what’s my normal route? I’ll try to stick to that normally. I’ve learned that way, I know the road, I know it’s nuances. I trust it.
can I get out of trouble? I want options. Unless a motorway is going to save me a substantial amount of time I’d rather not take it because it’s often nearly impossible to get off the motorway if something happens. If you’re in suburbia then there’s alternate ways to take.
what’s the minimal disruption to my normal route? I don’t want to throw out the baby with the bath water. If I zip down this side road, will it get me around that accident?
how much time is going my normal way going to cost me anyway? If it’s 10% longer I might not care.
how many traffic lights / how many stop & starts are there / how many road obstacles are there (speed humps & alike)? I prefer a comfortable smooth ride than a stressful ride where I’m on my brakes half the time, wasting fuel by accelerating & decelerating all the time.
dodgem cars: I avoid routes where people drive at a mix of speeds, have lots of difficult turns with no traffic filters etc. where the probability of an accident is higher. I’d LOVE it if waze could warn me that I’m in a high accident area, or route me around those areas.
what time am I leaving? If I leave work between 5:10pm and 5:20pm, then I normally have ~35 minute drive home. 5:30pm & that turns into about 55 minutes to an hour.
The more waze can be useful to me on these preferences, the happier I’d be. At the moment it isn’t much help. It tells me to go ways I know aren’t faster, and it’s never routed me around traffic. Mind you, there’s not many users where I live yet.
Excellent app. I hope it goes ballistic. I beg all my friends to use it on a regular basis.
as an aside, I had a major laugh at the route that waze wanted me to take off the Sydney Habour bridge to get to Anzac bridge. It was routing me through the centre of the city. The route to take is simple: direct. But when I checked out the maps there was nothing I could do to fix it. Perhaps someone else had. I’ll check it out next time (I drive the route every day) and flag a problem if it still goes awry.
I’ve followed the suggested routes that take a LOT longer now a few times, but waze STILL keeps taking me the long way. Why? How many times do I need to take the slow way until waze understands?
i could be wrong but the following are personal experiences and observations:
you don’t want to keep taking the slow way, take the faster way and if it does knock time off the ETA , waze will learn it.
if it’s your preferred route , waze will learn that as well.
there is one area i drive to alot and waze thinks taking exit 137 is faster. i take 136 because it is faster, yet waze keeps wanting me to take exit 137. currently, this happens because the ETA is the same. in order for waze to get a more accurate ETA i’d have to take exit 137 and it would see that there is backed up traffic along with a long traffic light.
once that is learned, it would see exit 136 is faster.
i haven’t been taking exit 137 though so it still doesn’t see a difference no matter which exit i take.
how long till waze learns ? i dont’ know. maybe a developer can chime in here.
i would say if you have taken the longer way at least 5 times, you should be safe on taking the quicker way and waze should be able to see and learn that your way is faster (as long as the ETA is lower than the long way).
also, be sure to check the route options as well.
5 times? Gee. I have a 3 year old I have to drive home & the extra 20 - 60 minutes of driving through well known heavy traffic areas isn’t practical. It has to be a lack of data. I think waze might wonder why there a significant number of commuters avoid it’s recommendations? It certainly doesn’t learn my preferred route
As with most community things, waze needs a critical mass that may not have been reached in your area yet. Without driving that longer way even a few times, it will never know your way is quicker. Also there may be a map issue causing it. If you can grab a permalink of your route, someone can diagnose it
no map problems, but permalink is interesting. I suppose at the end of the day it’s in my interest that nobody else goes the same route as me Maybe I should keep my big trap shut…
Have you gone step-by-step through your preferred route in the editor to verify that it has continuity from beginning to end? If there’s an error in there, no amount of driving it will fix that. You have to do that in the editor.
I think were waze hasn’t hit critical mass maybe it should believe ANY data it gets (within reason) or it should recognise my preferred route and accept that (like it’s supposed to?) Still believe in & love the app.
It should yes, but in practice is a little more difficult, especially if it is so insistent on taking you another way. Preferred routes might not be considered or even learnt in situations like that. Afaik, that’s never been tested.
When you travel your preferred route, do you leave navigation on, ignoring the pleas to go a different way? That actually seems to be an important step in getting Waze to realize that your route is faster. Also, this can help you to find any possible problems on the route that are not obvious in the editor.
I realised that because I couldn’t add my home address, home wasn’t set. Now it is. Should that make a difference?
I’m pretty open minded. I’m prepared to accept that just because I tried a really busy route 3 years ago & worked out that because everyone goes that way it’s slow doesn’t mean that it’s still slow today. But my ability to test it is hampered. In a nutshell the problem is that I live close to “down town” - i.e. the city - so waze always wants to put me on major routes. But major routes are always overflowing with commuters from much further away. So you know it’s not going to be faster.
At one point in my drive I have two options. I can either branch off a major route onto a single laned road which reasonably quick so long as there’s no problem. Or I can go on dual-laned carriageway which is equally as fast but if something goes wrong you’ve got lots of options. But the way I go is totally counter-intuitive. You’re heading straight into the lion’s jaws (but you veer off just before it can bite ). I didn’t have my home location set - I do know - maybe that’ll make a difference.
Home location shouldn’t make a difference, but if you go against Waze’s navigation, a lot of times, it will be hell-bent on getting you to go a different way. Every junction you pass, it will recalculate, trying to get you to go off course. Then you’ll pass a junction and it will stop trying to recalculate and give you the proper directions. That’s the location where you have to look for issues in the editor.
If you still can’t get it to work, post the route (leave out the beginning and end if you’re concerned about privacy) and some experienced editors can take a look and try to see if something is wrong.
Give us a country, area and permalink and let us be the judge. More experienced eyes can make a world of difference If there’s any issue you can bet one of us will find it
It’s kinda fun.