a Parking Lot or an alley as a shortcut. Parking Lot Roads can be used to avoid "missing road" automated Map Problem reports.
Parking Lot Roads can be used to prevent Waze from assuming drivers driving slowly or parked in the parking lot are in a traffic jam on the main road -- draw in the drivable portions of the parking lot that are near outside roadways.
Waze will not highlight slow speeds (automatically detected traffic jams) on Parking Lot Roads."

If there is a situation, when the configuration of the road and its special characteristics make it a possible to route in day to day basis, my suggestion would be to change road type to "Street" [edited the post: by mistake had written "secondary road"]

Re: Routing through parking lots

Posted: Tue Jan 07, 2020 6:04 pm
by Hugo_Moreira
IMDashti wrote:
...my suggestion would be to change road type to "secondary road"
However, there's no "secondary road" type in Waze. If we make it "street", "narrow street" or "ramp", it might work, but it will loose other features of being a PLR. There should be something that can distinguish routable PLRs without compromising their prime use as PLRs.
Edited the post above. I ment "Street" (I just gave a direct trasnlation of how we call a a Street in Portugal :oops: ).
If you change it to Street, it's drivable and a regular road! The other options (narrow and ramp will be penalized or preferred in routing, messing up things.

Re: Routing through parking lots

Posted: Tue Jan 07, 2020 10:47 am
by IMDashti
If there is a situation, when the configuration of the road and its special characteristics make it a possible to route in day to day basis, my suggestion would be to change road type to "secondary road"
Yes, there are so many examples of that. However, there's no "secondary road" type in Waze. If we make it "street", "narrow street" or "ramp", it might work, but it will loose other features of being a PLR. There should be something that can distinguish routable PLRs without compromising their prime use as PLRs.

Re: Routing through parking lots

Posted: Wed Jan 08, 2020 7:33 am
by IMDashti
As I explained before, drawing routable PLRs as streets will cause some other problems. We need an option to make PLRs routable where it is appropriate. In such places as Maryland, this option should not be enabled, but in other parts of the world where it is okay, editors will have the option to make some PLRs routable if it is appropriate legally and practically.

Re: Routing through parking lots

Posted: Fri May 01, 2020 10:51 am
by IMDashti
I added a suggestion in the Suggestion Box to provide routability option to PLRs. Please show your support by voting for the suggestion:

https://waze.uservoice.com/forums/59223 ... rking-lots

Re: Routing through parking lots

Posted: Mon May 04, 2020 8:52 am
by IMDashti
GerardterBeke wrote:Which problems?
The main problem I faced as an editor is that other editors will come to downgrade the street I make to PLR which stops it from being used as street. Unfortunately, many editors think any parking lot should be drawn using PLR, even when many parking lots serve as parking lots only in a small part of the time. In most of time, they can serve efficiently as streets.
As an example, if we say that a school day lasts only 6 hours, a school week has five days, and a school operates 40 weeks of the year, then the parking lot is used only 6 x 5 x 40 = 1200 hours of the year. The year has 365 x 24 = 8760 hours. So, a school parking lot is used only 1200 / 8760 = 13.7% of the year. In other words, the a school parking lot can serve as street for 86.3% of the year. If an editor downgrades the parking lot using PLRs, just because it is a school parking, we are missing the majority of its possible use in the rest of time out of school. On a daily basis, I come across examples of parking lots that were drawn by editors using PLRs which causes long routing for Wazers who don't use the parking as street.

Another problem is that some parking lots are huge or complex. Only a small part of the PLRs need to be upgraded to street to link surrounding roads. However, upgrading only part of the parking lot might cause the parking lot to be divided. Proper routing when entering or exiting such parking lots can be achieved if the parking lot is regarded as one. Division caused by upgrading some PLRs to streets will make such routing problematic. But if my proposal is adopted by maintaining a PLR while enabling routing through it, it can serve both as a single parking lot and a street.

This is in addition to looks. Maintaining PLRs as PLRs will keep the parking lot appearing as a parking lot in the app. You don't get ugly layout caused by some streets cutting through parking lots. By my proposal, a parking lot can remain looking as parking lot, even when some of its segments are serving as streets. BTW, this concept is done to other types of roads in Waze. When you draw a street, for example, you can upgrade the Routing option for it to "Preferred" which makes it to behave as PS while being shown in the app as street. All I'm saying is give us a similar option to upgrade a PLR to street without changing its looks.

Re: Routing through parking lots

Posted: Mon May 04, 2020 5:04 pm
by IMDashti
The percentage I gave for school parking is assuming the time it is used, not the time it is congested. If the concern is with congestion of such parking, then we should consider only one hour at start of school day and one hour at end of such day. This will make the place congested only 2 x 5 x 40 = 400 hours of the year which is only 4.6%. But we should not get much concerned about that in my proposal because if a PLR is treated as street, Waze would keep track of its usage and would know when to avoid it.

Overlocking is not good enough if high-rank editors are the ones who revert the changes you make. If I have to put a comment on each parking that I change, my city will be full of such comments. I made the proposal because I see so much parking lots that can benefit from such feature. In systematic revision of my city, I almost upgrade one parking every day because somebody drew it using PLRs or downgraded it to PLRs when there's a serious use for it as street.

Re: Routing through parking lots

Posted: Sun May 10, 2020 6:37 am
by IMDashti
Twister-UK wrote:This seems like a suggestion to resolve a local issue, and isn't one I could support in any way given the very real problems it would cause for those of us in other parts of the world where car parks/parking lots/other local names are *not* suitable for use as through routes no matter what the traffic conditions are.

In many cases trying to use a PLR as part of a through route would require you to pass through the ticket/payment barriers on entry and exit, and in cases where the car park has no physical restrictions on access there may still be other restrictions (ANPR enforcement, local laws etc) which mean using a car park as a short cut nay risk the driver being penalised in some way.

As the previous poster says, if a route through a car park *genuinely* can be used as a regular through route without restriction, then it should be mapped as street segments. PLR segments *have* to retain their special routing restriction properties, otherwise they might as well not exist.
Unfortunately, repetition of claims made by many without close examination of my proposal. The proposal is to add an option to make a PLR routable where appropriate. The proposal is NOT to make ALL PLRs routable. All the reasons you gave might be enough to keep a parking lot as not routable, and I agree with you 1000%. For example, routing through a paid parking does not make sense. If there are any restrictions or laws preventing such routing, it also should not be done. In my proposal I wrote:

Of course, the default behavior for any PLR should be "not routable", but editors can change that to "routable" if it seems appropriate.
Of course, such feature should be made available with some guidelines like not applicability to paid parking, local laws preventing routing through parking, parking time restrictions, and vehicle type restrictions. Many of these guidelines are already available through existing features, but others should become proper editing rules for the suggested option.


However, as you said, in many places, there are no restrictions on routing through a certain parking lot. But upgrading to "street," as is the custom now, might cause some problems as I explained in previous posts. All I'm saying: keep drawing a parking lot as PLR, but give the "option" to make it behave as street where necessary and appropriate.