Normally my attitude is that a map editor should have nothing to do with floods. They’re not predictable, so we shouldn’t be editing the map in advance. When a flood happens, by the time a map edit could take effect the flood would probably have disappeared. So WME is best left alone.
However, this winter there are several roads in my area which have been closed more often than not. And it seems likely that this situation will persist for some weeks yet. I know we can’t open and close the roads on the map in time with fluctuating water levels, but I’m wondering whether we wouldn’t be providing a better service if we edited the map to close some roads completely? Then at some time in the spring we would open them again.
This would of course mean that some drives in drier moments would have unnecessary detours. But at present people are being directed towards roads that we can be pretty certain are closed. And yes, I am aware that the “closure” facility on the app may occasionally help, but I wouldn’t like to rely on it.
What do other people think?
If we were to start editing the map to close roads liable to flooding, we could treat them like roadworks, with an entry on that forum and a [ROADWORKS] UR dropped from livemap.
Personally, i’m all for this, as it’s very upsetting to see hard work being wasted.
but i have “enjoyed” claiming an extra 12 points each 3 days at the moment…
Ockham Road North, Ockham
Althought i have “enjoyed” claiming an extra 12 points a week reporting them closed, i still see people trying to go down them.
We need some option but I don’t think the above suggestion would help me… the A29 exiting north out of Bognor Regis is often closed due to flooding and today closed due to a land slip. It’s on the travel news of all the local and semi-local radio stations as it’s a major road. It’s still listed on the BBC traffic webpage here. However, you never see a problem reported on it on Waze.
The road is closed from here and will be closed for the next couple of miles north.
I work just off the roundabout to the south where they’ve closed the road, the A29 exit had a road closed sign blocking it this morning, so I reported it on Waze as a road closed, yet we know from past experiences that one person marking it closed does absolutely nothing. It needs several. Maybe people hear the problem on the radio in advance so don’t drive to the closed road and hence can’t report it. Either way, it appears open on Waze and is routeable, yet I know it’s not.
This road is often closed for 2 or even 3 days due to flooding causing big divertions, but you can’t mark it closed all winter as it will re-open in a few days and like I said, it’s a major road that you can’t leave closed when it is open ok.
Should we make a time restriction on a section of road that marks it closed for the next few days? Would that cause the navigation server to re-route effective immediately or would you have to wait for a map update for it to take effect? I might try it and see.
I think part of the issue is the speed with which the map updates. Another part is the ability (or otherwise) to add time restrictions from the client or editor and how long they get updated to the livemap.
As you say, there are some of these roads that have been closed for a week and likely to stay that way for perhaps another week.
Waze therefore needs an easy way to update with issues such as this. I suspect waze HQ would come back with time restrictions being applied.
As an alernative, do you think we can propose a new way of dealing with Road Closures to Waze:
Using Current System: App AND Livemap added Map Closures within peoples editable areas, allowing operators to define a specific day where it should be reviewed/automatically cancelled. Max time 7 days, default 1?
A) - Road Closures also appear in the Waze Editor, allowing it to be cancelled early
We have a similar problem here in Berkshire which has occurred several times over the winter, and again today. Currently if I ask Waze for a route to somewhere in Reading it will try to take me down the A327 which is closed, as is pretty well every other direct route - Waze is showing none of them. The shot below is the RAC traffic app.
The road closure part of the App is a pain anyway. If you’ve driven beyond the closed road and stop to report it safely, the App does not appear to allow you to report the problem. Would a temporary closure (for a number of hours) on the map editor be a move forward?
I think the best solution would be for Waze to provide an online facility, possibly completely separate from the map editor, to allow suitable people to mark roads as temporarily closed. The crucial point is that this information would need to affect app routing immediately, not waiting for the next livemap update. Ideally, Waze would devise a way of automatically feeding this information in from traffic reports published on reputable websites.
However, pending Waze enhancing the system, which will be “soon” at best, I’d be interested to hear whether there is a consensus view from the CM’s about map editors updating the map with guesses about which roads will be closed when, and possibly posting to the roadworks forum at the same time.
There’s also the “Mega Traffic Events” system for planned closures/restrictions, which has higher visibility in the map. Not sure how quickly they can go live though - not tried it myself.
Other options include timed restrictions (requires map update) and FeedTheWaze (3rd party, instant, but doesn’t effect routing).
For now the best seems to be, via the Editor, to impose restrictions on the type of vehicles allowed (restrict to none), for a period of time (usually a few days) in both directions. This worked for a few days on a road near me. Trouble is if the road is locked by a higher level… then there’s nothing much that can be done.
