Traffic Light Symbol

[Erik van der Gaag]

Hi

I am wondering if anyone could shed some light on what causes the traffic light symbol to be added to the map.  

It doesn't seem to be anything we can change on our end.

For example:  http://goo.gl/Nukal This 'intersection' which is used to get into the car park which I added recently all of a sudden has a traffic light symbol, which is obviously wrong.  What put it there?

Other places where there should be traffic light symbols aren't there. And I don't see how to add it.

Is it only a matter of doing the old, report a problem and Google eventually gets to it?

Thanks,

Erik.

[Willy Hrachovina]

I have never seen this before, and it looks very odd. It might be a rendering error, and would be something to use "Report a Problem" for. Does this show up in Maps as well, or is it just Map Maker?

Yes, there is no way presently to indicate in Map Maker if an intersection has a traffic light, though it has been asked for many times. Even if they do add it I hope the icon doesn't display like that all the time, as that clutters the map, in my opinion.

[Saikrishna Arcot]

It's not a rendering error. It's there because traffic light is selected as the traffic sign. At the intersection of Clyde Street and Grey Street (both main intersection), the traffic signal is selected as the traffic sign (notice the "null"s), but for some reason, the traffic light is only rendering on one of the main intersections. In the intersection between Clyde Street and the parking lot (both entry and exit roads), the traffic signal is selected for traffic coming from the east (westbound), even though there seems to be no true signal there.

Traffic signals can be selected as the traffic sign; it's just not presented to us as an option.

[Erik van der Gaag]

So the traffic signs you can use doesn't include traffic lights for us, but it does for Google?  Why is that?

[Saikrishna Arcot]

No idea. It could be that it's new and they are still playing with it to make sure it works correctly.

On a side note, those symbols have appeared in Australia (take Sydney for example).

[Austin Tierney]

Theses traffic lights are found widespread across areas of Tokyo.   They also have company logos,  Google Maps Japan is very interesting to look at.

Here's the link to see the Mcdonalds logo/7-11 Logo as well as the traffic light:  http://goo.gl/maps/1zqhu

[Kev Hardie]

This one appears to be associated with a road segment end, not the intersection.

See http://goo.gl/Indho and look at the history - added by a "data quality improver" bot ... (spell checker suggests that should read "data quality improper" bot)

On Tuesday, October 30, 2012 2:52:48 PM UTC+13, Saikrishna Arcot wrote:

[Saikrishna Arcot]

Interesting; it was added by a bot.

Traffic sign changes at the intersection are shown in the connecting segment's edits. If I added a stop sign through Intersection>Edit traffic signs, I would see the change in the segment the stop sign was added to.

[Flash]

I'm not surprised that it was added by a bot, I had already thought about that last week when this thread started.  It probably has a lot to do with where the data is coming from.  The US and Canadian maps came from a map data provider that didn't record street lights.  But cities would have that information, and many have it on their GIS and/or databases, and so I wouldn't be surprised that if in some countries that it might be that a higher level of government (state/provincial or federal) accumulates the info.  If so, then Google could obtain it and add it via a bot.  But it's not really any good to add the info unless it is pretty consistently applied throughout the region.  So if you can obtain it for an entire country, then it makes sense to add it.  But if in another country you can only obtain it for certain cities, then adding it would be confusing as people would not know if an intersection doesn't have a light, or if the info is just not available.