National Highways : Mapping & Fixing for better accuracy

[Rahim]

Hi Everyone,

In our efforts to make Google Maps for India more awesome, we had started a pilot project to improve the quality of maps for the cities of New Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai and Hyderabad with a focus on improving road data. Scaling up that pilot to a national level, we’re now focusing on enhancing the maps data for National Highways in India.

The recent major changes to the country’s road network like the NH numbering system, miles of new highways construction in Hyderabad, etc. have necessitated the need for editing of these roads. With the help of internal resources and your valuable feedback, we plan to fix any inconsistencies.

What are we going to do?

• Map unmapped National Highways
• Correct alignment, priority and directions
• Ensure Attribute consistency
• Add highway numbers consistently
• Split roads wherever required
• Fix Turn Lanes and add connectors

What’s being left out?

• Please note that we will NOT be changing the old NH numbering system quite yet. The reason is that the changes are not yet fully completed by the Government.
• No proactive changes to ramps

What is the impact on all of you?

As you may be able to imagine, this is a substantial project. We are determined to keep Google Maps up to date as the highways systems in India rapidly change. The impact uncoordinated changes can have on routing and maps quality are immense. There are two issues we want to mitigate: (a) Google getting the data wrong (b) Uncoordinated efforts leading to an unstable map - two NH 44s for example.

So here's what we are going to do:

(a) We want you, with local knowledge, to keep us correct - please use the Report A Problem link to indicate any errors you see.

(b) To minimize chances of occasional inconsistent (not incorrect) edits from users, we will review all edits to National Highways moving forward.

Feel free to call us out on the Mapping India forum, wherever you think data needs to be corrected.

Thanks a bunch for your continued support in making maps for India better!

Happy mapping.

~Rahim

[Vishal Saini]

Sorry rahim but i have little bit objection on this line "Uncoordinated efforts leading to an unstable map - two NH 44s for example." If every milestone has new Highway number in some states for example Punjab/Haryana etc..., so how you can say "Uncoordinated efforts leading to an unstable map", Local peoples now better, If someone is travelling with Google maps with his/her mobile/laptop etc.. what will happen then, how he will find where he or she is on N.H.-1A/1 or N.H.-44? That will also make confusion. We should not blame on Google mappers, they are doing very well. We can blame only on NHAI. One thing more, Voice navigation system has been activated by Google in India, so we have to mark everything accurately, otherwise people’s starts dislike Google maps too like apple maps. We are already behind from other countries, we should think about that.

Thanks Rahim

[Daniels]

Hi Rahim,

Very interesting proposal in terms of "Mapping & Fixing for better accuracy" from the Official Map Maker guide and there is no doubt, the serious mapping community engaged to achieve that. We do consider that every minute is precious for every valuable edit we submit for approval especially revising the existing (approved) markings.

Typ. Examples of major revamping on National Highways 

NH-8 and IGI Airport Delhi http://goo.gl/zqEJk , http://goo.gl/u2lxx , 

NH-2 and DF Skyway http://goo.gl/aoMnA    

The exercise of editing was difficult to achieve by clearing the obsolete data and reported the complex situation to GMM for assistance and quick review. But poor response complimented with additional burdens of improper place-mark and auto-approvals. Yamuna-Express Way was under construction but GMM approved status as completed and guided route direction between Delhi to Agra was diverted through NOIDA; NH-2 up to Agra was suspended on map for months. It was rectified only after repeated requests, debates on the misuse of map editing and immature approvals. 

Something like ‘Free for all’ and chaotic scenario prevailing on GMM due to various reasons yet to learn. Anybody can submit anything and get auto-approval by system or recommendation with funny suggestions. Crowd of people who get attracted to the reliable content of community maps will remain till they get the heat of misguided information.    

I believe No Guide is better than Misguide for maps, every data deserves authentic information. Participation of community is good but with caution as all may not be concerned about the impacts of map and cartographic concepts. Poor satellite imagery on map also added confusion as reflected in the forum discussions.

As a member of serious mapping community, I will be sharing and supporting concerns and advice the hidden dangers of unauthorized content. Decision should come from the managers to keep things in order.

I will wait till settle down the chaotic situation of GMM or forget it forever.

Thanks

Daniels

[Rajnish]

Hi Rahim

Somehow I am not able to find 'Report a Problem Link' on my mapmaker window. This portion http://goo.gl/UrOsK is not NH12A for sure, kindly ask someone to correct it. I am not doing it on my own because :

1. Correcting a part of NH and waiting for approval before I can take it further is too tedious. Also if I dont get approval in time, it may remain broken till I visit this area in map again.

2. Moreover, I have suspended my mapping due to some personal reasons, so correcting this will break my 'protest'. ;-)

I hope you will get this done soon.

thanks and regards

[Daniel Sebastian]

+1

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[Rajnish]

would like to retract from my earlier statement that the above mentioned link is not NH. I visited Jabalpur last weekend and went to check myself regarding status of this road. Found 1 board hidden in a very congested and narrow area displaying that this happens to be NH.

This doesn't mean that I am always wrong in pointing problems, instead this prove that we users go extra mile to improve maps. 

[Nitin Chauhan]

Hello !

Someone extended NH 8 beyond Bandra, Including Bandra Worli Sealink (Rajiv Gandhi Sealink) AND other roads ! till Marine Drive. Not sure if change is part of this initiative ! Please revert. I could not remove it from all roads but removed NH 8 from Sealink here: http://goo.gl/uBzFy

Moreover, Road name rendering gone worse and spilling all over. I reported issue long back here: http://code.google.com/p/google-mapmaker/issues/detail?id=3248

Warm regards,

Nitin

[Nitin Chauhan]

Also NH 3 is being wrongly extended beyond JJ Flyover, here: http://goo.gl/LVmJm

[Nitin Chauhan]

and now this user sreedharm http://www.google.com/mapmaker?gw=66&uid=216472989285631346804 is making rampant changes without knowing what he is doing it seems.

changed national expressway 1 (Ahmedabad vadodara expressway) as national highway 8 here http://goo.gl/yUDLL

and removed rightly named national highway 8 from here http://goo.gl/UeYzb till Ahmedabad !

God bless Google Maps

[Nitin Chauhan]

Hi !

I noticed today that symbols from most regional highways in Gujarat India wiped out from map !

Hope it is not glitch or worse live testing of code changes :)

[JOY]

Google bots are making a mess of all the national Highways in India. Just now noticed in Rohtak that NH10 has been deleted totally and byepass has been marked with NH attributes. Similarly all the NH in Delhi have been wiped out with Numbered highway Numbers and their official names too. I don't know how long will it take to resolve all this or maybe data which was rich already is going down the drain.

On Friday, October 12, 2012 10:15:16 AM UTC+5:30, Rahim wrote:

[Jai]

Mushtaq,

The road is properly marked as 'SH 10'.

The 'NH218' tag that you see along with is the rendering problem. The problem has been there since long now and i think Google is sorting it out.

The same is the case with many roads across length and breadth of India.

As JOY pointed out the stupid google bots have ruined the rich data on maps.

Hope this get sorted out soon.

Jai

[SJC]

Hi Rahim,

Request you to kindly approve this edit on National Highway segment in Kalamassery, Kerala, India:

http://www.google.com/mapmaker?gw=55&editids=GbP-RyN5vcCDX37TDI

To aid your decision making, kindly refer to the following discussion thread and also a jpg sketch attached in it.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/india-mappers/6hEV1_CYHkE/_KyjNma5uJwJ

Kindly note that this segment was marked as an NH in the past, but one editor changed it to local road, presumably referring to the satellite imagery, which is not yet updated by Google to reflect the current status. I shall be happy to answer queries should you have any.

Thanks in advance.

[Vishal Saini]

@ Rahim, 

Please give "The Gazette of India" (Part-II, Section -3, Subsection (II) ) to your Map Editors to read, they need that, really. On what grounds they change National Highways as Major Artery?  On what grounds they mark Bypass as National Highway? Every National Highway is connected with Milestone No."0", this is the basic, Have you ever seen the Milestone No "0" at Bypass, As per your map editors "Cities are not connected with National Highways". Right? Keep it up, They don't know the basic of mapping, this is true. They are spoiling the maps all over. They are just pass their time on maps, nothing else. Horrible.

[Daniel Sebastian]

Hi Vishal, Very true observation. There are number of such funny edits and approvals happening on GMM. National Highways converted to 'Local Roads'  as history of NH-208 http://goo.gl/8OvQN (Still pending for approval and recovery from the mess) Even though i have submitted the official list (as per MORTH) http://goo.gl/hd7RE. Something like a hopeless scenario prevailing on GMM.

Thanks 

On 24 January 2013 15:12, Vishal Saini via Indian Mapping Community Forum <india-mappers+noreply-APn2wQeang...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

@ Rahim, 

Please give "The Gazete of India Part-II, Section -3, Subsection (II)" to your Map Editors to read, they need that, really. On what grounds they change National Highways as Major Artery?  They don't know the basic of mapping. They are spoiling the maps all over. They are just passing their time, nothing else. Horrible.

[Nabahat]

Hello Daniels,

It's approved and published.

Me too Totally agree. They also destroyed the NH 89 and NH 15 and NH 11.These so called Maps Editors always converts the By-pass to NH and makes NH to major or local.

They destroying things everywhere and just increasing no. of edits that giving them more power to destroy more data.

Regards.

Nabahat

[Daniel Sebastian]

Hi Nabahat, 

Thanks for the instant action and let us keep vigil for more surprises. ;)

Regards
Daniels

[Vishal Saini]

"They destroying things everywhere and just increasing no. of edits that giving them more power to destroy more data." - Very True

[Daniel Sebastian]

Instant Surprise

The situation in discussion http://goo.gl/3LfO0 you have just approved 12 minutes ago got deleted 3 minutes ago and published by profile who credits more than 24k+ edits and least bothered about the impact on propagating misleading information. Any advice?

Regards

Daniels 

--

[Nabahat]

Lets make it this way.

Undo it.
I'll approve it again.

Regards.

Nabahat

[Daniel Sebastian]

Hi Vishal, 

As per the list of Number wise Number wise National Highways this road National Highway No. 208 with defined route 'Kollam-Tenkasi-Rajapalayam-Thirumangalam (Madurai)' in short 'Kollam-Thirumangalam Road'

Thanks

Daniels

On 24 January 2013 16:56, Vishal Saini via Indian Mapping Community Forum <india-mappers+noreply-APn2wQeang...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Kollam-Tirumangalam Road , Please do not mark as numbered Highway

On Thursday, January 24, 2013 4:43:42 PM UTC+5:30, Daniels wrote:

Instant Surprise

The situation in discussion http://goo.gl/3LfO0 you have just approved 12 minutes ago got deleted 3 minutes ago and published by profile who credits more than 24k+ edits and least bothered about the impact on propagating misleading information. Any advice?

Regards

Daniels 

On 24 January 2013 16:32, Vishal Saini via Indian Mapping Community Forum <india-mappers+noreply-APn2wQeangzNpbU-uw73lf4Vqb7HY9Vws_-gXLYLrh@googlegroups.com> wrote:

"They destroying things everywhere and just increasing no. of edits that giving them more power to destroy more data." - Very True

On Thursday, January 24, 2013 4:19:56 PM UTC+5:30, Nabahat wrote:

Hello Daniels,

It's approved and published.

Me too Totally agree. They also destroyed the NH 89 and NH 15 and NH 11.These so called Maps Editors always converts the By-pass to NH and makes NH to major or local.

They destroying things everywhere and just increasing no. of edits that giving them more power to destroy more data.

Regards.

Nabahat

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[Vishal Saini]

Daniels Ji,

Given link is very useful for Quick Reference, Google Map Editors also need this with "The Gazette of India"

Thanks

[Daniel Sebastian]

+

--

[SJC]

Gentlemen,

May I refer to the confusion on National Highways prevailing on maps these days. I'd like to bring out a few observations in this regard, based on what I've understood from Google's mapmaker help documentation. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Let me first refer to http://support.google.com/mapmaker/answer/1098056?hl=en&ref_topic=1094373 which is the section on road priorities on the official mapmaker help guide.

It says, the goal of setting a road priority is two-fold :

1. Routing : To ensure the most efficient and appropriate routing in an area

2. Display : To ensure the best representation of road networks at lower zoom levels.

The definition on NH says NH connects states, provinces and the largest and most important cities of a country. They've higher speed limits and fewer intersections.

RH acts as connectors between NH.

Major arteries are the most important roads in any city and they act as entry and exit points; they have few residential entrances and support commercial areas such as shopping centers, gas stations and important businesses.

The help guide also displays a very important note in a highlighted box, which I quote :

"Priority should be set based on the big picture of the road, with an emphasis on connectivity and routing, rather than one factor that falls outside the general guidelines. Check the length, how it connects, then the specific details that define each priority. As a final resort, consider the official designation of the road."

I feel this creates a difficult situation because for many cities in India, the requirements specified above are somewhat conflicting, In most of the Indian cities, the evolution had been such that businesses and the city itself had their NH as the epicentre of growth, and over a period of time, the official NH slowly lost its character of an NH with increased traffic density, imposition of one-way traffic and traffic control mechanisms. But they still retain their official tag of NH. In order to relieve long distance travellers from city traffic, bypasses were built for many cities. It is here that a difficulty arises - When one goes by the Google guide, to assign a road priority, the emphasis should be on the big picture - i.e. connectivity and efficient routing. The official designation should only be the last resort. This implies giving highest priority to bypass segments. But if one goes by the official designation, it creates inefficient routing results, which defeats the first goal of setting road priorities i.e. efficient and appropriate routing.

Let me illustrate this with an example from a city like Bangalore. Till very recently, a traveller who queried driving directions on Google mobile maps from Hyderabad highway to Tamilnadu or Kerala was being shown a route which cuts right through the centre of the city - through the nightmarish traffic of Brigade Road, Museum Road, Hosur Road etc because those roads were NH (maybe they officially are, I'm not sure) thus giving them the highest priority, whereas better and much more efficient alternatives exist, like Ring Road etc which are designed to handle much higher traffic volume than official NH segments. In fact a person who knows Bangalore well, would never take the route suggested by Google. For someone using a product like Google Maps to fetch driving directions, if it suggests an inefficient route, the product loses its utility and I'm sure he will stop using it before long. This I feel is the crux of the big picture of connectivity and routing which Google talks about.

I've always felt that the nomenclature for road priorities is a bit misleading. The present nomenclature model is a generic one which follows the model in US and similar countries. But the picture in Indian (and possibly Asian) cities is different. To obtain the stated goal of road priorities i.e. efficient routing, the Google guide is quite clear that the emphasis should be on the big picture and that the official designation of a road is the last resort. But since in many Indian cities, the city segments still have their official NH tag, in order to obtain efficient routing results, the bypass segments should logically have a setting with a higher priority than NH like expressway, freeway etc, which they are not, in the true sense of the word. This is a dilemma with the existing nomenclature. To get efficient routing results in any city, those roads which can sustain the highest traffic volumes should get the highest priority setting (which is NH in the current nomenclature), but this gets somewhat misleading since an official NH segment might exist inside the city and editors have a propensity to name that segment as NH. But then it defeats the very purpose of assigning road priorities, which is efficient routing. At least I wish if Google had an appropriately named setting with higher priority than NH, to apply to bypass segments of Indian cities, things would have been much better and there would be less confusion !

And finally gentlemen, I just can't imagine that Google needs our help to know which segments constitute the official NH. They could get it easily from elsewhere and then lock those roads. But I feel what they really need is our "local knowledge" of each city and its traffic patterns, which is nearly impossible to get from conventional sources, and such local knowledge to be applied to maps so that for someone querying for directions from A to B, the most efficient route is displayed. But as I mentioned earlier the nomenclature for assigning road priorities is misleading,

Gentlemen, I await your comments on this. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Best Regards to all.

[Eubynuts]

Much of the choice google makes in selecting a route should be (is?) based on the time it takes to travel the route.  Therefore accurate average speeds also (probably) play a part.  Thus, if driving through downtown Bangalore is accurately described as an average 15kph 30km trip, while a ring road is accurately described as an average 40kph 40km trip, google should be able to route the traveler on the ring road regardless of priority of the road or highway designation.  I believe accurate average speed is the most important factor in routing.  In other words, no need to de-priotitize a well traveled, congested (slow), thouroghfare, it would not look right on the maps for people visiting Downtown,  Rather, obtain accurate average speeds.  UB --- On Fri, 1/25/13, SJC via Indian Mapping Community Forum <india-mappers+noreply-APn2wQf03v...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

--

[Eubynuts]

comment on his bad edit, though it will probably start a war with him.  Google mm sucks.  These multieditors routinely undo my hard work, & I am not even notified they are changing it. --- On Thu, 1/24/13, Indian Mapping Community Forum on behalf of Daniels <india-...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

From: Indian Mapping Community Forum on behalf of Daniels <india-...@googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: [Indian Mapping Community Forum] Re: National Highways : Mapping & Fixing for better accuracy

[SJC]

Hi euby, thanks for your reply. I too was under the impression for long that it is the least travel time which decided the routing. But soon I was proved wrong. Travel time may be a factor but not one with a high weightage. In fact Google itself has documented that its routing logic almost always prefers higher priority roads and that the route selection is based on a combination of several factors like road priority (which I believe gets a high weightage), routes with lesser turns, estimated travel time etc.

A case of particular mention here is a town which I was very familiar with. A driving directions query between two points in this town always threw up an almost "U" shaped path, though a much shorter and almost straight-line like, 4 lane road existed between these two points with lesser travel time and which was always preferred by people who knew this town. On analyzing the reason for this, it turned out that the U shaped path was a regional highway and the direct path, though with a lesser travel time, had a priority setting of local road. This direct path was later amended to a minor artery, without changing any other parameters, either of this path or the U shaped one. Soon Google began routing through this path. This confirms that a high weightage is given to road priority setting than any other factor. The example of Banglaore which I cited in my previous post also is a good example of the weight given to road priority in routing.

In fact I believe this is the right way to approach it since estimation of an average speed is very much subjective unlike road priority setting which is less prone to be so. 

Thanks and regards.

[Narendra Dimri]

please review these edits in Uttrakhand/Rudraprayag

http://goo.gl/1o9I3

http://goo.gl/t7JuK

Regards Narendra Dimri

[Rajnish]

Narendra

for review request kindly use the following thread : https://groups.google.com/d/topic/india-mappers/6hEV1_CYHkE/discussion

Please check no of lanes in roads you have sent for review, doesnt look like a 8 lane road to me.

[Nitin Chauhan]

Hi Rahim !

Please check this highway 8E: http://goo.gl/xY9HD

Please remove NH 27 from here as it is leftover of 'restoring old highway numbers' job carried out by Google mappers.

Thanks.

[Jasvinder]

Hi, Can we get the KML files of NH and other roads?

Regards,

J.Singh

[Naveen Francis]

• https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/India:Roads
  
• National Highways (old numbering)
• National Highways (new numbering)

[Nitin Chauhan]

Hi !

NH 8C is wrong !

In Gujarat:

'Sarkhej - Gandhinagar Highway' is NH 8C.

8C starts from chiloda - gandhinagar - sarkhej.

map wrongly shows part of 'Sardar Patel Ring Road' as 8C ! From 'Vaishnodevi Circle' it should go straight instead.

Also issues unsolved after long here: https://code.google.com/p/google-mapmaker/issues/detail?id=5845

Please fix / help get it corrected,

[Mahesh Salunkhe]

8698185299

On 1/24/13, Vishal Saini via Indian Mapping Community Forum
<india-mappers+noreply-APn2wQeang...@googlegroups.com>
wrote:
>
>>
>> @ Rahim,
>>
>> *Please give "The Gazette of India" (Part-II, Section -3, Subsection (II)
>>
>> ) to your Map Editors to read, they need that, really.* On what grounds

>> they change National Highways as Major Artery? On what grounds they mark
>>
>> Bypass as National Highway? Every National Highway is connected with
>> Milestone No."0", this is the basic, Have you ever seen the Milestone No

>> "0" at Bypass, *As per your map editors "Cities are not connected with
>> National Highways".* *Right?* *Keep it up,* They don't know the basic of

>> mapping, this is true. They are spoiling the maps all over. They are just
>>
>> pass their time on maps, nothing else. Horrible.

>> *
>> *
>> *
>> *

>>
>
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--

Thanks & Regards,
Mahesh salunkhe
mahesh.s...@rediffmail.com