"Ghost traffic jams"

[shirlig]

Hi everybody,
We're currently investigating all the "ghost" traffic jams which are automatically generated by the system when stopping at gas stations / parking.
To do that, it would be tremendously helpful if you could send us some recent examples of such scenarios.

I'm sure that many of you have posted about this problem before but recent examples with the following details would really help us:
1) Time (date+hour) including timezone
2) User name
3) segment id / permalink
4) If you can get a screenshot - that would be great.. (optional)
5) Any additional info which seems relevant

Please note that we need examples of ghost traffic jams caused by your driving session and not those created by others.
If you have a lead, please post it here and we'll do our best to improve this aspect

Thank you very very much
shirli

[AlanOfTheBerg]

Does this include the ghost traffic jams which have been well-documented here which occur in the middle of the night when there are no wazers driving around at all?

[gettingthere]

I am not understanding the first post. 'Ghost' traffic jam meaning what?

False, traffic jam? Ie, you are not travelling with traffic (stopped at Drive Thru, Gas station, etc), and your Waze session creates a false jam on a nearby segment? Is this the information that is being requested?

Ghost traffic jam would be as AlanOfTheBerg describes, a jam that appears and there is no Wazer (including you) in the vicinity. No Wazer = Ghost.

[fvwazing]

Yep, I think shirlig means "false positives" here. Typically caused by a mixture of keeping the car matched to the original route instead of the neighboring parking/gasstation, not recognizing that the car is paused and not just slow, and ignoring the answer to the "Are you in traffic?"-question. The ones that I coined "phantom-jams" (as in this thread or this one) are much rarer and they are definitely not "caused by your driving session".

I am flattered by that we are asked, but also puzzled - these jams are theme of 100s of threads on the forum, they can be provoked anytime, anywhere. Why ask? Just stop at a gasstation on the way to the WazeHQ and you have won a jolly day of debugging.

Sometimes, I think those "phantom-jams" reveal a sinister aspect of the algorithm - starved of data during certain quiet intervals of the day, the artificial Waze-intelligence DREAMS of jams, big jams, long jams, slow jams, dark bloody red jams...

[johnarbor]

^ lol

I don't presume to know exactly how waze makes the determination, but would it not make sense, that waze could tell the difference if a car came to a stop, moved 5 feet, stopped, moved 5 feet, stoped vs car coming to a complete stop and sitting there for 5,10,15 minutes whatever, and then continuing on it's way? It would be obvious which car was in a traffic jam, and what car driver walked away from waze when they went into the store to buy a pack of smokes.

I think it would be difficult for any GPS application to make a determination that the car has pulled off the road and is in a parking lot. I don't think GPS's are that accurate to be able to know that for sure.


What about ghost waze cars? has anyone seen those.

I was once driving along an empty country road, and saw 2 different wazers coming the opposite way. Waiting for the headlights of another car, one "passed" me on the application screen, then another approached, and "passed" me too, but never did another car come down the road.

[gettingthere]

I don't presume to know exactly how waze makes the determination, but would it not make sense, that waze could tell the difference if a car came to a stop, moved 5 feet, stopped, moved 5 feet, stoped vs car coming to a complete stop and sitting there for 5,10,15 minutes whatever, and then continuing on it's way?

Although isn't this the exact driving behavior if you are at a drive thru window at a fast food restaurant?

[dirgela]

Would be fun to know how they gonna fight those false jams, so when we have another series of bugs we know that it is caused by trying to fix this issue Actually I see not that many of those recently, maybe because the map has improved and there are more parking lots marked, maybe some changes were already quietly implemented.

[jenncard]

Yay! I get to go through my favorite drive through coffee shop, get my triple shot Americano with cream, AND leave Waze running?

Look out, Boulder. Some regular traffic jams are coming your way...

[johnarbor]

I don't presume to know exactly how waze makes the determination, but would it not make sense, that waze could tell the difference if a car came to a stop, moved 5 feet, stopped, moved 5 feet, stoped vs car coming to a complete stop and sitting there for 5,10,15 minutes whatever, and then continuing on it's way?

Although isn't this the exact driving behavior if you are at a drive thru window at a fast food restaurant?

Ya, guess you're right there. I guess the number of times I've forgotten to turn off waze, and I see it mark a segment red, then I get back on the road and am driving through a red segment at the posted speed limit always made me think there has to be a "model" or "pattern" to someone in a traffic jam vs going through a drive through.

After all, drive thru takes 3-4 minutes, then you are on your way. Even if this was remotely a possible traffic jam, does a 3 minute traffic jam really affect anyone?

Maybe the client should simply wait longer before marking a segment as jammed??



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[jenncard]

Maybe the client should simply wait longer before marking a segment as jammed??

Maybe this is what they are trying to evaluate and why they are asking for the very specific information indicated by Shirli in the OP?