When establishing relevance for Transit Queries key Questions to ask ourselves:
- Is the Query constructed in a way that there is a transit POI with the same name?
- Are there multiple transit stations within the locality requested?
- Can the query also be considered a Category Query?
- Although the returned transit stations may not be in the locality requested does it provide service to
the queried transit station? If so, we want to perform the necessary downgrades for distance from
the location intent.- If there are fewer transit stations that satisfy the user intent near the requested locality, the farther away results can be and still be considered relevant. The more available results that can satisfy the user, the closer they need to be.
Checkpoint
If the query can also be considered a category query, we do not want to disqualify results that are not in the queried locality. Other transit POIs outside of the queried
locality that could potentially satisfy the user should be downgraded further for distance.
- Research Tools: Key research tools for Transit Queries are local area maps and Station maps that may be found on the official transit station pages
Example:
User Query: [Stockport Station]
User and Fresh Viewport in Stockport Station
Research:
- Is the Query constructed in a way that there is a transit POI with the same name? Yes, Stockport Station.
- Are there multiple transit stations within the locality requested? Yes. research shows that there are several stations in Stockport, but only one named Stockport station.
- Can the query also be considered a Category Query? Yes, the user might also be looking for any transit station in Stockport
- Although the returned transit stations may not be in the locality requested does it provide service to the queried transit station? Yes, per the official transit map, there are several transit stations that provide service and are nearby.
Result 1: Stockport Station Stockport, England
Relevance: Navigational- matches exact name in Query.
Result 2: Davenport Station Stockport, England
Relevance: Excellent- Since there is only one station
with a name that matches the query exactly, all other stations within the locality of Stockport would receive this rating.
Result 3: Burnage Station Manchester, England
Relevance: Good- This station is just outside of the
requested locality, in a neighboring locality. Even though the station is outside of the requested locality, it provides a choice of stations in the area for the user. This result is downgraded due to distance.
Research Tools: The map located on the transit station verifies that Burnage Station is a relevant station to the user’s query as it is near Stockport. We would perform -1
Downgrade due to distance.
