My problem is that in the morning there can be massive delays as traffic backs up well on to the highway but it isn’t always picked up by Waze as the offramp is only split very late. Is there not a better way to manage this type of situation? This morning took me an extra hour and forty minutes which could have been avoided had I known early enough to take the offramp before William Nicol and travel through the suburbs.
I am a newb/amateur so any input will be appreciated!
Some problems cannot be fixed by pure mapping. Waze keeps track of how long it takes you to traverse segments and how long it takes to turn from one to another, and it keeps average stats for all the various intervals during the day. The guestimate is 10 minute averages.
Reducing the segments before the split would not really make a difference, as the stats would be different to traverse a left turn via 3 segments vs a right turn via these 3 for example, regardless of their lengths.
One of the biggest problems with situations like this is that Waze is also used by motorcyclists & of course our infamous minibus taxi drivers. Where the average joe has to wait, they simply lane-split or pass everyone on the shoulder & cut in front of the majority. This unfortunately taints ( read totally screws up ) the information for the average joe, as that subtracts major time from the normal averages. It does not look like Waze currently discards or ignores times that are way out from other averages during the same time frame.
Grayston Drive is exactly the same when coming from the north and turning west towards Sandton. 30-40 minute backups are the everyday norm at around 07h00-08h00, yet Waze still insists that this route is much faster than Marlboro exit and it’s roadworks. At least I know that I should totally ignore the recommended route and use an alternative.
Using Livemap and a route from either north or south ramps leading to William Nicol shows an estimate of 3 minutes to 8 minutes when checking routes at different times of the morning, longest times being 07h00, 07h30 and 08h00.
To be fair, Waze is generally very accurate with it’s ETA estimates outside of peak hours. I find that the time usually ‘creeps’ from an initial 40 minute estimate to a full hour drive on average when I leave home at around 06h30. If I leave before 6, the estimates are fine.
In certain situations you might unfortunately be one of the first Wazers to encounter heavier than normal traffic and act as the trigger for a warning to others, instead of getting rerouted. Most days you are the pigeon, other days you unfortunately end up being the statue.
Thanks for the explanation, I have a lot to learn but understand the potential reasons for situations/areas like this where Waze would battle to give more accurate traffic conditions and ETA estimates. You are 100% correct regarding bikers that use Waze although I am surprised that our esteemed minibus taxi drivers make use of Waze. One other aspect that potentially plays a part which I aluded to in my original post, is that due to their not being an earlier split in the lanes, Waze more than likely averages out faster traffic turning right with slower traffic turning left. So, right turners would be shown a longer than realistic ETA while left turners would be shown a shorter than realistic ETA, like happened with myself yesterday.
I guess these types of situations will always be tough to manage, I was the statue yesterday so this morning I took Rivonia instead and was at a client in under 30 minutes. I will always try my best to update conditions on route, it is the only way that we all benefit from Waze. Thanks again for the advice and explanation.