I have been puzzled over completely spurious traffic warnings in Waze on various totally empty streets in Oxford. At first I thought maybe these were odd glitches, or hangovers from an earlier rush hour, or something like that. Or just the odd slow-moving vehicle, maybe.
But it’s been going for weeks, on any day of the week, at any time of day. By careful observation I was able one by one to rule out all the usual explanations for this phenomenon.
And yesterday I was chatting to a cyclist whose average speed is 16mph. I told him I am slower, I work on an average of 12mph. That was a light-bulb moment: the spurious low speeds I see on Waze are always in the 12mph bracket. So, I am asking the question, are cyclists in Oxford using Waze?
How do we find out? And if so, how do we stop them?
They will be.
You can’t.
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It’s unfortunate that Waze management still seems to have this belief that Waze is only for car-based commuters, and doesn’t seem interested in adding a “cyclist/pedestrian/delivery driver/etc” mode that would allow people to continue using the satnav element of the client whilst also allowing the servers to recognise that the speed/location data being returned by their clients isn’t associated with a car and so either ignore it completely, or (as and when additional server capacity comes onstream) use it to return a different set of realtime data back to these “non-car mode clients” that is more appropriate for their needs.
Alternatively, I wonder if there’d be any merit in the servers ignoring speed/location data from client devices until the client has exceeded a certain speed threshold during each new drive?
That would rule out most of my journeys!
Yes, although maybe it could take into account the average speed for a certain route, as well as the speeds attained recently. So, on the routes I’m talking about, there would be an average speed of perhaps 28mph, and there would be wazers throughout the day attaining that speed or higher. Along comes someone doing 12mph, followed by someone else at 28mph, and you can clearly ignore the 12mph wazer on a permanent basis.
If that’s too much trouble for Waze to do, perhaps they could pop up a warning in the Oxford area saying “Waze is of no practical value whatsoever in this area, either for choosing the best route or for estimating journey times. We suggest you use Google Maps or a TomTom.”
Now I understand the cause of the frequent large number of “wrong driving direction” URs all over Oxford. Basically, Waze is no use for motorists in Oxford. This may of course be a deliberate plan by cyclists.
I’ve cleared a few over here where there are contra flow cycle lanes, but with the low use of waze here it isn’t a big problem. Would be nice to have those other road types, especially with the ‘explosion’ in cycling and the gov’ts insistence that public transport is for the greater good
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