How does Waze know when traffic has cleared up?

by **AggieJM** » Thu Oct 04, 2012 3:25 pm

What's the threshold for when Waze will ask the user if they are in traffic? I've seen this pop-up a couple of times when I have been completely stopped on the highway, but never when running in slow traffic.

For example, I hit a stretch of road yesterday that is a 70mph freeway, but it was moving at 15mph. There were no traffic indicators on the road, but I know there were other Wazers on the road at that time. It also never asked me if I were in traffic. I know you can report traffic manually, just wondering how many people actually make that manual report.

by **benjaminmeyer2013** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 3:15 am

Traffic reports have a fade time. If you report heavy traffic, it will last for a while and disappear. If someone likes the report, it will last longer. This is how all reports work.

by **bigbear3764** » Thu Oct 04, 2012 5:13 pm

I don't think you would get the prompt for slow traffic if it is slow every day at the same time. Waze would view that as normal flow.

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by **CBenson** » Wed Oct 03, 2012 11:38 pm

I believe that the heavy traffic indication times out if it is not confirmed or negated by additional drives. I think the best way to combat the issue is to get more wazers in your area. The more data waze has the better it works.

by **CBenson** » Thu Oct 04, 2012 4:21 pm

I don't know, but I frequently get the prompt when I'm moving in slow traffic.

by **CBenson** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 11:12 am

Yes, but waze routing is based on the automatic traffic data (those that color the road), not the manual reports that last for awhile and disappear.

by **CBenson** » Thu Jan 03, 2013 1:58 pm

Well there sort of is. If you drive at speed on the road, waze will see that the road is clear.

by **MDesigner** » Wed Oct 03, 2012 3:09 pm

Here's a question I've been pondering over:

Let's say a few people are driving down the street, crawling at 5mph. Waze notices this and marks that street as heavily trafficked. So now Wazers avoid it or are rerouted around that stretch. If that's true, and no one ever drives it.. how does Waze know if traffic has cleared up or not?

Case in point: my wife and I were driving, and saw one particular stretch was very slow moving, according to Waze. We decided to ignore it, and guess what: the street was totally fine.

My issue with Waze is that it sometimes has me taking routes with tons of turns in them, avoiding traffic that might not even be there. How do we combat this issue?

by **Trunks30** » Thu Oct 11, 2012 6:46 pm

bigbear3764 wrote:I don't think you would get the prompt for slow traffic if it is slow every day at the same time. Waze would view that as normal flow.

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If this is the case then someone might want to think about reprogramming the roads code. Because the motto of was is outsmarting Traffic, well if waze isn't deeming 15mph on a 70mph road heavy traffic, then how is that outsmarting traffic?

Either way I don't think this is the case, i think the settings on the app just need to be tweaked a little bit more so that it asks you more often. But regardless of whether or not it asks you if there is heavy traffic, once multiple people's phones on that road have automatically reported the average speed, the road should turn the necessary color and post the average speed like I see all the time around here.

userscripts.org · by **Twister_UK** » Sun Jan 20, 2013 11:55 am

True, but as the OP points out, it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation - if you avoid a road because it appears to be jammed up, you won't be in a position to submit that "all-clear" data. This isn't a problem unique to Waze though - the crowd-sourced data used on parts of Google Maps also suffers from this problem - and even with roadside monitoring the data can appear incorrect in certain situations (e.g. a road closure leading to zero traffic along a stretch of monitored road, which then appears to be free flowing...)

The problem is then how long you allow historical data to remain in use before assuming it's no longer valid. Time it out too quickly and you risk routing people straight into a still-present jam, which would be annoying. Time it out too slowly and you risk sending people off down less optimal routes to avoid a now non-existent jam. This is probably less annoying, as unless you know the jam is no longer present then you'd still think Waze was doing its job correctly, although if the route you've been asked to follow is a bit tricky to drive then you might be cursing Waze anyway by the time you've regained your original route...