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Express/Time restricted Lanes: map them or not? and options

Post by AlanOfTheBerg
Mappers and drivers,

This discussion has come up before: Many large cities utilize Express Lanes which switch their directionality at different times of the day. There's a lot of on and off-ramps between express lanes and the 'real' freeways and city streets. And they are helpful for commuters, of course.

And express lanes are mapped in Waze.

However, because Waze has no current way to know when to use the express lanes properly, it is often routing users onto express lanes at inappropriate times. And then instructions from that point on, because the express lane is often so close that the GPS margin of error is wide enough to keep the car snapped to the express lane, are incorrect, confusing or perhaps dangerous.

So, what do we do about this? Here are some options:
  1. Keep them as-is and let drivers decide when to use it or not.
  2. Keep them in place, but mark them as no-entrance and restrict all turns such that Waze will not use them. This option allows us to re-enable the express lanes when Waze can properly support them without having to re-draw them
  3. Delete them and their ramps (exclusive ramps only, not shared ones). Rebuild it all when/if Waze can support them.
My vote would be for option #2. I lean toward #1, but not heavily enough. But the annoyance factor for new users being directed along the express lane at the wrong time of day is high. Therefore, I vote #2.

LAST Note: This discussion started in 2009 and at the time, krankyd recommended what is essentially #2 as well. Another thread to bring it to our attention again can't hurt, right?
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Post by AlanOfTheBerg
unwallflower wrote:
gerben wrote:In another thread about this, there was a 4th option:

- Mark them 2-way, but set their on-ramps as parking lot roads. This way, they should be ignored by the routing algorithm because of the high penalty on parking lot roads, but it is still possible to route from them if a wazer chooses this lane by himself (and the change from the normal lane is detected).
This is what was suggested to me, and the practice I follow.
When Waze fixes the penalties for parking lot roads, I wonder how this will affect the express lane routing...?
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Post by AlanOfTheBerg
unwallflower wrote:I'll have to come up with a different method then, I suppose. In the meantime they've been mapped like this for almost a year and I never even receive update requests complaining about how it's set up.
I need to do some adjusting...
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Post by AlanOfTheBerg
chex90007 wrote:Anyone have a fix for this yet? My waze keeps routing me to the carpool (HOV) lane. :(
What city/area are you in and express lane for which major highway/interstate?
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Post by AlanOfTheBerg
hvbeg wrote:I got routed to the I-90 express lanes in Seattle again yesterday...the annoying thing is, I selected an alternative route, but the GPS lost track of me for a minute or so, and when it recalculated, it sent me back to the express lane route.
Yeah, when the GPS isn't accurate enough to determine the exact lane you are on during a recalc, it very well may put you on the express lane. There's no way around this. It will take time to change over I-90 and I-5 in Seattle to not route you there, but it sounds like that part already worked: it didn't route you there to begin with, right? If so, that's good. But there's nothing from a mapping level we can do about inaccurate GPS except to remove the express altogether, and I don't think that is going to happen.
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Post by AlanOfTheBerg
hvbeg wrote:No, sorry I wasn't clear--it did route me to the express lanes initially. I picked an alternate route that didn't include the express lanes, but when the GPS lost connection and recalculated (which happened while I was still on surface streets), it sent me back to the original express-lanes route.
Understood.
hvbeg wrote:I'm getting routed to the express lanes on an almost daily basis, so I'm assuming either they haven't been updated as discussed here, or that map update hasn't made it to my phone yet.
I've been out of commission for most editing tasks for about 3 weeks and am just getting back into things, resolving a few update requests today. Seattle is on my mind. Unfortunately, the editor is being buggy this weekend, so things are going slower than normal.
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Post by AlanOfTheBerg
I have gone through Seattle and set all Express Lane segments for I-5 and I-90 to No Entrance. All on-ramps and most off-ramps from the Express Lane are set to Parking Lot road type. I also fixed several segments which J3rdo (or similar name) had improperly set the express lane to parking lot road type.

Within 5-7 days, I hope this will be live in the client. Routing will force a tile refresh on the client if the route goes through the tile. Otherwise, you can choose to Refresh Map from Data usage settings if you are using a client which supports that.
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Post by AlanOfTheBerg
hvbeg wrote:Thanks for the fix, Alan!
You're welcome. I'm glad it seems to be working out so far. Seattle definitely has the most complex freeway/ramps structure I've had to work with so far, and not being a native to the area, working with aerials and GPS tracks only can be challenging, especially due to the number of stacked and underground roadways.

Whenever you have a problem or feel a road is missing or set incorrectly, you can always submit an update request from the client. I am slowly cleaning out the Seattle area update requests and I should be able to get to them within a week or so. If something lags too long, you can always PM me here, or send me an email. I have my prefs set to allow my email to be seen, but not sure if it displays or not.
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Post by AlanOfTheBerg
KevinFink wrote:It's a little tricky to see as the aerial photography is out of date, but essentially the 128th entrance/exit to I-405 is HOV-only. I changed the off-ramp from NB I-405 to a Parking Lot Road. However, the current map shows 128th as intersecting with the HOV lanes rather than having entrances/exits, so I changed that segment of 128th to Parking Lot Road. What I don't remember is whether non-HOV traffic can cross 405 using 128th - I don't think so, but if they can then the roads need to be more fundamentally altered.
I believe it does intersect, unless this has been totally redesigned again. According to Google:
  1. The ramp is bus and HOV only.
  2. The intersection is elevated.
I think most of what you have is proper, except:
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Post by chex90007
Anyone have a fix for this yet? My waze keeps routing me to the carpool (HOV) lane. :(
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