There’s a bunch of Elgin reports in the Leeds/Bradford area, seemingly legacy from past works mostly.
Then there is this one which gives a contact name, extension number, and construction instructions…
Hi Folks
Thanks for the feedback.
We are working closely with Elgin to improve the situation and your inputs are very valuable. Elgin data looks quite impressive and relevant for better service and I am sure we can overcome these initial integration issues to improve the situation.
Fej
Thank you for that reply, Fej - it’s good to know someone’s reading our feedback. 
Something to be aware of regarding these reports: Elgin collects the information from local government departments and utility companies, which means that the quality of the reports is very dependent on who supplied them. As a result, we can expect to see different styles and quality of reports around the country. Either the local sources need better guidelines on writing reports, or someone in the middle needs to rewrite them.
There are two issues that Waze can fix directly however:
- the map only shows a handful of words for the report, which often misses the important detail.
- there needs to be a way for the community to delete reports which are incorrect or out-dated.
Being able to review and close reports in the editor would be really useful…
Filtering out the reports which have expired is a must.
Seconded Tim’s thanks for the response, it really does make a difference when we know someone at HQ is aware of our concerns.
From reading the public-facing parts of the Elgin site, they talk about two different data products - the Traffic Management App and the Communications Management App. The brief descriptions provided on the site seem to suggest that the TM App would be the better choice for integration with Waze (at least in terms of generating alerts sent directly to the end users without first being filtered by editors or Waze staff) whereas the behaviour of the alerts we’re actually seeing sounds more like they’re coming via the CM App. If this is the case, could we switch to using the TM App source instead?
Though as has been suggested previously, if the Elgin data was used to generate URs in WME, rather than alerts in the app, it then wouldn’t matter so much about the variability of the data. It might still be appropriate for time-critical data to be piped directly into the app (e.g. reports of accidents), but the numerous reports of roadworks and other things that aren’t time-critical to display to the end user really should just be handled via the existing WME controls.
Waze is currently trialling “Road Closure Requests” that use data from Elgin (and TrafficMaster). They generally seem to be more useful than the feeds that goes directly to the Livemap. A plus point is that editors will be able to create closures or dismiss the report as appropriate. On the other hand, it requires an editor to do something with it, or it won’t appear to drivers.
For me, these Elgin reports make Waze virtually useless. There are now so many warnings of “roadworks” (most of which do not seem to exist, or are of no effect to traffic movement) that useful warning like congestion, hazards and so forth are obscured of throttled from the display. This would not be so bad if it were possible to configure the app not to display these reports, but that does not appear to be possible at present. Please could you make displaying these reports configurable (or just remove them!)?
UR and wazer note (special thanks to HQ for adding the user map notes into livemap ) reporting these roadworks as complete
https://www.waze.com/livemap?zoom=15&lat=51.50355&lon=-0.31757&layers=BTTTT
My area is full of them. Most of them are useless and outdated.
I’m now wondering if there’s any point showing the details of the works at all. Many of them are either too vague or too specific, and don’t indicate the impact on traffic. The reports from TrafficMaster are at least written with driver-centric information.
Perhaps Elgin reports should simply say “Roadworks here (maybe)”?
“Roadworks here/have been here/going to be here”
As I mentioned previously, the non time-critical stuff like roadworks doesn’t really need to be piped directly into the app in the first place - it’s only the accident data Elgin also provides that has some real value in reaching the user ASAP without the benefit of any editor-based sanity checking. But if Waze want to persist in chucking all of the Elgin data directly into the app, then certainly cutting out the almost entirely useless descriptive text would be something of an improvement. Updating the app to allow Elgin reports to be hidden would be even better…
This report is to be found in a UR:
Hi, Please could someone have a word with the user ‘Elgin’ as they are covering the map in South Wales & Bristol with roadworks reports that never seem to clear (many are over a month old). It would appear that this user is not reporting roadworks as they drive past as almost none of them actually have any roadworks when you get there. I suspect this is a well-meaning individual who is updating Waze from perhaps a highways agency website that lists everything under the sun, but in the process is turning the South West map into a sea of little yellow hard hats!
It’s the invasion of the Village People
Hi
Thanks for the updates.
I am in contact with Elgin and we are looking how to improve. Some items were fixed on our side (like old reports) and some items we still need to work on.
They are also receiving this information and both are working to remove irrelevant reports.
As I indicated in the Champs meeting held last week, main issue is usually constructions which we want to see how they can be flagged more easily.
Regards
Fej
There seems to have been a change made recently, as the Elgin reports are now appearing on the map as generic warning triangles instead of yellow hats. You can now tap ‘not there’ on the popup if you’re approaching one.
Also, anyone who is rank 4+ and has access to the Beta editor should now be able to view Road Closure Requests. These come from the same Elgin feed, and contain information about the closure, so that they can be applied to the map. Post feedback about these here as well. Thanks.
First of all apologies to the “user” Elgin who I’ve been quietly cursing for the past few weeks, it’s nothing personal, I just didn’t like all the outdated stuff.
It would be good if lower ranking AMs could have permission to update / edit / remove these or even just move them to the correct location on the map.
I have a couple of local instances at the moment where there are resurfacing the road and repainting 2 mini roundabouts - work is being carried out on two days only, the 28th of June and the 5th of July. As such I’d put road closures in place on the two roundabouts for these days only. However there are two permanent warnings of roadworks at a single point close to this location (for this work) that show up constantly. I’d like to move one of each to the roundabouts but with the closures setup properly I’m not really sure they are needed anyway.
https://www.waze.com/en-GB/livemap?zoom=17&lat=53.74433&lon=-1.60471
The reports in question are from 4 days ago.
The concept of using this information seems fine but it clearly needs some refinement to not only remove aged data but perhaps to only show information that’s on route rather than everything on the map?
Most have changed, but there are still the odd one here and there using the hard hat marker - does this signify anything special about these ones?
Do these behave like URs and only appear within our editable area, and if so are there any to look at in London? Not seeing anything around here at the moment, even with all the layers turned on and all scripts turned off :?
Edited to add: scratch that, a bunch have suddenly appeared after reloading the WME session…
This report https://editor-beta.waze.com/en-GB/editor/?zoom=5&lat=51.39789&lon=0.44194&mapProblem=3000440 has two problems.
Firstly it seems confused as to whether it is the on-slip or the off-slip which is to be closed.
Secondly, the length of time seems to be excessive for resurfacing a short stretch. I suspect that the intention is to close it for one or two nights only during the period, but without knowing which nights I can’t sensibly update Waze.
Have just found 2 red exclamation mark pins in WME, which give these options when opened