Recently I’ve mapped some 2-way laneways and was wondering how to discourage waze routing via narrow laneways instead of normal streets that are close by. Is waze clever enought not to do this or is it better not to have laneways on the map at all?
I think it will learn over time by (a) observing your preferred routes and (b) finding out when people drive down the laneways that the average speed there is low.
Waze does keep average speeds and times of day on segments, and it will detour you off a major highway if it things it is quicker. More often than not it is incorrect as the side roads are nearly just as choked, but given the relatively small number of Waze users here, the data is just not available.
On Freeways, Major and Minor Highways, there is a mechanism of preventing detours. It all hinges on the name of the roads. If the name of the segment on the road you are leaving and the road you are returning to are identical and less than 500m, then waze won’t route you off. They must be identical in every respect including city and alternative names, which is one of the reasons why Major Highways and Freeways should not have a City attached to them.
https://www.waze.com/wiki/Small_Detour_Prevention_Mechanism
Oh dear :o I’ve got some Highway City deleting to do :oops:
So much to learn.
Thanks Balwag.
Just had a quick look at the link. Looks like it doesn’t have to be 100% identical as long as there is something identical in the name or alternates:
In reference to preventing routing down narrow lanes, make them Parking Lot roads. The old sections of Melbourne have lots of these in various states of use through to disrepair. They were “night cart” lanes that you really do not want a vehicle routed down.
There are lots of Lanes around Neutral bay, Cremorne and Mosman which someone has set so you cannot turn into them, but also so you cant get out of them… the navigator goes crazy when you are actually in one… i was starting to fix some of them but was wondering what the Road type ‘service road’ does to the routing? I cannot find any Wiki on it, or other conversations. Is it still better to set the really small narrow ones as ‘parking lot road’, because sometimes you need to go down them, if there is a blocked road, road work, accident, really bad traffic, or if you actually navigate to one, but in general if you just driving through to somewhere else, you don’t want to be driving down narrow little lanes…
From what I have read, Waze keeps speed for time of day for each segment. It then applies a penalty to that in the increasing order of Freeway, Major Hwy, Minor Hwy, Ramp, Primary Street, Street, Service Rd, Dirt, Parking Lot and Private Rd, so the preference is to use a Freeway First, etc. The lower 3 have such a high penalty that Waze will never route down them, unless it absolutely must. Service Road penalty is higher than Street, but a lot less than Parking Lot, and hence I would probably use a Service Rd. I hope this helps. 
There has been some chat about Service Road disappearing and all of those becoming Street automatically. It appears they both behave the same anyway.
If I were making a local decision about your lanes in Neutral Bay etc I’d make them Parking Lot roads and allow all legal turns. That would fix your routing issues and being such a high penalty Waze will not route through them.