I received this PM from a user in DC. He’s going from Alexandria to Chantilly and instead of telling him to stay on 66 the whole way, Waze is actually having him take the Toll Road Airport Only through the Airport and South on 28!
Any ideas?
I asked him for more info as to the time of day – I’m wondering if 66 West is THAT backed up that Waze thinks this illegal detour would actually be faster!!!
Message follows below…hivemind, have at it!
I’m not sure where to pose my question but I’ll try you since you are listed as the area manager for the region around the 66 - Dulles Toll road interchange.
So - if I start navigation from Alexandria (I live in Old Town) with a destination in Chantilly (near the Rt 50/ Rt 28 interchange) one of the routes that Waze suggests is to take 66 to the Dulles Toll rd to 28 then south to the Rt 50 area. I don’t understand why it doesn’t route me straight out 66. If I select no toll roads it has suggested that I illegally take the Access road to Dulles Airport, go through the Airport and then south on 28!
If I commit to 66 then at some point - I’m not sure exactly when - it will suggest staying on 66 and not taking the toll road as the preferred route but this should be fixed.
Thanks, any help in directing this the right way would be appreciated.
It was likely directing them out the Dulles access road, which will fly compared to any other road during rush hour. But it’s not legal to take that unless you’re going to the airport. In the past, I severed all entrances and exits to the airport property with a small segment of parking lot to prevent any routing through the airport. However, it looks strange to see the freeway suddenly turn into a parking lot, so a well meaning editor took those out a while back. If others agree that a parking lot segment is the best solution, then it should be added by high level editor and locked to make sure it doesn’t get undone in the future.
These are the segments that I would have changed to include a small parking lot segment. Ariane Way on the north and a single ramp segment from the Greenway and 28N are the only segments that remain, which means that anyone just to the north likely gets routed around to 28 instead of taking this back entrance, and anyone from the south is probably getting directed to pass the airport and take a U-turn. I’m also not clear on why there are several street segments instead of ramp segments on the south side of the access road.
The only time I try it is in the morning. I’m certain it’s not because of traffic for several reasons - first the normal delays on 66 westbound in the morning are between Glebe Rd and the Toll Road. I’ve also checked with Apple Maps, Google Maps, and Scout by Telenav (all on an iPhone) and generally one of the routes they show at the same time is to take 66 all the way. That makes me think there’s some kind of problem with Waze/the underlying data in the map.
Thanks for checking it out. I would like it “fixed” as my two main routes to work are around the beltway from Rt1 to 66W and out to 28 or up the GWP/Rt 1 to 66 and all the way out to 28. I find Waze’s traffic/time estimates to be great and it really makes the commute better to have confidence in the travel time/route.
I’ve driven the Toll Road many times and am well aware of the operations. I agree that parking lot segments would be useful in preventing this, and perhaps you could have someone lock at Level 5?
I’ve invited the user to this thread also to see if he has more info to share.
I would dismiss this as being due to traffic just because Apple, Google and Telenav don’t route this way. Waze is better at finding ways to avoid traffic. On the other hand as this is an illegal route, I think its fair to say there is some kind of problem with waze and its data.
I this case you could probably use private roads rather than parking lot roads. They both have similar routing penalties and I don’t think private roads suppress the traffic reporting, which could be useful here. But I agree that putting a private road or parking lot road is every route through the airport is warranted to prevent routing through the airport.
Thanks to you all for taking a look at this. To ensure clarity here’s where I’m at -
In the morning I start Waze to navigate to work (I’m roughly at 300 North Royal Street in Alexandria, VA and I commute to around Conference Center Dr, Chantilly, VA). Of the two routes that Waze usually suggests one takes the Capital Beltway from Rt 1 in Alexandria to 66W and then 66W to 28N and one takes Rt1 N to 66W to the Dulles Toll Rd to 28S. It does not route me out 66W the entire way to Rt 28N. You can try this on the Waze website and see the two routes - and it’s clear there is no traffic reason for this to happen. I’ve uploaded a screen shot from this morning for you to see - it should be obvious that a route straight out 66W would be better than going the toll road.
If I select no tolls (in the iOS app - which is updated and running on an 4S with the latest iOS) it will route me out the Access road through the Airport and then down 28S.
If I check route recommendations with Google Maps, Apple Maps, or Scout by TeleNav they all suggest at least one route out 66W all the way. None suggest taking the Dulles Toll Road to 28.
If you need any other information or tests let me know. I’m glad to help.
This is an interesting problem. I know the Chantilly area and I’ve taken the Dulles Toll Road (note there IS a difference between the Toll Road and the Access Road) back there from the Falls Church area to avoid I-66 delays.
So, I’m confident that waze is working as we’ve programmed it to.
The Dulles Access Road is another special case highway in NOVA like the Express Lanes. It would be nice if you could program the Access Road so that it only is chosen as a routing option IFF (if and only if) the user is going TO or FROM the airport. I doubt that is possible based on what I’ve seen with waze.
Since it acts like a private road (it is owned by the airport, after all), maybe making it a private road at Level 5 will cure the problem and still allow it to show/provide traffic info.
It’s not necessary to make the entire thing a private road, just a section of every path into and out of the airport (really, all you’d need is to cover every path in one direction, but there is at least one bidrectional segment that means you have to go both ways). The private road results in a high enough routing penalty that traffic is never directed through the airport unless there is no other way to your destination, which should only happen if your destination is the airport itself. The high level editor and locked segments are needed to ensure that someone else doesn’t misunderstand why we’re doing this and change the segments back into ramps and freeways.
I agree with bmitch. Making the entire road a private road may cause it to be culled from routes as waze looks basically only at highways when far enough from the ends of the route. I agree that a section of private road for every path into (or into and out of the airport) should prevent routing though the airport.
As an update - I’m not sure where you are on the suggested changes but yesterday afternoon I was checking a route from Crystal City to Chantilly using the iOS app with it set to avoid toll roads and one of the routes was still to go out the access road and through the airport and then onto Rt 28 south … so it’s still a problem …
And the inexplicable routing out the toll road instead of staying on 66 is still there and still inexplicable …
I just added the private road segments in and locked them to my level (L3). Hopefully anyone at that level will be kind enough to ask why it’s there before undoing it.
Thanks Mike, I was hoping you’d give it a lock bump. My logic is that if any way out of the airport doesn’t go through a private segment, then all routes from people navigating home from the airport will go out that way. So unless we want to route everyone at the airport up the Greenway when they could go out the Access Road, I think we need that segment, too.
When I first considered doing this, I was only going to do it with segments in one direction, but the two way segment going out the north of the parking lots made it so both directions were needed. I also considered putting the private segments in the airport, but with U-turns, parking lots, etc, there were too many possibilities for routing to do something strange. But this was also when parking lots themselves needed to have streets internally because the routing algorithm counted every segment instead of only the transitions.
Now I know why you were confused. Another L3 had already gone through and removed the segments I made on the Access road and other ramps. If you could relock these to L5 that might avoid the issue.
I too was thinking that only segments leaving the airport needed to have a section of private. Then if you start routing at the airport you have to travel over a private road segment but that private road segment would prevent routing through the airport. So an equal penalty for every route starting at the airport and a prohibitive penalty for routing through the airport. That doesn’t need the segments on the inbound roads and ramps. What am I missing or misunderstanding?
These segments are disconnected due to a security gate so routing won’t go that way. And the segments just north of there are already private roads so they’ll be avoided as well.
If I recall correctly there were some UR’s that popped up because of some funky routing from 28N into the airport. I pointed the editor at the private road segments and said that they were the likely culprit, this section of ramp specifically so their disappearance is at least in part my fault. Why do you think that the ramp from 28/greenway into the airport needs a private segment?
I think this is an all or nothing fix. If we only make it work for exit routes, then entrance routes will avoid that north entrance. I don’t know enough about the north side of the airport, but I’m not sure the disconnected segments are valid. I suspect that gate is there because you’re entering the long term parking complex and they don’t want people going in or out without paying for parking. As best I can tell from the satellite view, this is a valid entrance/exit from the airport.
When I looked at some of those ramp segments today, they were disconnected (but you had to zoom way in to see it), so nothing was going to route through them. For the 28/greenway, I think this needs to be a solution that’s applied to every entrance and exit, otherwise Waze will start navigating people over the one route that doesn’t have a private segment embedded. Or am I missing something?
So this is where everybody is. Sorry I’m late to the party. (Last time I visited here it was dead. I guess I ignored one message about a new post and never got notified again that there were things going on here.)
First, I believe that I was the one that initially removed your private roads. Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to ruin your master plan. Won’t happen again.
For what it’s worth I was the one who, many many months ago, changed most of the roads on the airport property to parking lot roads (and changed them back a few weeks ago after someone else came through and made them something else). Most of them were legitimate parking lots, but others, like Saarinen Circle, I turned into parking lot roads so that I’d stop getting traffic notifications from them, not to mention they made a mess in the client.
As it stands it looks like you all have things well in hand, so I’ll do my best to stay out of the way. Please let me know how I can help, now and in the future.
I’ll also make sure I look more closely at the Washington D.C. forums, to both avoid this in the future and to make sure I’m working more closely with others in the community.
