Using service roads to bypass highway traffic

[AggieJM]

Will Waze use a service/frontage road to route around traffic on the highway or interstate? I've seen a couple of instances where the highway was almost a standstill, but the frontage route was flowing normally, but Waze will not route around the traffic using the frontage road.

On Sunday as I was leaving Houston on I-45, there was a broken down semi on the right lane coming out of a construction zone that had traffic cut down to one lane. Waze was showing the slow to stopped traffic on I-45, but the navigation instructions basically drove right into it. The frontage road was flowing normally and there was an entrance ramp back to the interstate just north of the problem where traffic was opened back up.

Is this a symptom of the long route that excludes some road types? Or will it just not route only to the frontage road to bypass traffic on the highway?

[CBenson]

Waze is not designed to route of the freeway/highway and back on the same highway unless the time saved is significant. This is to prevent taking an exit and getting right back on to save a few seconds when the traffic slows on the highway. So I think waze should use the frontage road but only if it is at least several minutes faster. How much time would you save by taking the frontage road rather that the highway in your examples?

[AggieJM]

In Sunday's example, it would have been at least 5 minutes. I hit the stopped traffic when it wasn't too far from the semi. Since I was in an unfamiliar area, I wasn't sure of the frontage road layout so I stayed on the highway.

I knew there was some logic to prevent the exit/enter scenario, just wasn't sure how that affected this case.