Travel Mapping

Tracking Cumulative Travels

Travel Mapping Manual: Deal with data errors

The developer tools execute different kind of data checks to indicate potential errors. Highway data managers need to check for these errors to ensure consistent and correct highway data. Some of the data checks are available in the waypoint editor before submitting changes, but many need attention after the next site update.

Contents

🔗 Data errors

When working with the WPT file editor, a data check for the loaded route is executed with every modification. The code of a data error is indicated in the last column of the waypoint table. Use the tool tip for additional info. After manual changes within the editor field, the data check is done on the next editor action, e.g. when pressing the Load button.

Check the table for errors before saving the .wpt file. Fix unintended errors or mark intended errors false positive.

Note: Not all data errors are detected by the WPT file editor, see below: supported, proposed but not yet supported, not possible to be detected in WPT file editor.
Link Code Description WPT File
Editor
FP possible
🔗 ABBREV_AS_CHOP_BANNER The route's chopped routes .csv file entry has the Abbrev erroneously entered into the Banner field. NO NO
🔗 ABBREV_AS_CON_BANNER The 2 potential underlying causes are:
  1. The route's chopped routes .csv file entry has the Banner erroneously entered into the Abbrev field. If the same route is also flagged as ABBREV_NO_CITY, this is probably the case.
  2. The route's connected routes .csv file entry has the chopped route's Abbrev entered as its Banner.
NO NO
🔗 ABBREV_NO_CITY The route's chopped routes .csv file entry has an Abbrev, but no City.
If the same route is also flagged as ABBREV_AS_CON_BANNER, the Abbrev data should probably be moved to the Banner.
NO NO
🔗 BAD_ANGLE Angles cannot be computed for two adjacent points at the same coordinates. Instead, use AltLabels or fix coordinates of one point or both. YES NO
🔗 BUS_WITH_I Label looks like an Interstate with Bus banner instead of BL or BS. YES YES
🔗 CON_BANNER_MISMATCH The route's Banner field in its chopped routes .csv file mismatches the Banner field in its connected routes .csv file. NO NO
🔗 CON_ROUTE_MISMATCH The route's Route field in its chopped routes .csv file mismatches the Route field in its connected routes .csv file. NO NO
🔗 DISCONNECTED_ROUTE The 3 potential underlying causes are:
  1. Routes that are not connected in the first place.
  2. Roots are out of order within the _con.csv line.
  3. Just plain mismatched coordinates at a border, whether NMP or too far apart to be flagged.
How to fix:
  1. Make sure all roots in the _con.csv line are in fact connected. If not, split into multiple _con.csv lines.
  2. Make sure the roots are in sequential order within the _con.csv line.
  3. Make sure coordinates match at regional boundaries. If this means changing a .wpt file in a region maintained by somebody else, coordinate as needed with that person on making the changes.
NO NO
🔗 DUPLICATE_COORDS Duplicated coordinates for two or more waypoints YES YES
🔗 DUPLICATE_LABEL Duplicated labels for more than one waypoint. Labels must be unique for each route. YES NO
🔗 HIDDEN_JUNCTION Concurrent route splits off at a hidden waypoint. The concurrency is most likely broken by accident, or the waypoint needs to be visible. NO YES
🔗 HIDDEN_TERMINUS Hidden point at the beginning or end of a route. Routes must begin and end with visible waypoints so that users can mark all of them as traveled. YES NO
🔗 INTERSTATE_NO_HYPHEN Label looks like an Interstate without a hyphen between the I and numerals. NO NO
🔗 INVALID_FINAL_CHAR Disallowed character at end of label YES NO
🔗 INVALID_FIRST_CHAR Disallowed character at beginning (after any leading * characters) of label YES NO
🔗 LABEL_INVALID_CHAR Label contains at least 1 invalid character, or no valid characters other than * or +.
Labels may only contain letters, numerals, parentheses, slashes, underscores, hyphens, or periods, with an optional leading plus sign or asterisk.
YES NO
🔗 LABEL_LOOKS_HIDDEN X123456 style label without a leading +. YES YES
🔗 LABEL_LOWERCASE Label starts with a lowercase letter. YES NO
🔗 LABEL_PARENS Number of parentheses do not match. Opened ( must be closed with ). YES NO
🔗 LABEL_SELFREF Label appears to reference own route.
This datacheck is designed to flag cases where a line was directly copied from another .wpt file without the label being changed.

The site update program looks at intersecting routes in order to eliminate false positives.
Several error subtypes are listed in the Info column, with different ways they can be fixed before marking false positive:
  • 🔗 NO_COLOC:
    An intersecting route with matching Route, Banner, and/or Abbrev wasn't found.
    Ensure this point has the same coordinates as intersecting/concurrent routes if appropriate.
  • 🔗 NO_SUFFIX:
    The route forms a loop, and has two intersections with itself at these coordinates.
    You'll need underscored suffixes to distinguish the two waypoints, unless one or both of the labels mentions two routes.
  • 🔗 NO_ABBREV:
    The route intersects another with the same name/number and same banner, without a city abbreviation in the label.
    You probably want to add the city abbreviation (without an underscore, in order to match the intersecting route's .list name) for disambiguation purposes.
  • 🔗 TRUE_ERROR:
    The label is an exact match of the route's full .list name, including Banner and Abbrev.
  • 🔗 FULL_MATCH:
    The label is a full match of the .list name followed by extra characters other than a slash or underscore.
NO YES
🔗 LABEL_SLASHES Too many slashes in label (> 1). YES NO
🔗 LABEL_TOO_LONG Label is too long to fit in the space allocated for the DB field. YES NO
🔗 LABEL_UNDERSCORES Too many underscored suffixes (> 1) YES NO
🔗 LACKS_GENERIC Label begins with Old followed immediately by a number without a preceding generic designation type such as US, E, A, Hwy, Rte, etc. YES YES
🔗 LONG_SEGMENT Long segment (distance > 20 mi, 32 km) between this and the previous hidden point. YES YES
🔗 LONG_UNDERSCORE Label has long underscore suffix: > 4 characters after underscore, or 4 characters not ending in a capital letter. YES NO
🔗 LOWERCASE_SUFFIX Underscored suffix starts with a lowercase letter. YES NO
🔗 MALFORMED_LAT Invalid argument after lat= in URL which cannot be converted to a numeric value NO NO
🔗 MALFORMED_LON Invalid argument after lon= in URL which cannot be converted to a numeric value NO NO
🔗 MALFORMED_URL URL (last field in WPT line) is missing lat= and/or lon= argument(s) NO NO
🔗 NONTERMINAL_UNDERSCORE Label has underscore suffix before slash YES NO
🔗 OUT_OF_BOUNDS Latitude > 90° or < -90°, or longitude > 180° or < -180°. False positives are allowed for the rare potential case of routes spanning the international date line. YES YES
🔗 SHARP_ANGLE Sharp angle (> 135°) with previous and next waypoint. YES YES
🔗 SINGLE_FIELD_LINE WPT file line only contains one field. Each line must have a minimum of 2 space-separated fields: A waypoint label followed by an OpenStreetMap URL. Deprecated alternate labels may optionally be included in between. NO NO
🔗 US_LETTER Label uses USxxxA or USxxxB rather than USxxxAlt, USxxxBus, USxxxByp, etc. YES NO
🔗 VISIBLE_DISTANCE Long distance (Visible distance > 10 mi, 16 km) between this and the previous visible point. Not reported for active routes! YES YES
🔗 VISIBLE_HIDDEN_COLOC Visible waypoint is hidden on intersecting/concurrent route(s).

The Info column lists only the first hidden point at the same location.
Best practice is to check this location on all intersecting/concurrent routes and ensure:
  • Everything that should be visible is visible.
  • Everything that should be hidden is hidden.
NO YES

🔗 Highway data check list

When changes to highway data have been submitted and are live on the site, all routes of the project have been checked during the site update process. They are reported on the data check list. The list is sorted by the system categories active, preview and in-development.
Note: It is possible to edit the url in the address bar of the browser to filter for more than one region or system. For instance, it is possible to create a link to all regions a highway data manager maintains. Save it to your browser bookmark and load it when needed for the check.

🔗 Marking errors false positive (FP)

🔗 Concurrency check

Concurrent segments of different routes are detected and considered for calculating user stats. If a concurrency is broken by accident, stats are affected. Highway data managers need to pay attention to check broken concurrencies in their regions. The check can not be done before submitting changes but is currently only possible with the data of the last site update.

The best practise to do this, is as follows: Load the region graph either with mapview or with HDX and make a manual check.

🔗 Load graph with mapview

🔗 Load graph with Highway Data Examiner (HDX)

🔗 Check for broken concurrencies

🔗 Near-miss points

Where two or more routes intersect, the routes must have a waypoint. If the coordinates of the waypoints are identical, the graph is connected and showroute can indicate intersecting routes to ease navigation through the routes when mapping travels. Near-miss points (NMPs) are waypoints very close together. They should be checked whether they are candidates to merge to fix broken intersecting links, and broken concurrencies.
NMP files can also be loaded into HDX to visualize their positions on a map. It is easiest to view NMPs by region as described below.

🔗 Marking NMPs false positive FP

Marking NMPs false positive is trickier than for simple data errors but works the same way.