Freeways & on/off-ramps: Include city name?

[AlanOfTheBerg]

To conform to the needs of the Waze detour detection mechanism, whose purpose is to prevent routing off of freeways and right back on, the segment before the exit and the segment after the onramp (two segments of freeway for example) must have the same name and city name. Supposedly, this means they can also be blank.

At this time, I don't think there is any published guidance but there are some discussions going on. Some editors advocating for removing all city name info from all segments of freeways and ramps. I think this is overkill and isn't representing the map correctly. Also, it makes Waze say "near <city name>" in hazard reports instead of the city name itself.

My guess is that guidance should be that if the freeway segments are fully contained within the city limits, then there is no issue in naming them. But in areas where cities are very tight and there is ambiguity anyway, or the city ends in the middle of an interchange, it may be best to use No city name.

The last item I'll mention, but likely isn't the best idea, is that you can also split the freeway after or before the ramps so that you can name the city correctly around the interchange. For example: https://www.waze.com/editor/?zoom=4&lat=45.34209&lon=-122.76913&env=usa&segments=63702665,63702662. The two segments at the north end of this interchange go to the city boundary. Not sure this is the best idea any longer, but that's in place due to having nothing different to suggest this shouldn't be done in the past. And since things work fine anyway, no real good reason to change it yet either.

[AlanOfTheBerg]

I prefer this approach, as Freeways and ramps are not addressable and won't be used for destinations. This also reduces "city blur".

However, if a junction really is "in" a city, it matters little either way. Consistency is more important, particularly for routing.

As noted above, I think it actually is important, and I dislike "No City" because the in-app notifications pick some nearby city to say, "Accident near <some city>" which may not actually be the city closest or the one most people would associate with that stretch of high/freeway.

[AlanOfTheBerg]

Or may not be a city that appears at all in the city layer.

And that, yes.

Should Waze have something in place to control this better? Sure. Do we have the ability to control this now using methods which aren't even really kludges? Yep.

[AlanOfTheBerg]

I don't see any real good reason to blanket remove exiting, or blanket recommend that city names never be included on freeways or major highways. To comply with the small detour detection mechanism, the segment and city name must match. Otherwise, I personally recommend that we put city names on all segments that are within city limits. There may be some additional guidelines around city boundaries, but other than that, I think it's pretty simple and easy to not change the "rules" about proper segment naming just because it's a freeway.

[AlanOfTheBerg]

Yet Waze almost always tells me to go this way, probably because the cars in the other lanes just whizzing by make Waze think it's the fastest route. Not if you need to turn left at Forsgate Dr though...

Waze does track segment-to-segment transit times, which negates the "cars whizzing by" issue from a data collection standpoint. However, it doesn't make as good a use of this information as it should in the routing engine.

[CBenson]

I agree with what Alan said, but would also note that city names on ramp segments should not effect the detour detection mechanism. I would also note that addresses should not typically be associated with freeway or ramp segments, so having no name for the city should be less of an issue for these road types for search purposes.

[CBenson]

which may not actually be the city closest or the one most people would associate with that stretch of high/freeway.

Or may not be a city that appears at all in the city layer.

[CBenson]

And if this is so, then this really causes me some concern. Someone in a given city who gets an alert about something that's "near" that city might not pay as much attention as they should, since they could come to the conclusion that it's just outside the city and they're not going that way, anyway. Heck, I could see myself falling for that, given that when I'm on the road, I'll glance at the display when something pops up - after all, I'm supposed to be keeping my eyes on the road, not studying the little screen of my phone up on my dash.

I don't really. Some jurisdictions put signs on the freeway whenever you enter or leave a city. But they don't in my area. Unless its a big city (like Baltimore or Washington around my area), I don't really think of myself as in the town when I'm on the freeway as the freeways are typically built to bypass the towns.

Where I live, cities are largely spaced out enough that one crowding into the other isn't as big of a problem as it would be in, say, the Los Angeles area. <grin> So that shouldn't be an issue here.

Well there seem to be at least five "cities" surrounding Las Vegas. Whether these should be used as cities for the freeways came up here.

My personal preference would be for when a freeway passes through city limits, it should have the city name set (and on/offramps should follow suit). And if there aren't any real objections to the idea, I'm willing to start doing it in the areas I can edit. But this will go nowhere if I post an unlock or update request for the freeway and the response I get is something along the lines of "we don't do that."

I think waze works better with most city names removed from freeways. Although as noted above, I do agree that there are issues with both approaches.

[CBenson]

On these 3 segments, the left turn lane gets far more backed up than the rest of the road - often due to heavy truck traffic that cannot accelerate as quickly as cars can. Because of this and the limited left turn light, it can take several times longer to get through the intersection than the other approaches.

Yet Waze almost always tells me to go this way, probably because the cars in the other lanes just whizzing by make Waze think it's the fastest route. Not if you need to turn left at Forsgate Dr though...

There are numerous examples that seem to be explained by waze taking into account the different times for different turns where waze routes right/U rather than left as discussed here. However, in your case waze seems not to be distinguishing left turn traffic from straight through traffic. I suspect this might be a consequence of splitting the crossroad as discusssed here. It would be interesting to see if a bow-tie would cause your routing to change.

[PhantomSoul]

Sounds to me like this could be a problem with any road that has continuity across municipal boundaries, including federal highways, state highways, and county roads. If there's a traffic backup at an intersection at a city boundary, because the segment on the other side is in a different city, Waze will easily suggest detouring through a nearby subdivision, even if it means an awkward left-turn into heavy traffic at a stop sign that will likely take longer than just waiting at the initial backup.