Historic Data

[chrysrobyn]

For those that really want to know....
I live in North Arvada CO. I drive to the North end of the Tech Center
Route A == Kipling south -> I70 East -> I25 South -> Belleview (50-70 minutes)
Route B == Kipling south -> I70 West -> C470 South -> 285 East -> Happy Canyon South (45-50 minutes)

Waze only gives me the choice of Route A (or a few variations on it) and tells that that Route A will only take 35 minutes. You try driving route A during rush hour and tell me that it only takes 35 minutes.......

Having never spent a minute in Denver, I wanted to see what I could about your problem. I think you're saying you drive this instead of this. Is that right?

(I wish Waze had a helpful way of permalinking a route, including waypoints.)

[sublimese]

Sure, but lets be honest here......even if their "historic" data only goes back 3 days....is waze really using it when it tells me it will take 35 minutes to get from north arvada to north tech center using I25?

The only time the drive takes 35 minutes is when there is 0 traffic and I can go 65mph (on the highway) with no slowing. 65mph with no slowing does not exist on I25 and I70 at 7:30am on a workday.

I'll take a screen shot of it tomorrow morning

[sublimese]

For those that really want to know....
I live in North Arvada CO. I drive to the North end of the Tech Center
Route A == Kipling south -> I70 East -> I25 South -> Belleview (50-70 minutes)
Route B == Kipling south -> I70 West -> C470 South -> 285 East -> Happy Canyon South (45-50 minutes)

Waze only gives me the choice of Route A (or a few variations on it) and tells that that Route A will only take 35 minutes. You try driving route A during rush hour and tell me that it only takes 35 minutes.......

Having never spent a minute in Denver, I wanted to see what I could about your problem. I think you're saying you drive this instead of this. Is that right?

(I wish Waze had a helpful way of permalinking a route, including waypoints.)

That is correct.

>>I wish Waze had a helpful way of permalinking a route, including waypoints.
me too. I wish I could tell Waze, in the morning take me on my permalink route (my house, babysitter, work), and don't suggest anything else unless there is an accident, or hazard, or something else causing out of the ordinary slowing on my permalinked route.

[sublimese]

I've had basically the same problem for last couple of days. I'm 99% convinced that my issue is not a map problem, but a routing server problem where the current/historic traffic info is not correctly taken into account. Interestingly, waze has been rerouting for me, so it is only the initial route calculation that seems to not take into account the traffic. Haven't really been able to verify that traffic is not taken into account in the initial evening route I receive, but it seems clear to me in the morning that the initial route is not taking into account the traffic data.

....

Stolen tanks?

>>it seems clear to me in the morning that the initial route is not taking into account the traffic data.

YES. EXACTLY. In the morning Waze tells me Route A will take 35 minutes. 35 minutes is the absolute best case scenario assuming 0 traffic issues, 0 accidents, 0 slow-downs, and low low low traffic volume. You know, the opposite of what is going on during rush-hour.

The 1 time I allowed Waze to take me down "Route A", 5 minutes into the drive, Waze started to try to redirect me to other routes and my 35 minute estimate balloons into 50+ minutes. The problem is that once you are 5 minutes into Route A, there is no good work-around route because everyone else on Route A is trying work around routes. The only solution is to bypass Route A all together....which Waze appears incapable of doing.

[chrysrobyn]

Route length is something which can affect the road type which Waze will prefer to use which we have no influence over. At certain distances (I cannot recall specifics at this time), Waze will try to not route on anything less than primary street except to get you to one, and off of one near the destination. Longer distances and even Primary Street isn't preferred over highway/freeway. Your list of streets looks like highway or greater for the middle sections, which, again, should be fine for routing even for longer routes.

What is the total distance for your route B?

It's looking north of 30 miles for the preferred route and 23 or below for the Waze provided route.

Looking around, 285 / Hampden Ave should be Major Highway at the maximum (at-grade intersections) (editor is down so I can't see what it really is), and given the difference of distances I would not be surprised if the routing server doesn't even consider that when a much shorter freeway is available -- I believe this is what AlanOfTheBerg is suggesting. How close to 285 do you have to get before Waze agrees to allow you to go that way? Do you actually have to get off 470?

As for Waze appearing not to consider current traffic speeds and vastly underestimating the speed of I-25, do you leave at the very beginning of rush hour? Is it possible the streets near your destination really are flowing very well when you leave but very congested by the time you get that far? It's not supposed to work like that, and I don't see it myself, but if it would explain what you see that might help isolate your problem.

[AlanOfTheBerg]

(I wish Waze had a helpful way of permalinking a route, including waypoints.)

You can in Livemap. Well, you can permalink the origin/destination, but not the route itself. That may be future functionality in the app, though, having Waze actually remember your preferred route.

http://www.waze.com/livemap/?q=denver,% ... &to_seg=-1

Looks like this:

[sublimese]

>>How close to 285 do you have to get before Waze agrees to allow you to go that way? Do you actually have to get off 470?

While driving down I70 West, Waze tries to get me to get off on Colfax, so that it can route me to 6th East, to get me over to I25. As soon as I blow by the Colfax exit, Waze finally switches to C470 to 285 as my route.

>>As for Waze appearing not to consider current traffic speeds and vastly underestimating the speed of I-25, do you leave at the very beginning of rush hour? Is it possible the streets near your destination really are flowing very well when you leave but very congested by the time you get that far? It's not supposed to work like that, and I don't see it myself, but if it would explain what you see that might help isolate your problem.
7:30am is the start of rush hour. This has led me to believe 1 of 2 things.
1) Waze is not taking historic data into account (which is why I started this thread to begin with)
or
2) Waze is not taking anything into account (history or current) on the initial route selection

I am leaning towards #2 because the time that Waze initially gives for the route is the absolute positive best case scenario, which even at 7:30 is not the reality.

[AlanOfTheBerg]

Has it been asked yet (and answered) whether your Route B shows as an alternate route in the app? I've seen odd behavior sometimes where, for whatever reason, the route Waze chooses isn't actually the fastest. (You do have "fastest" selected in the app settings, right?)

[sublimese]

(I wish Waze had a helpful way of permalinking a route, including waypoints.)

You can in Livemap. Well, you can permalink the origin/destination, but not the route itself. That may be future functionality in the app, though, having Waze actually remember your preferred route.

http://www.waze.com/livemap/?q=denver,% ... &to_seg=-1

With issues like these Waze is going to start facing an insurmountable dilemma. Trust. I am starting to lose trust in Waze's ability to route me around problems. When I am driving down my preffered route is Waze re-routing me because there is a problem on my route, or because Waze inexplicably likes an inferior route better? Once I have lost trust in Waze, its not going to come back.
Here's the thing. I am a developer myself. I understand how software works. I understand that algorithms take a while to mature. Because of this I am going to be more forgiving (case in point, I am still using it, though its more or less worthless to me right now). Now throw a non-technical newbie at this. How many times can Waze send them on the worst route before they erase the app and never look back?

[sublimese]

Has it been asked yet (and answered) whether your Route B shows as an alternate route in the app? I've seen odd behavior sometimes where, for whatever reason, the route Waze chooses isn't actually the fastest. (You do have "fastest" selected in the app settings, right?)

I do have "fastest" selected.
Route B never shows as an option until I am over 1/2 way to my destination. The initial route Waze gives me is Route A. When I tell it to show me the optional routes, it shows 3 additional routes, all of which are variations on Route A. All of which show best-case commute times, not current actuals or historical times.