Hi guys, a brief query if you can check any logs please.
I have a UR (12 Jul 19:31) on the A45 / A46 roundabout with Wave directing WB when the user wanted EB. This should be during the ClosureMonitor’s short, well deserved, holiday. I can’t think of another reason Waze would direct like this in the evening unless it thought the EB slip was closed.
Many thanks 
There weren’t any closures in action that day, so I can’t explain it I’m afraid. Perhaps the user knew it was closed but Waze didn’t?
Sent from my Wileyfox Swift using Tapatalk
Tim, unless you’ve already seen it you may be interested in Traffic Scotland’s data feed page:
There are currently night closures on the A46 between Coventry & Warwick, both directions but separate areas. Nothing shown in Waze & difficult to understand the HE website as I’m currently mobile. Any easier way to check?
Example of several on HE site, I think:
Unfortunately the Monitor wasn’t getting updates from HE last night. I’m waiting for their IT to turn it off-and-on again.
Just out of interest I drove down the M6 on Sunday and I could not see the closure of the Aston Expressway on the app. Now it is due to be closed a few more weekends is there a closure in place for this?
Sent while out and about either for work or personal reasons.
If the A38(M) is closed over the weekend, then we will close it when Highways says its closed.
Haven’t actually seen the closure monitor in action (whilst driving) until today, but it was certainly on the ball this afternoon.
I know I said it at the conference, but great work Tim.
Good Morning all
Automatic closures being put in place with my area seem to be continously wrong.
Example
M4 Junction 11 to Junction 13 West was shown as closed overnight however the correct closure was J11 to J12 westbound.
In the last few weeks I have found these errors most nights.
Whoever is putting these closures in place is making waze look bad… I have had comments from users who tell me they don’t trust the information they see when it comes to closures.
Please advise…
The closure info is coming directly from TrafficEngland. We do sometimes get slight timing issues with a difference between the published closure and the cones being moved into place, but it’s usually very reliable.
The one last night is peculiar as although the previous night’s closure was indeed J11-J12, they explicitly issued an change to extend it to J13 for last night at 21:02. Here’s the extract from the logs:
…and then at 22:01:01 it changed back again to the shorter section, but seemed to have failed to do it properly. I’ve cleared the data for this section, so it should be handled correctly next time.
Thank you for your feedback. If you can send me specific examples where the closures have been incorrect, I can investigate further. We do also monitor for any URs raised during the closures.
Prime example… again this evening the M4 J12 to J13 is open yet it’s closed on Waze.
What Mark is saying is confirmed by www.trafficengland.com/traffic-report
I’ve "force end"ed #941040 (J11-J13) & “unignored” #966836 (J11-J12).
Ian
I sent the following tweet to them at 21.30ish last night…
@HighwaysEngland please look at ref 3975174 - M4 W J11 to J13. Showing as a full closure yet the last 3 nights it’s only been j11 to j12
No surprise… No reply
A minor thing for people monitoring the Closure Monitor to be aware of …
When Highways England send through two closures for overlapping stretches of road (which will cause Monitor to fail with one of them), don’t assume that the first to arrive is correct and the second is wrong. If one of them is a regular closure [indicated by square brackets] and the other is a 1-off - no brackets - the odds are the 1-off is the correct one.
But do try to check with other sources, I find the motorway overhead signs (see example in previous post) are best. Go to trafficengland.com/traffic-report and don’t forget to check the “roadside message signs” box. But of course this only works for motorway mainline and motorway exit slip closures.
Ian
We do seem to be having recurring problems with the information we get for the M3 and the M4. I’m not sure how best to deal with this without having to manually double-check them all by hand…
Unfortunately Tim I am sorry, I think at this time it’s the only option. The volume of errors in both these areas is high.
However this doesn’t appear to help on the M4 - the amount of time there is a closure but no overhead signs are on indicating this is frustrating. Equally we have signs stating “queue ahead” which stay illuminated for weeks at a time.
My best guess is that the HA are aware of these issues with overhead signs but probably don’t plan to address these until the upgrade to Smart Motorway is taking place.
The feedback I am getting from users is :-
a: They don’t believe Waze when it comes to closures
b: They don’t trust the information being provided by the HA
We can address A, but not B.
It’s going to be difficult to address A when the only information we can get is from HA… :roll:
Can you suggest a better source of information? BBC closed their traffic website today.
The best way for users on the road to give direct feedback to the people monitoring the monitor is to comment directly on the closures, or submit update requests. Comments are better for responding in real-time, while URs will linger after the closure has ended.
Oh, and there’s that feature where Waze will temporarily reopen closures when it sees users driving through them.
Edit: I think I’ve found a way to identify “Unconfirmed” closures, and will filter them out…
Hopefully this will result in more accurate closures going forwards.
And it successfully filtered out both the “dodgy” closures I was keeping an eye on. Reluctant to draw a firm conclusion after one night, but looks as we may finally be reaching the situation where 98% (*) of closures recorded on Waze actually exist. 
We’ll still have problems around the edges of the timing - inevitably since you can’t physically close or open 10 miles of road in the same minute.
(*) I’ll settle for 98%, HE are bound to make the odd mistake.
The only problem I see with this is that a lot of these closures are 10pm onwards - and this means there is a lot less of us online and able to respond to these issues.
I have also noticed that the HA appear quite often to put these closures in place on Waze before the actual time of the closure - I wonder if they see this as a way of trying to reduce traffic flow prior to the closure actually being in force.
Lastly I see various of you mentioning ways of seeing the data incoming from the HA - where do I look to check this data or is this a LV5 only ??? sorry I am still lowly Lv4 :oops: