Taxi sent the wrong way down a 1-way street

[ditchi56]

I picked up a UR here where someone travelling eastbound along Oxford Street was directed to turn right into Soho St. The northern tip of Soho St is mapped as 1-way northbound, in other words the reporter was directed the wrong way along a 1-way street.

It turned out that the reporter was in a taxi, and eventually I decided what the problem might be. My reply follows. Was I right?

Hi, thanks for getting back. I’m glad that you find Waze useful. However, I think as a taxi driver, you need to treat it’s directions with a pinch of salt. The problem with Waze for a taxi is that it doesn’t have any setting on the app for the type of vehicle. It assumes everyone is driving a private car.

The Waze map does have provision to flag routes as permitted for only some classes of vehicle, e.g. taxis but not private cars, and perhaps one day this will be useful. But at the moment, the router assumes you are driving a private car and won’t direct you along taxi (or taxi & bus) routes. So often you should be able to find a better route that Waze doesn’t know is allowed for you - the “knowledge” isn’t redundant yet

This report puzzled me for a while, since the Waze map shows Soho St as 1-way northbound at it’s Oxford St junction, and has done for some time. Yet it clearly instructed you to go south down it, which it “knows” is prohibited.

I think I’ve sussed it now, Oxford St is flagged for most of the day as buses & taxis only. But Waze thought you were driving a private car, so weren’t allowed on it. Soho St on the other hand is permitted for private cars, but only in the other direction. I think Waze was so desperate to get you off Oxford St (illegal for private cars in both directions) that it preferred Soho St (illegal for private cars in one direction only), even in the wrong direction. Remember the Waze router is a computer, and as such has no common sense whatsoever!

I don’t think there’s anything I can do about this as a map editor. Even if I could find a way of stopping Waze from turning you off at Soho St, it would still direct you down the next turn, Hanway St, which would be legal (so no way I should block it) but almost certainly not where you want to go. The only solution for proper taxi navigation on Waze is for the app to have a setting that tells it you are driving a taxi – out of my hands and not likely to happen soon. You are welcome to discuss with waze support at http://www.waze.com/support if you wish.

So I think the message is, please do keep using Waze, but use your knowledge too, and in particular totally ignore Waze when you are on a taxi-only route.

I’ll leave this report open for the moment in case you want to come back or another editor wants to add something, but eventually I’ll close it “not identified”. The only other option is “solved”, which it certainly won’t be.

Thanks once again for an interesting and challenging report!
Ian

[theMadcabbie]

Hi Iain,

You are dead right, in fact there are various other street in London and I am sure elsewhere where Buses and Taxis are allowed against the flow of traffic (Kings Road Reading springs to mind).

Until Waze offer us the option to differentiate between vehicle types we are stuck. However this will also open a small can of worms as you have bus / taxi lane which also allow Private Hire Vehicles to use them.

hope this helps