One week in, some questions...

[AndyPoms]

Thanks for the answers. This was helpful for me too. I've been using Waze for a while but had lots of the same questions. I used it for the first time on a train yesterday and it tries to lock onto roads when it can. I suspect it may have distorted traffic reports slightly when we were parallel to the freeway.

This post is over two years old & for the most part the answers don't apply any more...

#1 - You will create a false traffic jam in front of your house if you sit there with it running
#2 - You currently need to be at the location of the incident to report it
#3 - There are ways for companies to interact with the Waze system, these tools are not publicly available. There is a third party system currently in development to do this, but it is not available in the US yet.
#4 - I'm pretty sure the stars are gone now
#5 - Cartouche is retired. The new editor is the Waze Map Editor (WME) and your tracks are either green or red. Green means you were snapped to a road, red means you were not.
#6 - We have both speed & red light cameras now. See the Cameras page of the Waze wiki.
#7 - Yes, people do waze on trains & ferries. Yes, it can effect the algorithms. It is NOT recommended to run Waze while traveling in anything but a car, truck, or motorcycle. In some places trains and ferries are mapped, in some they are not. For railroads, they are mapped in very specific circumstances and in very specific ways to prevent Waze from routing a car down the tracks.

[hunkeler1961]

Thanks for the answers. This was helpful for me too. I've been using Waze for a while but had lots of the same questions. I used it for the first time on a train yesterday and it tries to lock onto roads when it can. I suspect it may have distorted traffic reports slightly when we were parallel to the freeway.

[majormajor42]

It's been fun so far but I have some questions to improve my experience, and the experience of those in my area. I'm around NYC by the way so I really hope the community grows here. I just joined some groups a day or two ago so we'll see how that helps. haven't chatted or pinged anyone yet. which leads to question #1:

If I want to be a waze social butterfly and ping and chat and all that, preferably about traffic issues, do I have to be out and about using waze? It's like a catch-22 in that I really shouldn't/can't text people while driving my car (or motorcycle). Ideally I would be a passenger in a car or bus and have at it. How about when I'm home or at work? If I have Waze on, will there be a frozen wazer icon over my location? I might not like that if I'm home, giving away my privacy. Will I be throwing of the traffic algorithms if I'm sitting at home, playing with waze and I live next door to a freeway?

#2: along the same lines, I'm sitting at home or work and know, for a fact, that there is a traffic condition across town. I see that nobody else has reported it yet. How do I send a report and have it show up in the location of the incident and not my current location? Can I submit a report using this website logged on my computer?

#3 Here in NYC we have this professional traffic guru named Gridlock Sam. A few hours ago I saw him post a traffic report for getting to the NY Yankee game and it showed up near the stadium. I don't think he was there and it had the little twitter emblem on the icon. how did he do that? is it something that he posted on waze and got synched with twitter (that's what happens with my traffic reports now that I'm synced with twitter), or it is someting he is posting on twitter that got synched to waze?

#4 what are the stars that are in the report messages?

#5 I've seen my tracks show up in my dashboard and have even made a few minor edit in cartouche. What do the colors mean on the track itself? I'm guessing that green means great gps signal strength? yellow is fair? and red is poor? and red circles in the track, what do they mean?

#6 I see the discussions on speed cameras. what about red-light cameras? is there a different symbol for adding them to the map?

#7 do people waze while on trains or ferries? I wonder how that effects the algorithms.

I think that's all for the moment. thanks!

[majormajor42]

thank you wayne.

Been making more progress the past few days. One more question for the moment:

When I am on the main map screen and hit the "back" button on my android phone, a little menu comes up with four options. "resume manually", "resume manually in 30 seconds" , "exit", and "cancel". what exactly do those first two options mean?

[waynemcdougall]

It's been fun so far but I have some questions to improve my experience, and the experience of those in my area.

What great questions. I'll give them a shot.

If I want to be a waze social butterfly and ping and chat and all that, preferably about traffic issues, do I have to be out and about using waze? It's like a catch-22 in that I really shouldn't/can't text people while driving my car (or motorcycle). Ideally I would be a passenger in a car or bus and have at it. How about when I'm home or at work? If I have Waze on, will there be a frozen wazer icon over my location? I might not like that if I'm home, giving away my privacy. Will I be throwing of the traffic algorithms if I'm sitting at home, playing with waze and I live next door to a freeway?

No, you don't have to be out and about, but yes there will be a frozen wazer icon over your location. And yes, Waze will probably try and jump to position you on a road if one is close enough and may give out false reports of traffic holdups. Hopefully that is being worked on.

#2: along the same lines, I'm sitting at home or work and know, for a fact, that there is a traffic condition across town. I see that nobody else has reported it yet. How do I send a report and have it show up in the location of the incident and not my current location? Can I submit a report using this website logged on my computer?

Not yet, but being looked at. And see #3

#3 Here in NYC we have this professional traffic guru named Gridlock Sam. A few hours ago I saw him post a traffic report for getting to the NY Yankee game and it showed up near the stadium. I don't think he was there and it had the little twitter emblem on the icon. how did he do that? is it something that he posted on waze and got synched with twitter (that's what happens with my traffic reports now that I'm synced with twitter), or it is someting he is posting on twitter that got synched to waze?

It's posted on Twitter, with a geocoded location near the stadium. And Waze grabs it and puts it on the map. You could do that too if you faked a geocode location.

#4 what are the stars that are in the report messages?

My take on it. Legacy. There was a plan that the more you did (drove, edited maps, etc) the more stars you'd get and that would increase your powers and scope of your ability to edit. A merit ranking system. I believe it never worked out that way. I think the stars are some function of how many points, and how often you make comments, but in my opinion are almost meaningless. Perhaps a slight indicator of activity.

#5 I've seen my tracks show up in my dashboard and have even made a few minor edit in cartouche. What do the colors mean on the track itself? I'm guessing that green means great gps signal strength? yellow is fair? and red is poor? and red circles in the track, what do they mean?

Good guesses. Green - you locked on to a road. Yello, the GPS and road location on the map were different, but waze decided it was close enough. Red - Waze didn't think you were close to a road. Road may be mapped in wrong position, or GPS wasn't accurate (or both). Red circles - I've forgotten - GPS signal lost?

#6 I see the discussions on speed cameras. what about red-light cameras? is there a different symbol for adding them to the map?

Not yet. People are putting speed cameras at the intersections, with a threshold of 15 mph, so they'll always trigger. But as a careful driver, why would you want a red-light camera?

#7 do people waze while on trains or ferries? I wonder how that effects the algorithms.

Not much. It can be a pain if some novice turns on road recording on a train. At most it will slightly distort average speeds if there is a lock on a road.

Hope that helps. Do have a look at http://www.waze.com/wiki/ - some of that is covered there.
But don't assume I'm 100% right. But there's lots of great people who will leap in and correct me. And then I learn more too.

[waynemcdougall]

# Resume manually - minimize waze but keep it running in the background. To switch back to waze, click on the waze icon on your phone's desktop, and you'll be back in it right away.
# Resume in 30 seconds - Waze will be minimized for 30 seconds and then automatically come back up.
# Exit – turn off the application completely.
# Cancel – go back to Waze main screen without taking any of the above option

From http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php/User_Manual