I have noticed that there are frequently much longer delays on Express lanes of Rt 80 East approaching GWB then the local lanes. And the lower level of the GWB is much faster than the upper level. Does WAZE have a way of recording and/or informing drivers about this stuff? When driving east on Rt 80 it’d be nice to know that Express lane delays are worse than local BEFORE I have to make the decision as to which side of the road I’ll use.
Waze can record the difference between the Express and Local lanes on Rte 80, but there is a caveat that limits the accuracy of the data it records. Because the roads are both so close together and headed in the same direction, Waze is often unable to determine that a driver it instructed to take the Express Lanes is actually in the Local lanes and vice versa. As a result, whenever this happens, speed data collected from such a driver’s trip gets applied to the wrong roadway, and if it happens frequently enough, it can compromise the bigger picture on whether either of the 2 roadways is actually significantly faster.
It’s not necessarily a limitation of GPS itself, but rather a side effect of decisions made by Waze about both CPU usage (battery life) and data transmissions (most people’s cell phone connections these days are metered in some way) where you have to go a certain distance off course - typically about 150-200 ft before Waze tries to recalculate your position on the map. Because the dual roadways on Rtes 80, 78, 1&9, the Turnpike, and even parts of the Parkway are often closer together than that, this side effect becomes really visible with them.
I’ve found, in my experience with these roads, that as more and more speed data is collected, the Express lanes of any dual roadway will generally win out, by the slightest amount, when Waze does not have any reason to believe one roadway has a significant backup vs the other. This is typically because cars in the Local lanes tend to slow down a little bit, even if off in the right lanes, ahead of the exits they’re taking, making the local lanes look just a little bit slower than the Express lanes.
Sorry I don’t have a better response, but dual roadways are definitely a problem with the way Waze works. I guess the best advice I have for the dual roadways is to always choose the roadway that Waze directs you toward to avoid applying your speed metrics to the wrong roadway, and if enough people keep doing that, it will help straighten out the statistics over time.
Hi, PHS,
Cars slowing down in order to exit should not skew the freeway express/local timings, because Waze measures speed data on each segment separately for each possible next segment. So, if a freeway segment has 1000 drives recorded, with 100 drivers using to each exit 10, 100 skip that for exit 11, and 800 for exits 12 and beyond, there will be two separate time sets recorded – one for the segment leaving at exit 10 with 100 drives averaged, and one for the same segment continuing to the next freeway segment with 900 (the 100 going to the next exit and the 800 going further, which for this segment, are all the same, because they all transit this segment for the same next segment).
Yes, but imagine the segment immediately before an exit fork. Traffic on that segment that is about to exit will be just a little slower, on average, than non-exiting traffic, because those drivers are preparing to exit. This drags down the average speed of the entire roadway, especially if there are multiple segments approaching an exit. Also, if traffic in the right lanes gets caught up in that slow-down, yet still ends up going through (as in not exiting), it will distort the speed of through traffic in the local lanes. Again, it’s by such a small margin you barely notice it driving, but when you absolutely have to have a tiebreaker along mathematical means, it will make the difference.
Express Lanes don’t have this problem because there are no (or less) exits (don’t think of the turnpike; the cars only inner roadway is not like other express lanes because it has the same number of exits.)
As a result, Waze will favor Express lanes when available unless it knows of severe (read: not minor, not moderate) congestion, even if it is by the most minute margin.
You are correct, that exiting traffic can slow overall traffic, which would be an accurate (not misguided) recording of the speed of the segment. But during busy times, the Bergen Expressway is slow enough on both sides that the effect is negligible. During empty times, the effect is also negligible. It would probably only have significant impact during moderate traffic periods.
Also, don’t forget the effect of entering cars, which affect all traffic in teh next segment, especially if it is a short segment.
Moderate+ traffic conditions = 24/7 in NJ…
Never done 80 on the 80?