Hi…Thanks for the suggestion. Currently, I don’t believe Waze plans to get this granular with speed limits. However, there are some features coming soon that will assist a bit here…or should.
Drivers will still be (are) responsible for obeying traffic signs and paying attention to their surroundings no matter what Waze adds into the app.
I like the concept!! Not certain a time based restriction would provide sufficient warning to the driver of an impending school zone. This is particularly true when traveling a new route for the first time. I would like to see an alert icon for school zones. We have them for Red Light Camera’s, Police, Road Hazards, Construction, etc. What could be a greater hazard than children crossing the road ahead?
When the school zone is active (typically a sign with lights flashing) - the alert icon is activated by a passing wazer. Subsequent Wazer’s receive the “Watch Out - School Zone reported ahead” warning. This would be an invaluable tool and would only require the addition of a school zone icon to the report menu.
I’d just note that speed cameras are only authorized in specified locations in Maryland USA. One of these is is near schools. So many of our cameras are in school zones (the cameras are also only operational during the day on weekdays). So it would be great to be able to have time based speed limits, time based school zones, and time based cameras and be able to coordinate the warnings when they all occur together.
Many of these school zone signals and the like are becoming centrally controlled by the local DOT or city traffic departments. This is where CCP could play a nice juicy role in getting this information into the app and available to drivers and it be real-time, it be accurate, and it be useful. The more opportunities to get cities involved with CCP, the better for everyone.
I would love to see that instead of having alerts annoy folks during a non-school day, a weekend, a holiday, etc.
Coming into the discussion a little late but here is another datapoint on how complex “safety zone” speed limits can be.
Chicago is currently the only Illinois municipality to have speed cameras. The cameras are installed near schools and parks; each of which have a different version of a safety zone speed limit.
Illinois state law for “special speed limit while passing schools” indicates a 20mph limit on a school day between the hours of 7am and 4pm when school children are present and so close that a potential hazard exists because of the close proximity of the motorized traffic. The regulatory speed limit is in effect when children are not present or outside of the days/times defined as a “school day”.
The City of Chicago takes things a little farther and specifies, within a school safety zone between 7am and 4pm Monday through Friday, a 20mph limit when children are present and a 30mph limit children are not present. The regulatory speed limit is in effect when school is not in session. Chicago park safety zones, however, tend to follow a more routine time-specific schedule and do not have differing children present/not present speed limits.
While time-based speed limits - whether on road segments or on speed cameras - could help with Chicago’s park safety zones, the differing speed limits around schools whether children are present or not could not be completely defined within Waze.
Just quickly adding to this, the same is in place in the UK, with some 30 zones becoming 20’s at school opening/closing hours.
I realise the technical implementation and management of this would however be a nightmare…
I feel as though it would be similar to adding in time based turn restrictions, time based speed limits?
I think this is not so much of a “speed limit” issue as, why cant you just re route around a school unless your traveling to the school. All I keep reading is people saying I don’t think waze will make any adjustments that small… If we can post where a cop is sitting, then we can surely make school zones re routable or a less desired path. Posting where police are is the most pathetic thing ever, yet school zones are not an issue. Good grief
That, unfortunately, doesn’t help with routing, at least not in my neck of the woods.
For example, there’s a segment along my daily commute where Waze insists on routing me through, even during school hours. That’s a speed limit change from 60 km/h down to 40 km/h. Worse, it’s actually an effective 50% speed limit decrease, because drivers around here tend to drive roughly 20 km/h over the limit when the limit is 50 km/h or higher, but strictly follow the speed limit while in time-based, speed-limited school zones. And naturally, since it’s time-based, traffic in front of the zone, both directions, jams up significantly due to drivers lack of knowledge about the speed restriction, or because they forget about it.
I don’t think that implementing this in the map editor should be any more difficult than some of the other changes that have been made (it could be a simple “weekdays, between 08:00 and 15:30, speed limit restriction to 40 km/h”, which isn’t that far removed from how the existing “restrictions” pop-up appears).
There are currently no plans for time-based speed limits in school zones. Waze is exploring options for these types of areas but nothing has been set in stone.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk; please disregard any typos.
It would be nice to be able to list a lower speed during certain times of the day. For example for school zones. Would this be possible to implement in a similar fashion to the time restricted turns? Thank you.
Waze is exploring options such as these but no timeline for any kind of release or whether they will actually implement something like this. We’ll just have to wait and see.
In my experience, some school zones located on Minor and Major Highways significantly reduce the speed limit, and limit traffic flow, and should be routed around.
In one example, twice daily, on school days, a Major Highway which has its speed limit reduced from 70km/h to 40km/h is still preferred over nearby Primary Streets with permanent 60 km/h speed limits which offer both faster, and shorter routes, at these times. In this case, Waze only seems to route around the relevant segments when a traffic jam has been identified.
I understand Waze is exploring options, and may implement a permanent solution in the future. In the meantime, as a limited option, I believe something similar to the method for time-based tolls (https://wiki.waze.com/wiki/Time-based_Tolls) may provide a temporary solution. The time-based restrictions could also be limited to only operate within the school terms (available online), minus public holidays.
While I admit this is somewhat fiddly and would suggest it only be used in limited circumstances, it seems to be the best method currently available to ensure Waze considers significantly reduced speed limits when calculating routes.
I would appreciate other editor’s feedback on this topic, and I trust together we will find the best way to handle these situations.
There is no need for this. Waze knows the speed limits reduce at certain times of the days and says of the week because that is what its algorithms monitor for every segment worldwide. If Waze felt it was faster, during school zone times and based on historical segment data, it would send you off of this primary route and onto secondary routes.
If you feel this non-school zone route is faster, try it a few times and give Waze the data it may not have. Otherwise, it has the data and still sees/feels the school zone route is the fastest or comparable to the secondary route(s).
I think that this discussion fits into another thread about setting differential speed limits.