Road Closure discussion thread

by **foxitrot** » Thu Mar 14, 2013 6:13 am

Could please someone post a client screenshot of a successfully blocked road (if it is visually marked at all), or point me to one?

by **foxitrot** » Thu Mar 14, 2013 6:28 am

Thanks.
Just... is it your view of the segment after reporting its closure, or does everyone see the closure this way after it being accepted by the servers?

by **fvwazing** » Thu Feb 28, 2013 1:47 am

If workings are as described, we will need at least 6 reporting Wazers to shut down a typical stretch of highway.

Consider this situation - road blocked at "X".

: step2.png (109.43 KiB) Viewed 1301 times

Wazers on the blue track will report THE NEXT SEGMENT closed. As soon as that block works, Wazers coming from the same direction will be guided off the highway ONE EXIT TOO EARLY and into the roadblock - over the green track. The density of loose Wazers driving around and reporting the entry-ramp closed is far less than those on the highway - per definition, almost.

It remains to be seen how many Wazers will find the time to report AND do it right - I estimate it is far less than 100% unless they have a Waze-enthousiast as a passenger.

by **fvwazing** » Fri Mar 01, 2013 9:36 am

Ppl, the previous post was not meant to END discussions, but to IGNITE them! I have seen traffic-jams with roadblocks over the past months that had dozens of Wazers involved in them and where enough critical mass would have been to make the described scheme work out. However... we have roadblocks (for short periods) every day, and my critique is that this scheme is not sensitive enough to catch most of those.

Any real-life experience collected yet?

by **fvwazing** » Fri Mar 01, 2013 2:40 pm

Well, today I had the chance to witness a situation develop on a freeway near me. A stretch of freeway was closed in both directions because of a big fire - the smoke created dangerous situations. It started almost 5 hours ago, and it is not over yet. All the traffic jams around it were signalized by the dozens of Wazers that were routed into the area. Yes, DOZENS. From n00bs to royalty - at no time the freeway was signaled closed by Waze. Not visibly marked, and not avoided by the routing. The Wazers stuck in the jams may have had opportunity to report as the traffic jams slowed down to 5-6kmh.

Total failure. Assuming that the road-blocking by itself technically works as advertised: we need a lot of education for this feature (and a lot of patience).

...and the misery goes into its 6th hour, with the fridayafternoon-jams expected anytime soon (this is just the prelude).
Irrespective of the continuing roadblock, WHY does Waze send me into a 40 minute jam, without as much as blinking?

by **fvwazing** » Fri Mar 01, 2013 4:41 pm

The route with the jam is presented when I plan the route from a 50km/30min distance. When I plan from a location closer to the "disaster area" I do get a better alternative (20min gain) presented 1st. I have no idea which alternative would have won if I really moved there but the sheer number of Wazers NOT following the faster alternative but sheepishly queuing up suggests to me that not all/very few of them do get the faster alternative. Anyway, situation has relaxed a short time after my last screenshot so I can not investigate further.

by **fvwazing** » Sun Mar 03, 2013 11:11 am

I had a second look at my example, and I noticed that traffic was reported (dark red line) on the stretches of freeway between off-ramp and on-ramp. These are the exact stretches that would be expected to receive a closure-report. This is what may have happened: someone reports this stretch between the off-ramp and on-ramp closed but before a second (or third?) closure-report comes in to confirm that and make it valid another Wazer comes up, with the routing still over the freeway. As this other Wazer diverts from the freeway and lines up in the jam on the off-ramp his position STAYS LOCKED on the freeway, thus creating a jam there as well as obliterating the closure-report. No chance that enough closure-reports come together to confirm the closure!

by **fvwazing** » Sun Mar 03, 2013 5:47 pm

Yup, if it is clear 100% from the drivingpattern (going left or right) that you cannot have been on the freeway the jam should not get reported or even get revoked. And the stickyness should be related to the actual GPSaccuracy (which can be as good as 7m). These are cuckold issues that, by never addressing, now prevent further development. (Don't get me started!)

by **fvwazing** » Sun Mar 03, 2013 9:23 pm

It wasn't the case in my example, but I just remind that the practice of inserting a short (15m) segment in a freeway as means of a "wayfinder" segment or to force directions is not compatible with reporting closures as it works now. [sorryhavenolinkathand]
If it stays like this we will have find different workarounds for those.

by **fvwazing** » Sun Mar 03, 2013 9:45 pm

Yeah, BEFORE a split that is. But I must admit I will have to check that hypothesis, if true it snaps everywhere you have extraneous nodes - every basemap has millions and it would be a very big oversight if that meant you cannot "reach" the next split in the road.