I made a UR about these in hopes one of the level 5s around here (bear or Arlen) would see it and then perhaps enlighten me. Sadly someone I don’t know, and who didn’t have any posts on the forums simply marked it as solved and went on their way, which really upset me. Since I had asked whomever read it to PM me… I shot them a PM to ask what the heck they were doing and how they “fixed it” but I haven’t received a response from them yet, and probably never will… ANYWAYS. I’ll try to remember my note now.
Basically I was going N bound on the express lane because they had the left two lanes closed down, no big deal, except I was going to be heading up I-90 W rather than I-94 W at the split. The problem I noticed was that despite my being on the express lane, Waze was advising me to stay right. This would have been correct had I not been on the express lane, however since I was on the express lane I should have been told to stay left, then stay right, which would have correctly guided me out of the lane and then onto I-90 W.
Granted I’ve lived here forever and I only use Waze to help me “outsmart traffic” so I knew where I was going, but part of me wondered if it might be perceived as confusing to someone who isn’t familiar with the area or is a complete stranger to the area. I imagined a scenario where someone was merely listening to the audible cues while driving, and perhaps in inadvertently heading to I-94 rather than I-90. Perhaps it isn’t the largest problem, but still I can’t help but wonder if there isn’t a better perhaps more accurate way to portray the express lanes for a more fluid and accurate guidance experience?
Ah, yes, the Express lanes. To bad someone closed your UR, I’m sure Waze thought you were in the local lanes and not the express lanes. There is just enough space between the local and express lanes for Waze to know where you are. A Garmin or TomTom might be more accurate, but our cell phones aren’t. And until we get ability to set restricted turns by time, we have the express lanes set as disallowed. Once you are on it, and if Waze sees you are, then routing will work. I took the express coming out of the city and got on at Ontario. With that ramp, it swings out far enough that Waze knew I wasn’t in the reversibles.
Even with the ability to set the times of the restriction, I would assume we would have to set them for the morning inbound and outbound in the evening. When they change it for any reason, like construction, I guess we will have to play around with it.
With the lanes being so close, I don’t know if we will ever get it to work by telling you which is faster. Would be sweet if it does.
You could PM me the editor who closed it and I can tell you if I recognize them.
Ah, so Waze can distinguish if you are on the Express Lanes, provided the circumstances are right?
That’s good to hear that my case was out of the ordinary then. I’m going to assume that because I got on at the Fullerton (ish) Express ramp that the distance wasn’t enough for Waze to pick up on the fact that I was in the Express lane and not local outbound 94.
At any rate, I remember reading about the time restrictive lanes, that stuff something that the Waze staff are actively working on, or is it just something they have planned in the future with no real time frame? Would be nifty for sure, though I’m not quite sure if IDOT has a set time every day they swap them. I know it’s different on the Weekends, and even sometimes during the week. (Friday sometimes it swaps back inbound really early, not lately though, much to my chagrin).
As for my UR. I already did PM the user in question, back on Saturday. The user was Loach, doesn’t look like they are someone who checks the forums at all, ever. I haven’t received a response.
Time restricted turns is being tested right now, so it will be live soon.
Since waze routed you to the local lanes, it can’t see you went into the express till you get to a spot where it maybe a wider separation. Can also go the opposite by thinking you did go into express lanes when you didn’t. I see UR’s all the time for incorrect exit numbers. When I see their route and waze route, I see it thought they were in the express lanes.
Hrm, interesting, and this is all due to the fact that our phones just can’t provide the level of geo-positional accuracy that would people are probably assuming they receive?
Correct. Placement of phone can make a difference too. On the windshield, dash, cup holder down low, interference from a radio antenna in the windshield.
Had a friend with an Ipass that wasn’t reading tolls. Found the radio antenna was in the windshield causing the interference. He had to get license plate mounted one.
Not sure if you’ve looked in the editor yet, DanHazard, but if you turn on GPS Tracks in there, you’ll get a very clear idea of why lane guidance is such a problem with phones. Especially on high speed roads like freeways, the GPS tracks can end up being far off from the real position. Some newer phones are getting a lot better - mine can usually show my correct lane if I view my drives - but there are still inaccuracies and even if it’s good most of the time, you’ll still end up with a bad GPS datapoint sometimes that will mark you off to the side. Waze and other GPS apps do the best they can to determine where you are if there are multiple roads (or lanes) really close together, but it won’t always be entirely correct. Someday it will work, though.
Because of the diversity of phone GPS accuracy, it takes Waze about 50m before it will switch from one road to another. The reversible lanes frequently aren’t far enough away from the local lanes for Waze to make the switch. This can sometimes be forced by closing down and restarting the app. It’s a pain but about the only way I’ve seen to get the app onto the right road more quickly than just waiting for it to figure things out.
I have thought about how the time-based restrictions would be set up for the reversible lanes. I know the lanes get reversed for the rush hours but my experience is that they do not follow exact times. It would be a pain to have to deal with MPs/URs just because CDOT was slow in changing directions. Changing the restrictions in WME won’t work in real-time since I’m guessing it will require a map tile push to the routing servers which can take 24 hours or more.
