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This page covers the mapping techniques to use for private installations and for neighborhoods that have restricted access of some kind.
Introduction
Definitions
- Private Installation
- A restricted-access set of drivable roads connected at one or more points to a public road network. This could be a gated residential community, an industrial site, a pharmaceutical research campus, a secure government installation, a military base, or any other type of installation with at least one access control point (see gate) or more than one private road. The simplest example is a single private community street protected by a gate. Larger installations might include several types of roads. The largest USA installation is White Sands Missile Range at 3,200 square miles, larger than the USA’s smallest state, and includes dirt roads, primary streets and highways. Large installations might even have smaller private installations inside of them which are closed to most of those who are inside the larger installation.
- Gate
- Any of the points at which the installation connects to the public road network. These might have guarded or card-operated gates, "door buzzers", security cameras, or severe tire damage strips, or simply a sign stating that the road ahead is private or for members, authorized vehicles, etc. Regardless of the physical form, we will refer to these access control points as gates
- Member
- Anyone who can use any of the entrance or exit gates at the installation, including the the more restricted "members only", "residents only", "employees only, "base personnel only", "military ID only" , "authorized personnel only", etc gates (if any) used at the installation.
- Visitor
- Anyone limited to certain entrance and/or exit gates. This could be the pizza delivery driver, the cousin from Peoria, the tourist visiting the air force base to see the military museum, etc.
Requirements
If both the start and end points are outside the installation, Waze must not choose a route through the installations. If the start or end point is inside the installation, Waze be able to must find an appropriate route through and into or out of the installation, as well as through the outside roads. Figure 1 shows the general concept of a private installation which is embedded in a public road network. In this case there are two access points. Waze should route around the private installation from A to B even though a shorter or faster route might exist through the installation. Waze should also be able to route from A to C or C to A, where C is located within the private installation.
Figure 2 shows a more complex private installation with nested levels of access. Waze must oute on or off of a private installation at any level of nested access without entering a separate access area of a deeper level. Route A to B illustrates this concept. Additionally, Waze should be able to navigate from a deeper level of nested access to any other point including off the private installation. Routes between points C and D illustrates routing onto or off of the private installation. Routes between points E to F shows navigation between nested levels. Waze must also be able to take into account the different road types in a larger installation when choosing the best route.
Finally, While visitors must not be routed through member-only entrances and exits, Waze must not throw map errors when members drive through member-only entrances and exits. This means these entrances must not be disconnected or prohibited by red arrows or time based restrictions.
Approach
Because Waze cannot recognize who has access to these installations and who does not, we focus on appropriate directions for visitors; preventimg inappropriate or illegal through-routing driving directions, while giving good driving directions within the installation and exiting once they get inside. Members are expected to have more knowledge of the installation. If they wish to use a specific member entrance gate, they can add it as a stop along the way. This may not result in the ideal routing for the members, but is the best Waze map editors can achieve with the tools currently available.
To make this work, editors must focus on the access points or gates, and control access by using the correct "recipe" for each type of gate. Inside the installation, every type of road can be used where appropriate. It is not necessary and generally not desirable to use the private road type on every road inside the installation.
The five types of gates are: simple gate; visitor entrance; visitor exit; member entrance; member exit. For the simplest type of installation, where visitors may use every entrance and every exit gate at all times, a simple gate is sufficient.
For any installation that has at least one visitor entrance or exit, plus at least one member-only entrance or exit, the simple gate will not allow proper routing out of the installation -- the other four types of gates must be used.
Underlying logic
The current approach to constructing gates takes advantage of the Waze routing penalty system to control traffic flow. When a Private Road segment is used on the map, the Waze routing server imposes a routing penalty when transitioning from a Private segment to any other road type. When a destination is on a private segment, there is no penalty to enter the private roadway. However if the destination is on the far side of the private road on a standard street, Waze will try to avoid driving through the private segment to get to the street on the other side, even if it has to find a longer and more time-consuming route to get there. To inhibit routes that travel through private installations, Waze editors can employ private segments at the entrances to the installations.
Gate recipes
All house numbers inside the installation should be applied inside the gates, not on any of the gate segments.
- Simple Gate -- a 5-meter 2-way private road segment.
- Divided simple gate -- 2 5-meter 1-way private road segments; one in and one out.
- Visitor Entrance -- a 5-meter one way private road segment heading into the installation
- Visitor Exit -- (nothing) no private segment is needed. Use the same road type as the rest of the road the gate is on.
- Member Entrance -- Three 5-meter one-way segments, headed into the installation, in this order: private, street, private. If a point place is used to mark the gate, place it in the middle of the innermost private segment.
- Member Exit -- one private segment. If a point place is used to mark the gate, place it in the middle of the private segment.
Places / City Names for Private Installations
Should a private installation be marked over it's entire area as a Place Area (old landmark)? Not always. Very small private installations are usually marked by a Area Place over their entire area. This does not make sense for larger private installations that might have other Places within them or that are actually cities. For these larger installations, use the city field of all street names to name the private installation.
In general here is specific guidance about Private Installations use of Places or City Names:
- Does the state DOT consider it a city? If so, then use City Names in each street to identify the installation.
- Does the US Post Office consider it a city with it's own zip code? If so, then use City Names.
- Does the local community consider it a city like entity? Then maybe it should have a City Name if it is large, or an Area Place if it is small.
- Is it large enough that an overall Area Place on the Private Installation would obscure finer detail Area Places below? If so, use City Names. If not, use an Area Place to denote the Private Installation.
What smaller Place should be included within a larger private installation? We should generally follow the rules that are set for Places in cities and areas. In addition to these, you might also consider marking the following as Places because they are critical navigation and destination points:
- Entry/Exit gates (Place Area)
- Visitor Centers (Place Area)
- Museums and other similar destinations the installation may maintain
- Memorials
- Parade Fields
- Items locally useful for navigation
You should avoid mapping Places that are specific to private or military uses on a private installation. See the Places Wiki Page for specifics about using an Area or Point for these items.
Background Testing
Significant testing of these suggestions have been tested on actual private installations of various types and discussed in the Waze Forum. You may wish to test your edits. Here are some suggestions of how you may accomplish this after you make edits.
- Monitor that area for User Reports.
- Test drive.
- Navigate between two distant points outside the private installation to ensure no through-routing.
- Navigate from outside to inside the private installation, drive around the outside of the private installation and ensure rerouting occurs to the logical nearest gate.
- If you have access to the private installation, repeat the above, by by driving around inside the installation.
- Test routes in Live Map to ensure no through-routing and good on/off installation routing.
- Test routes in client by setting various "from" and "to" destinations without having to drive.
Simple Installations
If all the entrances and exits can be used by visitors as well as members, this is a simple installation, and simple gates are used at every entrance and exit. This is true no matter the size of the installation, the number or types of roads used inside, or the number of gates., as long as they are all simple gates. Simple gates cannot be mixed with any other types of gates. The advantage of this approach is that it is simple to understand and simple to maintain. If necessary, the simple gates can be locked, and the roads inside the installation can be of any appropriate type. If absolutely necessary, a divided simple gate can be used.
All other Installations
Blah blah blah
Installations with Special Rules
Military Bases and Government Installations
While road treatment is covered in the body of this Wiki page, questions often arise about what items to landmark by adding Area and Point Places on these facilities. This is particularly important if you have access to these locations as a resident, worker, or visitor and use that access to learn something about the Private Installation. A general rule is to not mark specific locations with a Place unless the public installation website provides that information via directors or maps. Specific examples of what not to map include organizational names occupying buildings, building numbers, hangar numbers, etc. when they are not publicly available. Examples of items to usually map include gates, visitor access points, and frequent destinations like marching fields, parks, museums, etc.
Landmarks (Places) approved for military bases
- Commissary
- PX/BX
- Gas stations
- Parks
- Museums
Parking Lots
Paid parking lots and other parking facilities are to be mapped with parking lot roads, and not according to the Private Installation rules defined in this article. See Best map editing practice#Parking Lots.
Theme Parks
Publicly accessible roads in a theme park, even after a pay-station/gate, are to be mapped with parking lot roads, similarly to other paid parking lots. Furthermore, be careful with mapping the "backstage" private roads which are only to be used by employees. It may be wise to not map these roads, similarly to "air-side" airport roads as described below (but to a lesser extent), so that routes are given to the public entrance of the theme park facility.
Airports
Do not map the private, restricted-access roads on airport grounds at all. Map airport roads which are accessible to the public (terminal pick-up/drop-off roads, parking lot access roads, etc.) as public roads, not as private installations.
Airports have "air-side" restricted road networks that allow traffic for baggage carts, service vehicles, airplane fuel tankers, etc. While it may be tempting to map this road network either as an isolated set of roads or with provisions cited elsewhere in this document for Private Installations, this should not be done. Here's why:
- A large number of people use Waze to navigate to airports. The particular search service or function that returns a GPS coordinate to Waze may be in error, placing the destination marker nearer to the air-side private road network of the airport than to the public airport roads. This could lead to an incorrect route or even an impossible-to-reach destination, which would frustrate the traveler.
- The private air-side road network of an airport tends to be both close to and accessible from the public road networks around the airport and therefore is more prone to this navigation error.
- Very few people use the private road network of an airport, relative to the great number that use an airport's public access roads. To those that have requested this function, we apologize. The benefit of doing this for few would likely inconvenience many. We suggest routing to the nearest spot to your destination (i.e., the gate) on the public road network.
In some cases, military bases hold public airports. In such situations, some discretion and creativity may be needed to decide which roads on the airport should not be mapped and which on the military base should be mapped. Usually there is a second perimeter around the airport separating it from the base.