Ideas for improvement

[AlanOfTheBerg]

I agree on the annoying popup to report traffic when you just added a report on this very segment. This has been brought up recently by others. Waze should figure how to suppress that if you've just reported traffic.

On the popup alerts, the current beta has the option for "on route only" for events. They haven't completed the back-end work for this feature, so it currently gives all events, but the plan is to be able to limit the number of those popups significantly. You can turn them off entirely, which is addressed in the FAQ.

[AndyPoms]

First and most importantly, you need to refine the alert system. When I am using navigation, the app is constantly giving me alerts for roads that I am not on. Roads that I will not ever be on. Because I am using navigation the app knows where I am going. It should not alert me to traffic on a road that I won't be using. This happens all the time and it's annoying. There is no way to turn this off that I can find. The only thing I can do is set the alert to the min radius of 5 miles which sort of defeats the purpose. I'd like to know what is happening 15 or 20 miles away on MY ROUTE. There is no way to set this as far as I can tell. I feel like there used to be an option for this, but it seems to be gone.

There are two types of alerts - those along your route & those that pop-up when you are stopped. You seem to be complaining about those that happen when you are stopped. This has been discussed in several places in the forum

The alert for "Are you in traffic?"... yeah I already reported it 5 seconds ago. It should not ask me if I am in traffic if I have reported it in the last minute or so. That is just annoying. The speed limit on the road is 65, I am going 15mph and 30 seconds ago I reported I was in heavy traffic. Asking me again just makes me angry.

You reporting traffic and the "Are you in Traffic?" pop-up are two separate systems. The first only creates the pin, the second is what effects the routing engine for other users - It too creates a pin, but also turns the road segments colors based on road speed. Waze does not know the road's speed limit, only the average speed of that segment at that time of day (in 10-15 minute chunks). For example, an interstate highway with a speed limit of 65mph that drops to 35mph during rush hour won't get the "Are you in traffic?" question, and the road won't change color because it is like that every day (the routing engine knows this, and works with it, but doesn't see it as out of the ordinary). Post the normal report in this example. If it's the same highway in the middle of the day (say 11am) and average road speed is 70mph (everyone speeds, we know that) and one day users are doing 45mph at 11am, Waze will ask about traffic and then color the effected segment(s).

[dmcconachie]

Reports on your route only are on their way.

There is no duplication with the manual and automatic traffic reports. Your manual reports have zero effect on routing. They are aesthetic only. Though they do raise the chance that a slow colour will be triggered on that segment.

So if you're asked the question shortly after reporting then just say yes. Zero effect on routing but you'll add a manual traffic report which will confirm the automatic one to nearby Wazers.

[wickedlou9]

Hey there. Been using Waze for a while now ( I'm a Royalty Wazer! )and I have some ideas for how to improve it.

First and most importantly, you need to refine the alert system. When I am using navigation, the app is constantly giving me alerts for roads that I am not on. Roads that I will not ever be on. Because I am using navigation the app knows where I am going. It should not alert me to traffic on a road that I won't be using. This happens all the time and it's annoying. There is no way to turn this off that I can find. The only thing I can do is set the alert to the min radius of 5 miles which sort of defeats the purpose. I'd like to know what is happening 15 or 20 miles away on MY ROUTE. There is no way to set this as far as I can tell. I feel like there used to be an option for this, but it seems to be gone.

The alert for "Are you in traffic?"... yeah I already reported it 5 seconds ago. It should not ask me if I am in traffic if I have reported it in the last minute or so. That is just annoying. The speed limit on the road is 65, I am going 15mph and 30 seconds ago I reported I was in heavy traffic. Asking me again just makes me angry.

[wickedlou9]

Whether I am stopped or not seems to be irrelevant if navigation is active. I am in stop and go traffic a lot and don't want to be constantly peppered by irrelevant traffic information. I want to know about stuff that is happening on my route and nothing else. Users don't care about information that is meaningless to them and which they can take no action on. If I have navigation active my destination is known and my route is known. Traffic or other alerts anywhere else is just a distraction,

About the two separate systems... that seems to be a shortcoming no? If I report traffic and 30 seconds later it asks me if I am in traffic, I have two choices. I can double report the traffic which distorts things (?), or I can say "No" which seems to have the wrong impact. I suppose I can also ignore the alert but I don't know what impact that has either. That also begs the question; what does reporting a traffic jam actually do? if the 2nd system ( the one that controls routing), is unaware that I have reported anything, of what benefit is making the report? I find this confusing.

The app should be aware that I have reported traffic in the last minute or so and not really need to ask me if I am in traffic. It must already know to some extent because if I do make the 2nd report it gives me 3 points instead of 6. So I am not sure what to do. I want the system to know that there is traffic on the road ( so that other users can be routed appropriately) , but I don't want to flood the system with redundant reports ( resulting in bad routing? )