Terminal Road ????

[zxrayz]

Why was the road classification Private changed to Terminal? This makes no sense.

Now everyone is going to be using Terminal road for what, a dead end road?  It is bad enough that everyone uses Ramp for a road that is on an incline.

[Andres]

I hadn't noticed this, but you're absolutely right, 'Terminal' is misleading because a private road is not necessarily 'terminal' in the sense that it is the terminal segment of a road. Of course the documentation hasn't been updated to reflect this, but this is what they have for Private:

"Though the category private road promotes the thought that a private road is one that ends abruptly (no. actually, Terminal promotes this thought while Private conveys the exact meaning of the road usage), the correct definition of a private road with reference to Map Maker is "A road that passes through private or public establishments but does not support any level of public transportation or vehicular access apart from the vehicles that have priveleges". For e.g., there are some roads that pass through universities (if they pass through universities, then they connect non-private roads, therefore they can't be Terminal as they are not necessarily a terminus) which are wide and have an asphalt surface but do not allow public vehicular transportation. These will be termed private roads. To further simplify, a private road is different from a no auto traffic road in that it supports vehicular traffic but does not allow public transportation. These roads will not be considered for routing when a user searches on driving directions."

(I'm not a spelling bee champion but it's "privileges", not "priveleges"; and "For e.g." is wrong, either use "For example" or simply "e.g.").

Even the image links are broken in the Documentation page (sigh). C'mon guys, you're Google for crying out loud.

[Arlete Meneguette]

Andres
As you may know, the area I am mapping is around São Paulo State
University (UNESP) at Presidente Prudente, in Brazil.
There is a so called "private road" passing through the university. By
the way it was a terminal road (cul-de-sac).
Up to last week it was shown on the map, but since the change to
"terminal road" it vanished ...
Now just the segment of the same road (Rua Uchoa Filho) which is
outside the university boundary (therefore a public road) can be seen
at
http://www.google.com/mapmaker?hl=pt-BR&fll=-22.121485,-51.406252&fr=0.000795,0.000858&mpp=2.212839&gw=39&ll=-22.119616,-51.406038&spn=0.011013,0.018926&z=16&iwloc=0_0&fid=10706169292373760127:12597198308030562397
Arlete

2011/1/5 Andres <aard...@gmail.com>:

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[R01k]

I think, Private Road was better. Now every new user is going to use this Priority for any dead-end.

[Arlete Meneguette]

Another alternative would be "Non-public Road"...

2011/1/9 R01k <raskol...@gmail.com>:

> I think, Private Road was better. Now every new user is going to use this
> Priority for any dead-end.
>

[Dan C.]

I add my voice to the others that posted above. I'm not sure of the reasons behind this change, but if you thought Private Road was inappropriate, then Terminal Road is much, much worse. I don't remember anyone complaining when the change was the other way around some time ago (i.e. from Terminal to Private).... why the heck did you bothered to change this?! This adds to the list of "small UI tweaks that the community never asked but the programmers thought to implement, instead of fixing actual issues we're waiting for more than a year"....

[Mikehub]

Please define "Terminal Road". I would assume it is a dead end or cul
de sac. If it is a private road it needs to be explaned/redefined/
changed...

Thanks

[Andres]

Hi Arlette,

Sounds like the vanishing road would be a problem for a Googler to investigate & tackle. I'll take the opportunity though to offer some unsolicited observations about the area you linked:

• Intersection between Rua Senador Roberto Simonsen and Rua Uchoa Filho: If you use the 'Find near this point tool' you'll notice that there is a problem here. Ideally, when two roads intersect you'll want just one pop-up ballon with the intersection sign (+). Whenever you see a pop-up with an 'x', that means the it is the terminus of the segment and therefore it does not intersect another.
• Intersection between Rua Floriano Borges, Avenida Rev. Celso Assumpção and Rua Napoleão dos Santos Machado: Some dead-end segments here. Often times, there is a compromise that has to be made between representing the roads visually and creating logically simpler structures. For example, in this situation, I would create a single point intersection between the three roads with from Ave. R. C. Assumpção originating from that single point.
• Intersection between Avenida Rev. Celso Assumpção and Rua Osvaldo Peretti: Problematic intersection as well, I can see some dead-end segments as well.
• Roundabout at Rua Senador Roberto Simonsen: Some dead-end segments here. Roundabouts are not extensions of the incoming roads, but rather drawn as its own separate road, which is drawn first (I tried to look for the help section which explained this, but I guess it was removed since I had last looked). In this case though (and in the same theme as balance between simplicity & visual accuracy), since the roundabout is small and only connects two roads, I would elect not do draw it as a roundabout but as a simple intersection (the help section suggests that roundabouts of less than 50m not be drawn as such, merely as intersections).

As a general rule, I try to reuse intersections as much as possible by using the 'Find near this point' tool in order to reduce complexity (you'll be thankful you did later on if you have to make changes or re-align). Once I've identified the intersections, I draw segments from intersection to intersection to guarantee that new ones are not created (if you look closely, you'll see two squares very close on the intersecting roads when this happens). Otherwise (as is the case in the first bulletpoint) you might end up with a double intersection with non-connecting roads, and those problems are particularly difficult to spot because the map looks visually correct, even though it is structurally flawed.

Hope that helps :) Let us know if you have any questions.

Best,

Andres

[Arlete Meneguette]

Andrés
Your comments are very welcome.
This is what I expected from start.
That is the way we all learn.
Thanks ever so much.
All the best.
Arlete

2011/1/10 Andres <aard...@gmail.com>:

[Rohit]

Hi zxrayz, Andres, Arlete, R01k, Dan and Mikehub,

  Sorry about the delayed response. 'Private' is an attribute of a road and should be set orthogonal to the priority. This will be added as a separate option and will help in distinguishing between road priority and access restrictions for any road. 

A compelling use-case for this was: a local road passing through a military establishment or a privately-held estate. This will be out of bounds to the general public, (i.e. the road is private) but should still have priority as 'Local'.  

Regards,

Rohit

[Dan C.]

Rohit,

OK, this might make sense (although I do not see any higher priority roads being private, but then again the world is big).
What do we do with the Terminal priority then? What's the use of it now? Its name clearly doesn't convey any information...

[R01k]

Hi Rohit.

Thanks for your response. What I was doing in the case that you cited was setting that part of the road as "Private". Anyway, if they are going to add separete definitions between Priority and access restrictions, it´s going to be better.

[Dan C.]

Rohit,

Any answer on my above question? Could you clarify what is Terminal road being supposed to used for?

[Rohit]

Hi Dan,

 Low priority roads should be marked as 'Terminal'. These are the roads we don't want to route through, because of their size or quality. Alleyways, roads within schools or short terminating roads are a few examples of terminal roads.

Regards,

Rohit.

[Umbraro]

Rohit,

Thanks for explaining that road priority is used for routing, and that Terminal Road is used for the roads lowest in priority which shouldn't be used for routing. I was just as other mappers under the impression that Terminal Road was equivalent to Terminating Road, but your explanation makes things clearer now. Please confirm if my definition below of "Terminal" is correct:

• A Terminal Road is a road which should only be considered during routing if it contains the begin or endpoint of a route, i.e. when the route is terminating there.
• A No auto traffic Road is the only road type lower in priority than the terminal road and should never be used for routing, not even when en endpoint of a route is located there.

[Dan C.]

Rohit,

I believe marking short terminating roads (dead ends, aka "cul de sac") any different from plain Local is useless. You won't be routed through such a road unless you really choose a destination on that road...
Further, even if your definition is clear, Terminal Road is still a bad name. Even "Low priority" is better :)

[zxrayz]

agree.... terminal is bad wording, much like the street number data field

[R01k]

Agree. It wouldn't be difficult for the routing software to determine wether a road is terminal or not. So, it's useless to enter that Priority. Private Road was much more usefull because only in most if the cases only the human user or mapper is who knows that the road has that priority.