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Walking Trails

Post by CBenson
The way walking trails are currently set up, they seem to me to be designed for circumstances where walking is a necessary part of reaching a destination. This is would be in contrast to walking trails that are purely recreational.

The way walking trails work now is that if a destination is closer to walking trail than a driveable road, waze assumes that you must walk to the destination. The driving instructions are thus given to point on the road network closest to the end of the walking trail.

If the walking trail is very long and the destination is along the middle of the trail, then walking from the end of the segment would be simply too far and the routing server returns "route not found."

Waze is considering changing how the routing server treats walking trails. However, if the current routing continues to be how walking trails are treated, then I think recreational trails should be deleted from map. If we want recreational trails to be on the map, I think we should provide feedback to the developers that we would like the routing server to treat walking trails in a different manner. One option is to not consider a destination as ever being on a walking trail.
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Re: Walking Trails

Post by aarakes
I personally am not a fan of walking trails. I have seen very few times that they would be useful and many more times that they just get in the way. I Florida, I have seen too many times where the walking trail (boardwalk) along was directly attached to the nearest roads. Also in some places around the Orlando area, editors are putting in walking trails that parallel the streets and connect one subdivision to another. I think these types of trails are a detriment to any routing algorithm.

Isn't Waze primarily a driving app? If it was a recreational or hikers navigational app, then I see the usefulness. Unfortunately, keeping up with the trails, in my humble opinion, is a detriment to the rest of the purpose of Waze.

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Re: Walking Trails

Post by AlanOfTheBerg
jstrangfeld wrote:Can the penalty of a walking trail be made so astronomical that it would never be used (2^32 or 2^64 or something like it) ?
That would require also a fundamental change to the routing engine. It always routes to the closest spot on the closest segment to the destination lat/lon. Since the routing engine uses the concept of "penalties," the only way to completely prevent the routing, in general, is to have an infinite penalty. And that means disconnected, so that the engine can't even consider it. 2^32 < infinity. However, we know there are issues with that method even because the closest segment can be that walking trail, but since it is disconnected, then there is no way to get to that closest spot on the closest segment.

I'm not sure what the right solution is at this point.
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Re: Walking Trails

Post by AlanOfTheBerg
CBenson wrote:Just so we are clear, what currently happens is waze routes you to the closest point on the road network to the end of the walking trail and assumes that you will walk the rest of the way. Try routing to 1600 Ritchie Hwy, Arnold, MD 21012.
I may have missed something. Does this happen only with walking trails or all types?I thought there was some issue with Waze knowing what the closest segment was, but couldn't build a route to it if it was disconnected.
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Re: Walking Trails

Post by bgodette
slandrum wrote:... but I don't think hacking the service roads by replacing them with non-driveable types is a good idea.
The Waze road type of Service Road is functionally identical to Street, and is due to be removed because of that. If the real world functionality is not a surface street (ie residential) then you should be using a different Type.
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Re: Walking Trails

Post by CBenson
Sorry, I should have been more clear. The current behavior I'm describing is what happens when the walking trail is not connected to the road network. In other words all guidance that non-driveable road types should never be connected to the road network remains fully applicable.
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Re: Walking Trails

Post by CBenson
Yes. If no walking trail is drawn in, then the routing is to the closest point on the road network to the destination pin. There are examples of the discrepancy in this thread.
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Re: Walking Trails

Post by CBenson
I take away the following from the Texas thread:

1) Walking trails like any segment can be routed over if connected to the road network. All non-driveable segments should never be connected to the road network.

2) The discussion suggests that wiki provides sufficient guidance for walking trails. I disagree. I see no specific guidance for walking trails. I only see guidance for non-driveable segments in general. However, walking trails effect routing differently from other non-driveable segments. In other words, routing is effected even if the walking trails are not connected to the road network.

3) Pro and cons of walking trails near streets are mentioned. Pros include preventing walkers and bikers using waze from polluting the data for the street. Cons include problems if bad GPS data cause drivers to be snapped to walking trails. What is not discussed is the con of having routing to destinations near the walking trail affected.

4) Several editors support deleting walking trails from the map although there is some support for including long walking trails. However, it is the long trails that cause the most problems with routing.
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Re: Walking Trails

Post by CBenson
I agree with Alan. If the destination is closest to the walking trail, then no penalty will be high enough to prevent routing as there is no other alternative to get you to the destination.
AlanOfTheBerg wrote:However, we know there are issues with that method even because the closest segment can be that walking trail, but since it is disconnected, then there is no way to get to that closest spot on the closest segment.
Just so we are clear, what currently happens is waze routes you to the closest point on the road network to the end of the walking trail and assumes that you will walk the rest of the way. Try routing to 1600 Ritchie Hwy, Arnold, MD 21012.
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Re: Walking Trails

Post by CBenson
I believe that this only happens with walking trails. It does not happen for railroads.


The issue with not being able to build a route comes about when the destination is closest to the walking trail, but far from the end of the walking trail. In this case waze figures you can't walk that far and won't return a route. This is true even if the destination is 50 feet from a driveable road. That is the example that started the other thread, you can't route to 1820 Wiehle Ave, Reston, VA.

Waze will route to the closest point on the road network to the destination, even if the destination is closer to an unconnected railroad segment than to a road segment.
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