I have recently found that Waze has occasionally given me bad directions by directing me to a turn that is legally permitted, but not necessarily possible due to regular traffic on main roads. Eg: Going straight from a local street across a four lane, main road. In these instances, I don’t want to restrict the turn in WME, as it is still possible at certain times of day, but it would be great for there to be an option in the WME to say ‘avoid this turn’, but if there is no alternative route, it can still be done. I think this would greatly improve navigation for some areas/routes.
Agreed.
This is an unfortunate side effect of Waze not having a database of traffic control devices… traffic signals, flashers, etc…
As a result, Waze will frequently attempt to route me around a busy intersection (up to 2 minute delay) by making a left onto a minor street, around the corner and across or making a left onto a major arterial cross street without the benefit of a traffic signal.
You can always add a timed restriction for the turn during hours when traffic is at its heaviest.
That is permissible even though the turn is not legally restricted?
Well, the way I see it, you’re looking out for the best interest of the Wazer. One’s safety is more important than arriving as soon as possible. This is of course just a potential workaround and not what I am advising “SHOULD BE” done here… But if this area in fact is a dangerous intersection to turn at during set times of the day I don’t think disabling one turn for a few hours a day really harms the map, those who know the area still can make the turn if they wish and waze will reroute accordingly. I should note though, waze should learn how long it takes you to make a turn at this intersection. After sitting there long enough over the course of several drives, waze may just learn that sitting there waiting to turn isn’t the best route to take anyways. Either way, check with your area manager and get their thoughts before setting a restriction.
Definitely makes sense to clear with the AM first (would have to anyways since often these junctions are on L3/4 roads). My concern about allowing Waze to run it’s automated process is that is how it came up with the routing now, and me, as one driver, can sit there waiting to make that turn for 10 minutes… especially if it is not a route that I use every day, and it will be of little impact in a saturated market such as Los Angeles, and where there may only be a couple of hours a day where the left turn would be difficult/dangerous, and there is going to be less data fed into the system during those times because people familiar with the segments will avoid them.
Traffic from 8pm to 5am, and from 9am to 2pm is going to be able to make those turns safely with little delay.
Seems that it would be helpful if the routing routine were to impose a penalty on left turns… similar to how UPS and FedEx route their trucks to avoid left turns.
Where I touched on it not being a route that I use every day… that is my biggest concern with some of the routing offered by Waze when compared to Garmin/Tomtom. Local drivers know the roads, and Waze is great for them because they can make an intelligent choice on whether to follow Waze or modify their route. The out of town driver, or other person unfamiliar with the area, it may offer confusing directions, routes that may not properly connect, routes through dangerous industrial areas or bad neighborhoods… not unlike the (hopefully fixed) dead-end u-turn routing bug. Like I mentioned before, this is why I will always have my Garmin as my primary when I’m out of town. Garmin is not perfect… we’ve currently got a major bug on a freeway interchange in Orange County at I-57/SR-91, but it won’t route you off of a mH/MH into a residential area and back into another mH/MH.
You’re not alone… Option to drive the UPS-way?
And I certainly see the issues with this being hard coded.
I’m just thinking of a penalty so that routing would more prefer >Left> than >Left>Right>Left>
With the LA Map Raid this week, I have seen a few URs that beg Waze to stop suggesting routes across busy highways. Even if the user is responsible for their drive we should have a method to deter routing for safety’s sake. Simply demoting a segment by one FC is not good enough because the URs are coming from Street FC anyway, so a demotion is not possible. When creating a new road, Routing preference is an option, but it does not show up after the segment exists.
So, … +1 for this request.
Jeremy
Increasing the short detour penalty from 30 to 90 seconds will solve most of those URs.
Most of these detours are attempting to get around busy intersections.
Intersection timing is changing, and not for the better.
A few years ago, flashing don’t walk times were required to be increased by roughly 15%. Some cities still have not implemented it, the city I work for has at all but one location.
This has resulted in many of my intersections that used to run tight on a 90 second cycle needing to be increased to a 110s minimum cycle.
Now today, California released the latest MUTCD revisions that, depending on the situation, add as much as 1/2 second to yellow times.
Doesn’t sound like a lot, but that’s 1 second added for each through and left turn pair… that’s 2 seconds per cycle per intersection. If an intersection is running a 120 second cycle, that’s 30 cycles per hour, that’s a minute removed from the green time.
That’s 30-40 fewer cars per lane per hour that I can move through the intersection.
i like the idea of selecting a right turn only filter. when drying thur city. Waze would route me using only allowed Right turns and avoid the no right turn intersections and the time based if appropriate .