So today my commute just plain sucked. It’s the same route I take everyday to work, but I didn’t happen to check Waze before heading out and found this horrendous traffic jam (+45m to my commute). Sure, I opened up Waze once I saw the traffic jam and it did an awesome job of telling me how horrible the next 45 minutes were going to be, but I found myself wishing Waze notified me that my regular commute route was going to take MUCH longer than normal and that I should reroute to avoid the traffic jam.
So, Dear Waze Product Managers,
I’d like to request a feature update for a notification (iPhone notification, text message, etc) to create an alert if my daily commute is going to take significantly longer than normal.
Oh and by the way, I’d pay for this service on a monthly basis and so would 5 of my colleagues who just wasted almost an hour in traffic today well.
If that’s the case, the feature would kill battery life since a GPS fix would be required.
Also, the other day I was looking at Waze’s Facebook page and it seems Waze used to have a widget that stated your commute time to a set destination. I don’t know if iOS still has this feature but I know Android doesn’t.
I’m waiting to find out if that’s what is being suggested. The Android widget does exist and is being used.
One way to do this is to be able to set a destination and have the server constantly refreshing the ETA and sending a push notification at some specific time relative to that ETA. That would require a lot of new code and potentially more server infrastructure to handle the load of keeping track of everyone’s planned routes.
Waze does have calendar integration on the roadmap to investigate how they can get Waze/calendar to prompt you to leave at the correct time to travel to an appointment set in the calendar. That sounds like it could be similar to the OP request, but it’s a variation.
Alan might be thinking the same thing as me but heres my thought either way:
You want to get all the benefit of waze’s data without contributing your data? You’re basically asking to be notified of traffic jams without running waze, which means we don’t get anything back from you?
Really? How do you get the widget? Whenever I try to add a widget to my home screen, Waze isn’t an option.
A GPS fix would be needed to know your location relative to the destination’s location. I can assume that the widget only does a GPS fix every hour or half hour.
Please run Waze daily for your entire commute! Then you would have a better chance of being rerouted around the traffic vs. only starting Waze when you encounter traffic.
First, let me just say thank you for responding, it’s nice just to be heard.
If I simply ran Waze daily for my commute, it would not have worked today. My typically commute is ~15m and I have to be in the office by 9a most days, so I leave ~8:40 or so. If I would have gotten in my car and turned on Waze right away, it would have told me that I needed to re-route, but I still would have been late. The ‘alternative’ route takes about 25m and probably by would have been more like 35m today since other folks were taking it due to the traffic jam.
Instead, I would have preferred to get a notification (again, text, iPhone notification, etc) at say 8:30a saying that my typical commute looked like it was going to take much longer and that I should leave early & take an alternative route. I don’t need Waze to be running on my phone or sucking my battery via GPS for this. It should know my typical commute time and calculate the traffic reroute option on the servers.
Regarding the comment that I “want to get all the benefit of waze’s data without contributing your data”, keep in mind I said I’d be willing to pay for this service - something I’m sure the fine folks at Waze are willing to consider a benefit. Also, it wouldn’t prevent me from using Waze, in fact with a feature like that I’d probably use Waze more often!
So calendar integration isn’t going to work for this unless you had an appt. set up daily for being in the office at a certain time. Waze should then alert you to when you should leave, when that feature is added. This calendar integration might make it possible for your (similar) request. Right now, the feature request as you’ve stated isn’t even on the roadmap, but it sure sounds reasonable and right up waze’s alley for helping with daily commuting.
Question: this situation which caused you to think of this idea, was there no decent alternative route around the traffic problem which would have gotten you to work in a more reasonable amount of time?
Hmmm. I noticed the current widget has a feature where you can show a graph that presents the variability of the ETA to your destination depending on what time you leave from your current location. However, this graph is limited to what looks like 15 minutes.
Maybe this technology can be used towards your idea.
Correct, by the time I hit the traffic jam, I was already at the point of no return Basically going back to the alternative route would have taken more time than sitting in the annoying traffic.
Do you have Sigalert in your area? If so, they may have the feature that you want with their pay service. They can send emails, texts, etc. so you can better plan your route.
Otherwise maybe it’s just a way that you work the timing of your commute. For some, if you commute ranges from 30 - 45 minutes, you allow 45 minutes every day and if you make it in 30, you are early! If it takes 45 minutes when traffic is heavy on the primary route or you need to take an alternative route, you make it on time
I understand. You don’t want to leave any earlier than you have to. I sometimes do the same which makes me late!
Well, something that My Sigalert offers! But they don’t yet have a navigation application. Just a more simplistic snapshot of your routes and you need to manually decide which route to take.
Could be valuable though. Waze already can predict where you are going so they should be able to extend this functionality by pre-notifying you of issues on your regular route.
And maybe they could even charge for this additional feature and get some money coming in :!:
Basically going back to the alternative route would have taken more time than sitting in the annoying traffic.