Far Lanes Phase 1 - How to Edit

Background

The current lanes implementation of Lanes provides a straightforward solution for simple junctions but does not natively support complex junctions such as H and # that are currently “managed” by heuristics.

To solve these limitations and give back control to the editors, we’ve built the Far Lanes feature.

As a first phase we will enable the ability to map lanes on JBs in order to create lane guidance for complex junctions.

How To Map Far Lanes

1. Select the entry segment of a JB

   

2. Click on “Lanes & Road Width”
3. Click on “Add lane guidance”
4. Define the number of lanes
5. Start mapping the lane guidance for the path: Hovering over a far turn will highlight the JB path (similar to hovering on paths in the JB path list).

Notes

A Junction Box entry segment will add far lanes for all connected exit segments:

• Far turns to exit segments will be optional.
• Far turns will have no pre-populated arrow, a question mark will be shown, ,the editor will have to manually define them if choosing to refer to these turns.
• We are planning to add automatic turn calculation in the future and this is planned to be configurable per country, we can enable it only for countries that want it.

Heuristics Behavior (ROW and NA only)

1. Push Lane Guidance and Road Shield instructions to appear in the first turn right after the entry segment of the Junction Box, if the first turn is less than 50 mts away from the entry segment.
2. If Lane Guidance already exists at this turn, no pushing of the instructions will happen.
3. Auto push for Far Lanes instructions to appear in the first turn right after the entry segment of the Junction Box will only happen for <50m junctions
4. All other turns will get "continue straight using the x (right/left) lanes, and then turn Y (right/left).
5. The routing server will push forward the road shield instructions, too, if the additional conditions are met:

• There is a road shield definition for the entry segment of the Junction Box.
• The turning segment has no road shield defined.
• Please note that it may happen that the Lane Guidance is pushed but the road shield isn't. There won't be a roadshields pushed if no lanes are pushed.

Some Illustrations to make the heuristics more understandable:

Assuming the driver is driving from the entry segment (Transcontinental Dr) and turning left to W Matairie Ave.

1. Distance from entry segment to turn < 50m. The instruction will be placed at the turning segment and a turn left instruction will be given
2. Distance from entry segment to turn > 50m. The instruction will be placed at the entry segment and a continue straight instruction will be given

   

3. No matter what the distance is, if there is lane guidance already defined for the turning segment, it will not be overridden and the instruction will be given for the entry segment using a continue straight instruction and in addition the turn left instruction would appear with it’s own lane guidance.

It is important to understand that a “continue straight” instruction will still use the arrow that you chose, so if you wish to

• We are looking into adding a fine control over the instruction position to allow to forcibly push the instruction no matter what (more than 50m, lane guidance exists on turn, etc…)

Lanes Completeness

In order for the lane guidance to show in the client, the lane mapping needs to be “complete”.

• Normal lanes -  all turns need to be mapped.
• Far Lanes - All immediate turns have lanes OR if an immediate turn doesn’t have lanes, all the far turns that go through this turn must have lanes.

Permission System

• To edit Far Lanes you will need to have both permission to edit Lanes and Far Lanes in your country.
• The Far Lanes default lock rank will be 4, this is configurable per country.
• If an editor doesn’t have the proper permissions they will see the lane guidance preview.
• If a segment has Far Lane guidance mapped, “normal” lane editing will be restricted for editors that have no Far Lanes permission.
• Limitation: If a bidirectional segment is an entry segment of a JB and has A→B mapped with Far Lanes, in case an editor has no permission to edit Far Lanes we will block for him the possibility of editing lanes also on B→A. Even if there are only immediate turns.

Appendix

Examples

The following junction was “twisted” in order to fall into the heuristic limitations.

The following junction broke the previous limitation of 21 angle degree

Known Issues

The heuristic that provides the Uturn vocal instruction, instead of Left and then Left, is currently not supported in JBs.

You can apply a Turn Instruction Override on the JB path instruction in order to receive the Uturn one.

We are looking into it and keep you posted on any change

Questions

1. Are Far Lanes on JB supported on Roundabout (JuBRAs)? At this stage you will not be able to map lanes on JuBRAs but this is planned.

The UX team is currently exploring different solutions to define how lane guidance on a roundabout in the client will look like.

1. Can we map preferred lanes?

Preferred lanes are planned but not part of this phase 1 of the feature. This will be also useful for segments that do not currently have a JB.

1. What is the Far Lanes lock Rank? The default lock rank is 4, this can be configured per country and coordinators can ask for a change. In order to edit Far Lanes you need to also have permission to edit lanes in general.
2. Do I need to have permission to edit JBs in order to edit Far Lanes? No, but an editor needs to have both permission to edit lanes and Far Lanes.
3. What happens if I add Far Lanes in Beta, while it is not yet available in production? If far turns were added in Beta, we will disable editing lane guidance for the junction in production in order to avoid breaking things.
4. Are there any kind of limitations?
   1. A Far Lane cannot stretch over more than 1 routing tile- existent JB limitation. If you were able to create a JB, it means you can add far lanes.
   2. Far Lane guidance is unique, it’s impossible to create multiple “paths’ between an entry and an exit segment.