Test of Text-to-Speech (TTS) Abbreviations in Waze Clients

[GizmoGuy411]

At present, the text on the display matches the signage, which I think is the best arrangement.

+1

Personally, I think it would be better for 'St.' to be "saint" anywhere, and "St" to be "street anywhere.

+1

But if the decision comes down that these abbreviations will remain positional as well as lexical, I'll start spelling them out.

+1

[harling]

We have a "Summer St" in town. TTS correctly pronounces it "summer street". Off of that street is a court, named "Summer St Ct". TTS pronounces it as "summer saint court". Wait, what?

We have a "State Street Dr", which is an extension of State St in a different neighborhood. But the "Street" is always spelled out in "State Street Dr". I think there are other streets in that neighborhood that are the same way.

Around here, the signs never spell out the "street", just "St". (Many of them date from the '40s or earlier and are made of cast iron with raised letters, and are not likely to be replaced any time soon.) At present, the text on the display matches the signage, which I think is the best arrangement. Personally, I think it would be better for 'St.' to be "saint" anywhere, and "St" to be "street anywhere. But if the decision comes down that these abbreviations will remain positional as well as lexical, I'll start spelling them out.

[GizmoGuy411]

Based on harling's and jasonh300's last posts, I think our catch phrase when this is all said and done is going to have to be, "When in doubt, spell it out!" At least until we get an emulator.

Maybe that should be added to the Wiki now as the first rule of thumb for the use of abbreviations in WME.

[jasonh300]

Here's a TTS issue that I noticed the other day.

We have a "Summer St" in town. TTS correctly pronounces it "summer street". Off of that street is a court, named "Summer St Ct". TTS pronounces it as "summer saint court". Wait, what?

We have a "State Street Dr", which is an extension of State St in a different neighborhood. But the "Street" is always spelled out in "State Street Dr". I think there are other streets in that neighborhood that are the same way.

[harling]

Here's a TTS issue that I noticed the other day.

We have a "Summer St" in town. TTS correctly pronounces it "summer street". Off of that street is a court, named "Summer St Ct". TTS pronounces it as "summer saint court". Wait, what?

There are a lot of roads around here for which "St" and other abbreviations need to be pronounced the same regardless of position. I hadn't noticed this before because these are generally small side-streets not used for through-traffic, but people do live on them, and I can think of at least half a dozen examples off the top of my head in my own small town alone. (Smith St Ct off of Smith St, King St Ct off of King St, etc...)

[GizmoGuy411]

I would also note I was somewhat surprised (not having any use for the "Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices" except for waze map editing) at how much each state might change that list. Here is Maryland's for example.

Yes that is a surprise. Maryland has quite a few more abbreviations than the fed list too. I looked my state of Ohio, and our abbreviation list is a copy of the federal list.

I supposed to do the our list right we should look at these for EVERY state. I'm afraid however I'm not up to the task, as our current list represents a fair amount of effort to date, and with only 35% tested so far, there will be a lot more to test once the map tiles are updated again.

Would anyone like to compare the MUTCD list for every state against our list and submit any additional abbreviations we should add?

http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/resources/sta ... /index.htm

[GizmoGuy411]

Does anybody know if "Par" is announced as "Parade" via TTS?

I did not see it in the spreadsheet. I'm asking because of a UR that says "Par St" is not "Parade St". Not a single segment along "Par St" is or ever has been "Parade St", so I'm wondering if TTS says "Parade St" instead?

I've added "par" for "Parade" to the list and the test rig. It may be quite a while before we can actually test it of course.

[GizmoGuy411]

I see that "Pr" has been added to the spreadsheet. Please note that the entries I have heard are for "Pr." - with the period (if that makes a difference).

Added.

I have started to add more abbreviations with periods, and once future batch of abbreviations is tested, I may go back through the list and test those that failed again with periods to see if there is any change.

[DonJ2]

Does anybody know if "Par" is announced as "Parade" via TTS?

I did not see it in the spreadsheet. I'm asking because of a UR that says "Par St" is not "Parade St". Not a single segment along "Par St" is or ever has been "Parade St", so I'm wondering if TTS says "Parade St" instead?

[CBenson]

I see that "Pr" has been added to the spreadsheet. Please note that the entries I have heard are for "Pr." - with the period (if that makes a difference).