Recently in Uxbridge Waze directed me to turn or proceed to a road that was called “xxx road buses only”. Obviously I didn’t / couldn’t but drove all the way round the town centre instead by guesswork. Rather than plunge in and try to fix the map I thought I’d check here whether there is some special reason that someone has hacked the road name and appended “buses only” to it rather than use the restriction feature. Money-raising scheme by the local council, perhaps?
Waze directed me along it because that was the only way to get to my destination
The “buses only” is appended to the street name so that when 1) above happens, drivers (if they are listening attentively and hear it in time and react quickly enough when there’s a queue of buses charging at them from behind) know not to actually drive down it.
Is this the best solution? Can’t immediately see an alternative other than a hack like changing the segment to pedestrian only, or something. Why don’t the restrictions actually restrict?
Well in that case we would expect Waze to route you down that segment. The only way to prevent it from happening ever would be to disconnect it entirely from the roadwork, which might not be ideal for other reasons.
I’m not convinced that the (Buses only) suffix is required.
I see. I’m not sure why Waze would route down a restricted segment rather than just take you to the nearest point. I mean, it wouldn’t (presumably) route you down something else you can’t drive along, like a railway or walking trail. Why would a restricted segment be treated any differently? It’s just as undriveable.
My understanding is that if it is connected to the main road network then it is drivable. Vehicle restrictions, one way roads, turn restrictions, walking trails etc are only penalties that make it less likely that Waze will pick the route. Waze will pick the route with the lowest penalty that gets closest to your destination which is is why walking trails, stairways, broadwalks etc should never be connected to the road network.
Parts of Uxbridge town centre are private, restricted and one way, being simplistic that is 3 penalties (in practice the penalties may not be equal), Waze can route you there with only two penalties so it will avoid taking you the wrong way down the private, restricted street. :shock:
To prevent routing in the town centre I think you would have to disconnect the roads and preferably make them footpaths or broadwalks BUT that in my opinion would not be correct as van drivers use Waze and they are permitted access at certain times therefore it is likely it would generate MP’s.
My tip is after setting up a route to a town centre location do another search for car parks, in my experience do not accept the default results but change to the Google results and display on map, then you can select the nearest car park.
Ah, that sounds useful. But how about Waze automatically pops up “your destination is in a restricted (/ private / whatever) route, would you like to navigate to the nearest car park instead?”. We can dream…
