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Post by jwriddle
AlanOfTheBerg wrote:
dan_in_TX wrote:Just to keep the discussion alive, TXDOT announced that they're going to un-pave some roads in South Texas.
I feel like they could save some money and let usage, lack of maintenance and mother nature do the "changing to gravel" part ... :)
In other news -- bridges are to be torn down in place of more water...


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Post by Kuhlkatz
PhantomSoul wrote:That doesn't necessarily make all of them highways, though. I would think that any unpaved road, by definition, cannot be a highway.
The current routing might discard normal street /primary street types if it is over a specific distance. If it is the only route that joins up small towns or even provinces / states or a neighbouring country and the shortest alternative is more than 3 times the length and travel duration, I'd prefer to do a 100km + stretch of well maintained gravel vs 300 or 400 km + of paved.

There are many places worldwide where these roads actually factor to the equivalent of Minor Highways as they are the ONLY way to get to the destination. They even carry the same National Route designation as their paved counterparts, since there are no alternatives.

There is no reason why this can not be accommodated the same way as tolls.
Indicate the route contains unpaved & let the Wazer choose to use it or not.
That is preferable to the Wazer having to resort to another Nav app to get him to the destination just because standard Waze options might not find a route to the destination.

I personally have no idea what the limit is for the current nondescript setting of 'Avoid long ones' is for dirt roads. Is it 5km, 20? or 100?
If there is no alternative, what is the routing cut-off before the engine gives up?

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Post by ncc1701v
What people want to avoid is roads that are hard on their cars or where they might get stuck. That's not about pavement type, it's about grooming. I would use the "4x4" designation as the main discriminator. I'd maybe even delete "dirt", because it's clearly confusing, and just leave "4x4"!
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Post by ncc1701v
4x4 i.e. "not suitable for ordinary cars" and pavement type are orthogonal attributes -- they do not depend on each other. I've been on roads in Brooklyn that I would consider not suitable for ordinary cars because of potholes, bumps, and miscellaneous car parts on them. We certainly want the first (4x4) to be independent, and probably a category along with "minor highway". Whether we want the second (pavement type) is not clear because the issues are not clear. The main justification seems to be that those roads are not well-used, so Waze's knowledge of them is questionable -- the pavement might be crap, they might be overgrown, etc. OK then, instead of "pavement type", how about a checkbox for "uncertain pavement quality"?
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Post by ncc1701v
PhantomSoul wrote:
ncc1701v wrote:4x4 i.e. "not suitable for ordinary cars" and pavement type are orthogonal attributes -- they do not depend on each other. I've been on roads in Brooklyn that I would consider not suitable for ordinary cars because of potholes, bumps, and miscellaneous car parts on them. We certainly want the first (4x4) to be independent, and probably a category along with "minor highway". Whether we want the second (pavement type) is not clear because the issues are not clear. The main justification seems to be that those roads are not well-used, so Waze's knowledge of them is questionable -- the pavement might be crap, they might be overgrown, etc. OK then, instead of "pavement type", how about a checkbox for "uncertain pavement quality"?
I'm not sure how much value an editor-declared attribute here would add vs just the measured speeds of traffic along a given segment, vs the opportunities for vandalism or other misuse it would open up.

If a road is really beat up, wouldn't it stand to reason it's speed metrics would reflect that and the routing engine would probably avoid it anyway?
The problem is areas where wazers are rare - including parts of Brooklyn.
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Post by ncc1701v
troyv wrote:So my original thinking was that if we were to use a network topology as an analogy, the router (Waze) would just send packets (users) down a certain segment (road) and see what the results were. If the packets (users) made it down a certain segment (road) OK, then the router would send more. That's great in the network world, but if Waze were to guide a user on to a rocky hiking trail in the forest using their Ford Taurus, that would be a bad thing. Basically, we shouldn't treat users as packets in a network.
You're reminding me of Paul Baran's hot-potato routing http://www.rand.org/about/history/baran.html :-).
troyv wrote:What if we took advantage of users and had a "get me out of here" button on the client. If that button is hit, Waze would attempt to guide the user to the closest well driven road as quickly as possible. Not only would it do that but it would take a note as to what road the user was on. When Waze was tempted to route another user that same way, it would see that a previous user wanted off of that road. Waze then would have learned a little bit to avoid that road segment when routing for future users.
If Waze uses any other than the route the user took in, it will probably be worse than the one they are on at the moment. The user knows how to get out of there: reverse direction ... then wait for Waze to start suggesting a reasonable alternative.
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Post by PhantomSoul
Frankly, to me, anything unpaved is a "dirt road/4x4 trail" and should be marked as that type in order to make the "avoid dirt roads" switch in the client work as accurately as possible until a better classification system is developed, if that even happens.

If you're familiar with dirt roads along your commute and want to include them, simply turn dirt roads on in your client. But to try and classify different kinds of unpaved roads, as much as I like the idea, may be beyond the scope of Waze's intended purpose.
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Post by PhantomSoul
It's still either a street or dirt road depending on if you think someone who wants to avoid dirt roads would mind going down that road or not, and the higher road types (ps, mH, MH, and Fwy) are still irrelevant here.

True there are states that number all their roads, including many unpaved ones. That doesn't necessarily make all of them highways, though. I would think that any unpaved road, by definition, cannot be a highway.
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Post by PhantomSoul
If the dirt road is the only way to get there, Waze routing should choose it no matter what its road type is or whether the client is set to avoid dirt roads or not. If it does not do that, then its a routing engine problem and not something that we should do anything different on the maps.

Gravel roads being ignored in the middle of a longer trip is probably a better reason for this being a problem, but I also think we have to be careful not to make every road we like to take that we find Waze excluding into a minor highway. The reason the routing engine makes these exclusions is to narrow the field of possible roads to choose from, making it able to find a good route faster. If we each start to make every little road we like a minor highway so it gets included, it will eventually moot any gains made by searching only minor highways or better.
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Post by PhantomSoul
I think the real issue behind unpaved roads is that, regardless of their build quality, they erode way faster than their paved counterparts. Because of this, unless you're actually familiar with an unpaved road - as in you've recently drove on it - it's quality and suitability for a regular car is always questionable.

Many states number every road the state maintains, regardless of whether a road is intended to be used as a highway or not. This is why in many states the roads with the state marker are generally referred to as "routes" instead of "highways." IMHO, a road being unpaved, no matter what its pack quality, automatically disqualifies it from being any kind of highway, as well as a primary street, regardless of what kind of marker it may have, or whether there are any other roads in the area. Main roads are paved, regardless of who maintains them. Period. While an unpaved road may be a great "shortcut" to somewhere, it most certainly is not a highway, nor even a main road. So that leaves unpaved and 2-tracks (4x4) as various qualities of "street," making road type selections adequate.

Private roads are to be used for all private roads, regardless of surface type, I think, because the private road type will automatically disqualify that segment from any kind of routing unless you're either already on that segment or there is no other way to get to your destination; basically, the private road criteria trumps any other kind of criteria (except for maybe parking lots). As such, I would imagine that a paved/unpaved designation for private roads is irrelevant because if you get routed on one, it cannot be avoided, regardless what your avoid unpaved roads setting is.
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