I'm sure there will be exceptions, but I wonder how many of these awkward phrasings would be fixed if the client were to put the word "ramp" in front of the names of ramps whose names begin with "to" in these messages? (As a programmer, special-case handling like that feels a bit hack-ish, but it's still preferable to breaking the naming convention.)

AlanOfTheBerg wrote:I wonder if I go back to the first version of the wiki page who created it and what did it say about ramps? Or was the ramp and some other conventions 100% user-driven? Dunno. Haven't looked yet myself.

Tacitly, even a de facto standard is a standard.

Ideally, for the purposes of aiding navigation, the name of a ramp should match whatever signage is posted for it in the real world (e.g., "Exit 37A: I-93 / Boston"). Absent that, the "to" prefix implies exactly what a ramp is: a path that leads to the desired road, but distinct from the road itself. For its shortcomings, I don't know of a better way to designate ramps as such.

AlanOfTheBerg wrote:

harling wrote:the name of a ramp should match whatever signage is posted for it in the real world (e.g., "Exit 37A: I-93 / Boston")

I hope you put that colon in there accidentally because it's not part of the naming standard.

Since the "Exit nn" is above the rest of the sign (at least in my area), I treat it as a heading. Since we have to put everything on a single line, a colon separates a heading from the details that follow. ("Exit 37A I-93 S / Boston" is less readable, and IMO a less-accurate rendering of the sign itself.)

AlanOfTheBerg wrote:...I'm curious about your thoughts of appending the from street to the ramp name? Or maybe, "to I-90 W at MP 50" or "to I-44 at exit 50" ...

I'm not sure I understand. When there is a sign in the middle of downtown Boston that consists of an Interstate 93 sign and an arrow pointing to a ramp, I name the ramp simply, "to I-93" (or "to I-93 N" if it's only for one direction). I think a typical driver is interested in where he is going next, not so much where he is or has been. He is already on the "from street" when the time comes to take the ramp, so it doesn't seem to me that including it in the ramp name would provide any new information that would be useful.

AlanOfTheBerg wrote:I've decided my original idea is not a good one. The client needs to be smarter about how it is reporting where a traffic jam or hazard is. We shouldn't be naming roads to make up for (current) shortcomings in the client. Hopefully, there will be future versions which will be able to address this.

Well said. Keep the map data simple, and it will be easier to implement features on the client app.

Personally, here in the UK I name on/off ramps as follows

M6 (N) J31 Exit

or occasionally

M6 (N) J31 Exit to A59 - this is for intersection type ramps.

These methods of naming indicate - The Road name that the ramp leaves or enters and the juntion number (and occasionally the road the ramp intersects). More that enough detail??

I find that it works for routing very well. I don't personally think you would need to worry about address searches for ramps myself.

Apologies if I have duplicated the context of anyone elses post, but I have limited time this evening

I'm reminded of a comment I've made a time or two... the naming of roads is trying to fulfill at least 4 separate purposes and each one may conflict with the others:

1.) Address search
2.) Navigation
3.) Traffic reports
4.) Map display

Some conflicts have been reduced with alternate names, but others still exist.

Between 3 and 4: If I name a stretch of interstate as "I- 40 E" then traffic reports have more meaning, but the Map looks cluttered as "I- 40 E" and "I- 40 W" alternate each time the map scales or rotates instead of just saying "I- 40". (This could be fixed in the client of course with a simple regular expression filter.)

Between 2 and 3: As mentioned already, if I name a ramp "to I- 40 E Asheville from Exit 407", that is more helpful for a traffic report, but that is not really useful from a navigation perspective. Currently the client cuts off long names, but that may not always be the case, so we could be wasting screen real estate by making the instruction twice as long as needed for a driver. (And again, this could actually be handled in the client with a regular expression.)

gerardrjj wrote:... Ideally a ramp should be named for both the source and destination, ie "To AZ Loop 202 W from Recker Rd." ...

In general, I agree with you. BUT only for the situation of traffic reports. For navigational prompts this is not necessary. For map display (ignore the fact that ramp names are not shown in the client right now) this is also not necessary.

And for the traffic situation, is it REALLY necessary? Because if you are on Loop 202 then a closed ramp may not impact you at all. If you are on Recker Rd and not getting onto Loop 202, then the closed ramp is probably of no concern. Unless you are planning on using that ramp on your trip, than the information about that ramp is of minimal importance. If the ramp is part of your drive or if the problem is so bad as to bleed onto Loop 202 or Recker Rd, then that information will be considered in the routing algorithms.

That of course assumes you are using active navigation. I think that is a basic assumption of using the client although I admit I do not always do that myself. If it is important that we get to our destination without major delay, I think we must use active navigation to let Waze help us. If we do not enter a destination, we are basically saying that our drive is not important enough to worry about impacts of traffic.

Anyway, with all that said, I am not against more information in the traffic reports. I just don't think the name field (as currently used for other tasks) is the right way. I'd rather see:

1.) One way ramps automatically gather "from" information from the road segment on the entrance side.

2.) Have the from as part of the name (so we can use an Exit number instead of a road name as the "from", e.g. "to Loop 202 W from Exit 23") AND update the client to use regular expressions to "hide" that information from display.

3.) Some ramp-specific solution...

If I remember correctly, the base-map ramps for the interstate here originally had alt names similar to in:xxx and out:yyy which were basically to and from. Unfortunately they were incorrect in some places or just disappeared when I updated the geometry of the ramps. But something like that could work where we could define to, from, and even exit number all separately from the name.