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Ramp naming proposal

Post by mithrandi
Okay, I wasn't actually going to write this up now, but I decided to go ahead while I was on a roll. This is just prose, but I'll try to dig up pictures to illustrate different types of signage etc. if this makes it onto the wiki.
The idea behind ramp naming is that the name displayed in the Waze client should match the signage the driver will see on the road. We don't need to replicate the signage exactly, but it should be close enough that it is recognizable to the driver.

There are basically three types of ramp segment:

Highway entrance: a ramp connecting a regular road to a highway, providing access onto the highway.
Highway exit: a ramp connecting a highway to a regular road, allowing one to exit the highway.
Connector: a ramp connecting a highway to another highway, allowing one to transfer between the two highways.

The signs for highway entrances and connectors basically look the same; some type of visual diagram of the road structure, and a label identifying the destination, eg. "N1 Pretoria" which indicates that the ramp leads to the road designated "N1", heading towards the destination "Pretoria".

Highway exits are slightly more interesting, however. On a freeway these are usually specially designated with a number (and sometimes a letter suffix when an exit is split up eg. "105A" and "105B") that appears on all (or almost all) of the signs describing the exit. In addition to this exit number, the area closest to the exit (eg. "Sandton") will also appear on the exit sign.

My proposed naming convention for entrances / connectors is simple: the ramp should be named like "to N1 Pretoria" where the destination is represented as it is written on the ramp signs. In cases where multiple destinations are listed, these can be separated by slashes, like "to N1 Pretoria / (M1) Johannesburg". Note that parentheses on these signs indicate that a road is indirectly reached. For example, you might see an indication like "N1 (M1) Johannesburg" which shows that the highway you are entering now is the N1, but following this sign's direction will let you connect to the M1 which leads towards Johannesburg.

Exit naming is similar, but instead of the simple "to" prefix, we now include the exit number like: "Exit 95: R511 William Nicol Dr". The area ("Sandton") is left out, as this adds too much clutter to the exit name and does not provide much additional benefit.

Blank ramp names can be used to great effect in order to reduce the length of ramp names in cases where the signage lists multiple destinations. For example, often going left from the offramp will lead to one destination, while going right will lead to another, and both of these are mentioned on the initial offramp sign. Instead of labelling this ramp like "Exit 113: R24 Johannesburg / R24 OR Tambo Int", leave the name blank; then label the ramp to the left as "Exit 113: R24 Johannesburg" and the ramp to the right as "Exit 113: R24 OR Tambo Int". This way, the name of the final ramp will propagate backwards to the blank ramp as per standard Waze rules, and the driver will only be presented with the information for the route they are travelling.

Make sure that the ramp name is recognizable on the initial exit sign, however; for example, if one of the destinations is not listed on the initial sign, then it is important to name the initial ramp so as to avoid confusing by presenting a ramp name that looks nothing like the exit sign the driver will see. See the Junction Style Guide for more detail on this subject: http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php/Junc ... e#Naming_3
Commentary on this would be much appreciated, even if it's just to say that you're happy with the proposal.
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Re: Ramp naming proposal

Post by Kuhlkatz
I wanted to PM you, but could not send the pic that way as we cannot upload seperate images like other boards allow.

This is why I am not a fan of the 'to Nnnn' ramp or AT-Grade naming convention. Even if TTS might drop it, the client still shows it. It looks amateurish this way :
Screenshot_2012-11-29-18-13-52.png
(153.09 KiB) Downloaded 757 times
If it was named 'M39 to Tembisa' or nothing in this case, it would have looked better in my opinion, and it would have sounded exactly the same.
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Re: Ramp naming proposal

Post by Kuhlkatz
mithrandi wrote: so it should probably be named "Exit: M39 Tembisa" anyway ;)
Which is correct. It might be subjective, but incidentally, the ramp here looks exactly the same in the client.

If it's consistency you are after, whether you get a keep left / exit left / turn left icon, the icon does not signify any extra meaning. Why would you need an icon and a 'to N1 North' for some and an icon with just a 'N1 North' for others ?
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Re: Ramp naming proposal

Post by Kuhlkatz
mithrandi wrote:A ramp leading to the N1 would be labelled "Exit: ..." or "to ..." depending on whether it is a labelled exit ramp or not.
I fully support the "Exit <number>: <Route><number><direction> <Street Name>" convention.
I was actually referring to the "to_..." bit in the entrance ramp name if used.
In my very biased opinion it does absolutely nothing except waste an extra 3 characters of storage for every ramp name and quite a few AT Grade connectors across the world.
It's dropped automagically in TTS, but it is still displayed in the client. All the other displayed instructions just have the next action (icon) and the next road name, which usually is in a neat, crisp "Uppercased Name" or "[N/M/R]Route Number Name" or whatever supported format.

The mixed "to This Next Road" looks crappy and carries no weight in my books, no matter who else adopted it across the world. It looks more like some spring chicken "wAs bUsy WriTinG GobBlEdYgOOk oN HeR FaCeBooK PaGe" instead of a professional job.

The only place I would actually support it, is for Wayfinders indicating "to City A" or "to City B", which we do not have too many of in ZA in any case.

I know, I'm facetious. Sue me ;)

P.S. If all of those extra 3 characters are dropped for entrance ramp names across the world, Waze can easily store additional bitmapped attributes for most existing roads, like paved / non paved etc. without forking out anything for additional storage.
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Re: Ramp naming proposal

Post by Kuhlkatz
mithrandi wrote:1) "To Road Name" looks even more ridiculous -- or at least I think it does -- than "to Road Name", because the "to" is not really part of the name of the road (even though we are putting it in the "Name" field in Waze...).
If we absolutely have to, the "to .." would be my choice too.
mithrandi wrote:2) It is important for the ramp to be named differently to the actual road segment for a number of reasons (navigation instructions, select all segments, traffic reports)
Ramps should never be named the same as the roadway segments they connect. I'm not sure if it's named 'to..' purely to avoid the selection. For instructions where the same name is required, leaving it unnamed is the logical way to go. I personally refrain from using any actions where multiple segments are selected, since they seem to end up being more destructive than anything else if you want to apply similar attributes.
As far as traffic goes, I'm not sure that Ramps actually generate or form part of traffic reports at this stage. I cannot remember seeing any reports where ramp names were visible. The names themselves are also not visible on the client maps.
mithrandi wrote:4)...By comparison, an exit instruction sounds like "exit left onto Exit 104: M1 Johannesburg" which sounds okay to me. On the other hand, "Entrance: M1 Johannesburg" or similar seems absurd, and I don't have any other ideas in this vein.
I'm currently trying to determine if there are any other technical reasons (as opposed to aesthetic reasons) for the current standard in place in other regions; if there's nothing else, then I think I could be persuaded to go for the "naked" style (ie. like "M1 Johannesburg"). It seems like ever time I change a ramp's name I end up changing it again 2 days later, anyway, so I wouldn't even end up doing extra work ;)
I cannot remember seeing any particular reason for the 'to' either. We can likely pop Weezer or Alan a PM to confirm. If there's any history, Alan might recall, but it was Weezer that set up the US Wiki page.

What we should likely consider is TTS when using "Route#<direction>" vs "Route#_<direction>" naming of Exits and onramps. If we use the "Route#_ <(direction)>" or "Route#_<direction>", e.g. R101 (N) or even R101 N instead of R101N, TTS should be consistently pronounced the same due to some form of spacing between the Route, route no. and direction. I'm just concerned that N1N could be pronounced as "en-one-en" at some point in future if there is no form of whitespace or when bracketed. This should be more predictable for consistent results, especially if Waze alters the parsing of the TTS arguments to consider spacing to make it more logically in future.
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Re: Ramp naming proposal

Post by Kuhlkatz
Just for the interested,

I did a Google site search for the reason to use not to use the "to" and ran into a similar discussion by the USA guys earlier this year as well for Ramp Naming. The whole saga is at http://www.waze.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=16468. It seems that the same concerns are raised as we did so far, including spacing for direction etc. etc. etc.
It also looks like the " / " in naming was supposed to force a pause, but current indication is that it never materialized.

I did fire a PM off to AlanOfTheBerg and WeeeZer14 to try and find any historic use or special functionality attributed to the "to " part in Ramp Naming. Maybe they are aware of something that we are not, but it also looks like it was suggested to be dropped in the abovementioned thread.

I still maintain that if the Ramps are properly named that the select all segments functionality should not be broken.
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Re: Ramp naming proposal

Post by Kuhlkatz
mithrandi wrote:Okay, I had a look at that thread, and it seems like a lot of the participants don't like the "to" either; the only major concern raised is the Select Entire Street issue, which I think is simply not an issue in South Africa.
...
I'm withdrawing my objections against dropping the "to" prefix, and I've updated my draft wiki page accordingly.
Tristan,

What still concerns me, is that despite a lot of the thread participants also being against it, the current method the US adopted still includes the 'to '. I agree that the Ramps should be uniquely named, but I would really like some more participation from other local editors on this issue.
If we can get a large enough group to voice their opinions on keeping or dropping the 'to ', we should get a clear indication of what the majority prefers.
Just because I'm hard-a$$ed about this, does not mean that I'm right. ;) We really should go with the major opinion. I can honestly live with myself if most of the other editors prefers the 'to ' method. What I would actually appreciate even more, is that they do actually speak up !!

I also got feedback from WeeeZer14 on this :
WeeeZer14 wrote:Re: Question on "to " in ramp naming
Sent at: Thu Dec 13, 2012 4:44 pm
From: WeeeZer14
To: AlanOfTheBerg Kuhlkatz
Kuhlkatz wrote:Kuhlkatz wrote:
Alan / WeeeZer,

Just a quick question on the "to ..." in Ramp Naming conventions.
The "to" is droppped in TTS for onramps. Is there any particular reason for retaining the "to" part in naming onramps vs just an actual Ramp name / description based on the normal conventions ?

Are any of you aware of special functionality attributed to this that we might break if we adopt a naming convention that drops the "to " bit in South Africa ?
It seems a waste of space and looks 'cheap' in the client if displayed as the next instruction vs the normal instructions.

I would appreciate any input you might have on this.

Thanks

Carel
The main thing it does is guarantee that the ramp name is different from the roads connected to it. Here in the US, we may have a road named "I-40 E". The simplest ramps to it may only be signed as "I-40 E" with an arrow to the ramp. So the ramp name COULD be "I-40 E" just like the road. But the problem is that if you are working on the ramp or the main highway and do a "select entire street" in the editor, you will get ALL of the ramp AND highway segments at the same time which is usually NOT what you want to happen.

Of course the US standard also includes using the "control city" (next major city in that direction) for ramps, so the simplest ramp should be "I-40 E / Knoxville" for example, so the "to" isn't needed to create the uniqueness compared to the highway.

Keep in mind non-freeway cases as well. There may be an un-numbered exit going to "Main St". If the exit ramp is just named "Main St", we have the same uniqueness issue. So it would need to be "to Main St" or "Exit to Main St" to keep it separate from the road itself.

The fact that TTS ignores "to" has come up before. Ideally I think TTS should use it since to me there is a big difference in making a turn "at" a certain road vs. making a turn going "to" that road.

All that said, if you think things can deal with the uniqueness requirement and never use the word "to", I do not know of any issue with that if you can get agreement amongst the main editors in SA. I am pretty sure the UK does not use the word "to" in their directions. In their format as I understand, my "to I-40 E / Knoxville" example would be something like "I-40(E):Knoxville".

Please let me know if you have ay questions about what I said (I typed this quickly so I may have made a mistake).

-- David
If you type in 'Ramp Naming' on the Nanorep page, it pops up the US description and links to the Wiki, which obviously includes the 'to ' convention.

Just to be sure, I did also pop off the question to support. Even though the UK uses the 'Entry ' format, I want to be 100% sure that dropping the 'to' would not break any functionality that Waze had intended in the past or may have intended in the future for this.

Carel
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Re: Ramp naming proposal

Post by mithrandi
txemt wrote:Um.....we do that in the US.
Yes, I mostly based this on the US guidelines.
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Re: Ramp naming proposal

Post by mithrandi
Kuhlkatz wrote: I do not like the "to aaa" naming for onramps, as TTS tends to pronounce it "onto to aaa". Leaving it blank is a better option, or naming it specifically eg. "N1 : Bloemfontein" when turning onto the "N1 South" or on the "N1 North" depending on where you are.
I'm not sure about the "to" prefix, I mostly copied that from the other countries. I guess I'll take another look at this. If the ramp leads to a road labelled "N1 (N)" then there is absolutely no point in labelling it something like "to N1 (N)"; it should definitely be left blank in this case. However, in most cases, the ramp signage will say something like "N1 Pretoria" for north, and "N1 Bloemfontein" for south, rather than giving the direction explicitly. I think this should be included in the ramp name, regardless of whether we just have "N1 Pretoria" or "to N1 Pretoria" or something else.
Kuhlkatz wrote: Is it acceptable to split the ramps in this case for wayfinders just to split the info, especially on short ramps like the N1 ? Or do you want to 'blast them' with all the info.
Ultimately, the purpose of naming the ramp is so that the user will be able to visually identify (by signs etc.) the road that Waze has told them to turn onto. For a ramp that leads up to a straightforward intersection, maybe with a small split or slip lane at the very end, I don't think there's any need to get fancy with wayfinders / splitting the ramp.

For example, if you take the N1 northbound offramp to William Nicol Dr, the signage all along the highway, including the final exit signboard, just says "R511 William Nicol Dr". Once you've taken the offramp, the ramp splits at the end to go left to "R511 Fourways" or something like that, and right to "R511 Randburg". However, in this case, I don't think there's any need to identify the short splits by name; the direction to turn/keep left or turn/keep right should be perfectly clear to the driver.

For longer / more complex ramps, especially with multiple splits, it probably does make sense to introduce wayfinder names further along; ultimately, this is going to come down to individual judgement calls. The idea should be to include as much information as necessary, no more; the longer the ramp name is, the more unwieldy any TTS direction including it will be, and it's not going to help if the driver falls asleep halfway through listening to the ramp name :D
Kuhlkatz wrote: I have been listening to some of the cached TTS files on my device, and noticed that the conventions for "name1/name2" have no pauses in between, so ends up sounding like gobbledygook. Also, in the convention of "name (Rnnn)" vs "name Rnnn", the "name (Rnnn)" has a slighly longer pause. It's also clear on directions with "route name direction" vs "route name (direction).
I don't really have any justification for this other than personal preference, but I prefer the pause-less version when the route designation comes first (ie. "R511 William Nicol Dr"), and the pausing version when it comes last (ie. "William Nicol Dr (R511)").
Kuhlkatz wrote: Below is some of the tts samples I've uploaded to Dropbox. We are still getting the 'North x' for 'Nx' routes. Hopefully we can get this sorted for ZA.
Yep, that's a pain. Apparently setting the road name to "N"1 would solve this, but hopefully nobody actually thinks that is a good idea.
Kuhlkatz wrote: Serena - onto N1 South/N3 South - the / does not force any pausing
Yeah, that sounds completely ridiculous. I just stole the "/" convention from elsewhere, again, so I guess this bears further consideration. Do you know if it makes a difference if there are spaces around the slash?
Kuhlkatz wrote: Serena - onto N3 (S) - slight pause for south
Serena - onto N3 South - no pause, still discernable
As far as this goes, if we want to remove the use of () we could still name it like "N3 S" instead of having to spell out "N3 South". I prefer the version with the pause slightly, but I'd be happy with either; what I'd like to avoid is spelling out words like "North" and "South" in full without abbreviating, since this is incredibly unwieldy when shown on the map / in the client.
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Re: Ramp naming proposal

Post by mithrandi
Oh, something I wanted to clarify. My original post seems to imply that we *should* include indirect route names in ramp, but this goes against the standards of other countries and doesn't seem to be a good idea at all, so I want to clarify that I think they should be excluded.

That is, if the signboard reads "N1 (M1) Johannesburg", the (M1) portion should not be mentioned in ramp names. "N1 Johannesburg" should still be perfectly sufficient to identify the sign, and less confusing when fed through TTS (especially in cases like this where the route names are so similar!).
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