Roads in Google Maps: 2000+ roads later …

[L-C]

On my end and many other users it takes weeks just to get a new road approved. Most of the edits are not even visible in our contributions. Impossible to track them, for this reason we tend to limit the amount of edits to be sure we don’t do the same edit twice since it is impossible to double-check.

Editing road shape is even worse. Most of these edits take weeks, even months to be approved… if they ever get approved. Many times we have to edit an existing road before adding adjacent roads otherwise it is not possible to connect the new roads correctly.

Honestly it is not motivating at all. They said this new tool would allow faster edit processing and approval but for now it is not really the case.

And this tool is quite poor in terms of functionality compared to Road Mapper, we can’t select and move segments, editing bridges with two roads crossing is impossible, we cannot define the traffic direction on new roads… Google still has a lot of work to do on this. Map Maker was great and as usual Google decides to kill something perfect to replace it with something barely usable. Never change, Google.

[ErmesT]

This is absolutely true, @LaloPadilla , just let me add one more tip: if your country is perfectly mapped, check in other countries where several road are missing. In this way you will help a lot of people

[ErmesT]

Trail are extremely important for tourism, @Erna_LaBeau .

You can read about how much important can be for a small touristic area to have their trails in Google Maps in this article: Bolognola senza segreti col GPS

I’ve added all the trails of the area, partly with Road Mapper and partly through the Google Content provider program. The program is very powerful

The program is wide used in USA, and this is one of the reason why almost all the roads in your country appear in Maps almost immediately

[ErmesT]

Thanks for your feedback, @L-C , and thank you for being always clear on the main focus.

Regarding approval time, my last approved road was added 24 hours ago, while roads added weeks ago are pending. A year ago the approval time was in fact very fast, a few days, and sometimes a few hours, while now it is indeed longer. I think it depends of the highest number of contributions, and the fact that Google is approving roads by area, to make the process more rational. I agree that the approval process need to become faster, and I am quite confident that the team is working on this.

A few months ago Maps made a small improvement, and now it is possible to reach the edited area by clicking on the edit list. However, I think we should be able at least to see the edit we made, and not only a pin in the area. In any case most of my edits are also associated with an edit of a road shape, and I do not have any particular issue in having them approved.

I love the possibility provided by Road Mapper to select and move a series of segments together, and I already complained about the lack of this function in the editor. However I haven’t seen the other functions mentioned by you in Road Mapper (adding a bridge and defining a direction). Am I missing something?

I agree that Map Maker was a great program, unfortunately sometimes it was misused (or abused), and regional leaders sometimes were approving nonsense addition. I think that, due to the large amount of contributors, it is no longer possible to delegate the approval to a group of volunteers, even if most of them did a great job, and it is thank to them that we have a so detailed Map. But I would not say that it is barely usable. During the first months of my contributions I’ve seen a lot of changes in the interface, so I think more will come, to make it more efficient

[MortenCopenhagen]

Hi @ErmesT

Thanks for your detailed encouragement to get started on adding roads.

I gave it a serious effort to see if I could “get into it”. And here is what I learned over the first two days:

A

I was of the assumption that we could only add roads that we know the names of. Obviously, you have no chance of knowing the street names in South America… So I learned the lesson that it is better to add roads with no names rather than not having them on Google Maps.

B

It took some errors before I got the hang of selecting the road type. It is worst on mobile, though. Is there a way to make the Street type default while adding a grid in one batch, so we don’t have to set it for each individual road section?

C

When finding a wrongly drawn road on mobile, I don’t seem to be able to correct it. All I can do is to mark the road as wrongly drawn. I see how I can do it on Desktop (pretty easy). Can it be done on mobile?

D

How can you make it easier to see existing roads when in satellite mode? I found that I need to start “Add/fix road” to make them pop. This problem is most pronounced on mobile.

E

I added maybe 50 roads but so far none of them got approved. So if they all stay in Pending or get Rejected I’m back to having no movivation to add roads.

F

I am beginning to get the hang of spotting where roads can be added. I see there is still a lot to do also in Denmark.

G

How do I see / test the type of an existing road? On both platforms.

Cheers and thanks for pushing me on this

Morten

[Hkitty0573]

Hi @ErmesT . Thank you for taking the time to explain about the roads. You keep on inspiring me and I’m learning something new

[L-C]

Sorry @ErmesT the ability to select and move segments is from Road Mapper but editing bridges or defining traffic direction on new roads is not.

I also think the processing time is longer now anyone has access to the new tool.

In my experience:

• minor edits such as adding a missing road name are the fastest (usually takes a few days)

• adding missing road is a bit longer but usually is a matter of weeks, sometimes days

• editing road shape is the longest, usually weeks or over a month

Then come the large edits when you simultaneously edit a road shape and add new roads attached to it, or when you adjusts streets in a whole area: those edits are almost never approved, or maybe it takes more than 3 months and we just didn’t have enough time yet since the release of the tool. Or maybe they just don’t want large edits. But how can we fix the map when all the streets are misplaced? We can’t just edit one street, wait to be approved and edit the next street… it will take decades.

Here I wanted to adjust some streets to recover the blue lines but it is impossible to do without adjusting the whole town… so I adjusted all of them but it is probably not going to be approved, turning this effort into a waste of time.

In my opinion road shape edits should take less time to be approved or rejected, it is a matter of checking the satellite imagery and see if the suggested roads match it. They can use Street View data along the satellite view with IA to deal with this easily.

I agree Map Maker had some issues with a few people but OpenStreetMap is fully crowdsourced and works well, many people review edits so bad ones get quickly reverted. Just to show how good it is, I once edited a location in the middle of Equatorial Guinea and made a mistake, which got quickly noticed and corrected. So it can work, the only thing to not make is to “gamify” it with points and day streaks like they did in Road Mapper which leads to people rushing edits just to keep their streak or race for points.

[OSAMA1]

Hi @ErmesT thanks for the article

I was so interested to add roads on Google maps, and I always trying, but I’ve reported the adding roads on my country become harder, even though I am doing correct like I started. Most of my roads additions theses days are NOT APPROVED I receive notification and I don’t know why !

Here is my post about that

https://www.localguidesconnect.com/t5/General-Discussion/ARE-ROADS-ADDITION-CLOSED/td-p/2820275#.Y0kWI-M44Z4.link

And @DeniGu was tracking with me to see if she and the support team can figure out something, but so far didn’t receive any clear answer.

I’ve added so far a 69 roads and hope to continue, but I am depressed down.

Additionally, I’ve reported ( edited )

1_ Missing Roads

( It is my most common point to add roads in my country rather than the down points

2_DRAWN INCORRECTLY

3_ROAD CLOSED

4_ROAD DOES NOT EXIST

5_ONE OR TWO WAY

As a LG and a Maps Contributor, I do what I mentioned above, but not receiving APPROVE like before.

Since I got a 69 roads addition APPROVED as shown in my profile, it means I am doing and drawing correctly, so what happened that I keep receiving a NOT APPROVED notification when adding roads ! It’s the same way I am still drawing like I learned in the beginning. I think I still need a googler to look into my case please

Can you help tag a Googler?

I wish to continue adding roads and receive NETWORK approved like before

Thank you

[TravellerG]

Wow, dear friend @ErmesT ,

1. Awesome article like a reference manual - highly appreciate & also thank you for your dedicated efforts. Very engaging discussions too.

2. Yes, dear @MortenCopenhagen , I too have the same experience. Most of the edits are pending/no response… Pure waste of time.

3. Hello fellow LG @L-C , I understand your frustration and feelings.

Kindly allow me to add that LGs like @NareshDarji have completed 2,000kms of road - we cannot ignore this fact… Right?

If Naresh Ji could share his style, it may help many of us… I believe.

With inspiration from you all, I tried one today… But in pending…

Hope things will improve soon.

Best wishes to you all.

TG

[ErmesT]

I do agree with you about the approval time, @L-C . My latest addition was approved in an hour. It was a piece of road five meters long, to connect two pieces of road that were probably poorly designed (or acquired). I think that such simple and highly visible additions are approved directly by the AI, without the confirmation of an operator.
Previous additions will likely have to wait a long time to be approved.

However, I think that in terms of functionality, adding everything together is the most rational way. I believe that the interest of Google Maps is to improve the situation of the roads in the most efficient way possible, so I hope that contributions of this type, even if they are a risky challenge for us, can help improve the algorithm of approval.
On the one hand, however, there is always the fear that failure to approve a single segment could invalidate all the work. This type of edit requires times, extreme patience and attention, to prevent a hasty addition from undoing everything.

Thanks for the detailed reply, @MortenCopenhagen

A) Yes, I agree that a road without a name is netter than no road. However, if you check the image above, you will see that sometimes we can find the name of the road also in a road in south America.

B) Yes, on desktop the “continue editing” command has been designed to keep the same type of road, saving time

C) No, we can’t correct the shape of the road on mobile. The Road Editor on desktop is more powerful and in some case you will also have access to the most updated satellite images.

D) I don’t add road on mobile, too slow and with many limitations. On desktop you just have to zoom on the area. The over-imposed roads will appear with a small delay. Then I switch the view from Satellite to Map view.

E) Adding roads is like going fishing: you have to be patient and careful. This is why the desktop editor is better: you can see better and you can make a more precise edit. The same answer is also for @TravellerG and @OSAMA_1 . My tip is to start with small pieces of very well visible roads, and then to increase the length. If you can split an edit in two parts, do it. Keep the longer edits only when you cannot split them in smaller parts. Not because you will get more points (I am sure no one in this conversation is contributing for points) but simply to have a faster approval.

F) Yes indeed. There is a lot to do, and adding roads your capacity to spot the missing ones will increase.

G) As explained in the main post, you can understand the type of road by the color first (and sometimes by the size too)

@OSAMA_1 , you are referring to a two years old post. You should try on desktop, the experience is totally different

Adding Road in your country is indeed possible, I’ve just made a small test in Amman

Thanks for your words, @TravellerG

As I said already, you need to be patient. Maybe it is because I am an old man, but I know that Rome wasn’t built in a day ;-), and I have at least 2089 reasons to tell you this

It took an year to me to do that (and maybe I have other 500 pending). The big trees are growing slowly

[TravellerG]

My dear friend, @ErmesT

You are a super performer and a veteran here - we are just small creatures in front of you…

2089 Roads,… I can’t even imagine!!!

But, I respect you a lot… And hence, will try to spare some time in the near future on roads.

Very sincerely thank you for your kind & detailed explanations.

Best wishes…

[RosyKohli]

@ErmesT

Thanks for awesome post In simple language were every one can understand.my best wishes to all the mappers .Stay blessed.My best wishes for your meet up.

[MortenCopenhagen]

Hi @ErmesT

Thanks for the quiz questions on The Road Editor. I know how much work it is to make a good set of quiz questions.

I use the right mouse button when I need to pan/move the map without creating another point for the road I’m adding. This allows me to zoom in more and get more accuracy.

Cheers

Morten

[DushyantGurjar9636]

आपको बधाई हो

मेरे क्षेत्र में भी इस तरह की अनेक समस्या है और मेरे पास वाले गाँव का दुसरे गाँव है और आस का किसी दुसरे गाँव का पता इसे कैसे ठीक करे में गुगल को इस समस्या के बारे भेज दिया है लेकिन अभी तक कोई सुधार नही है वह इस समस्या को कैसे ठीक कर सकते हैं पूरे गाँव का नाम अलग है

[gizmoz]

How to change type of road from local road to walking trail. When I would like to fix wrong type of road ?

[ErmesT]

@gizmoz

Actually Maps do not provide the possibility on the editor for changing the type of road. What you can do is to select “other” (see the screenshot here below) and to explain the error in the text box

[ErmesT]

You can Drag / move and zoom with both buttons, @MortenCopenhagen , even while you are drawing a road. It doesn’t make any difference, and will not create a point in the map.

You can also pass on another tab of Chrome while you are drawing, and restart without any interruption when you come back to the editor tab

[MortenCopenhagen]

Yes, I realized. Thanks, @ErmesT .

I’m still having trouble seeing the difference between a local road and a parking lot road. I doubt the difference is visible. Also, I have not found a way to change a road from let’s say local road into a walking/bicycle path. I know I can do it before I hit submit for a set of new roads. Any tips?

Cheers

Morten

[ErmesT]

@MortenCopenhagen , please check this parking Lot (not in Google Maps, sadly)

If you switch the view From maps to Satellite, you will clearly see the gray roads. I also had to fix the bad designed shape of the roads, and to add the missing ones. Let see how it will appear when (if) approved.

Regarding the last question, as I said to @gizmoz here “Actually Maps do not provide the possibility on the editor for changing the type of road”. I hope Maps will add this helpful option for editing the Type of an existing road soon, @KarolinaPysz

[ErmesT]

Oh, @MortenCopenhagen and all, one thing that I forgot to say during the meet-up is that, when available, in editing mode you may have a more recent view in Satellite mode.

just try to “add a road” here