Rat runs in Cork City

Hi folks,

I've started seeing a few wrong direction reports in Cork City relating to rat-runs around light controlled junctions taking drivers down some very narrow & residential streets. I noticed that there is an "unfavored" routing option when creating a new road, but it's greyed out. It would seem to be an ideal solution for this kind of situation. Is this option likely to be made available or is it restricted to higher level editors?

Hi Diarmuid,

I've started seeing a few wrong direction reports in Cork City relating to rat-runs around light controlled junctions taking drivers down some very narrow & residential streets.

Hypothetically, Waze should work out that these very narrow streets are very slow and avoid them, but they probably don't get enough through traffic for this.

What I've done in a few situations (just a couple) is set the road type to 'private road'. I've only done this for short and *very* narrow streets, where it might sometimes be impossible to drive through anyway. A narrow alleyway, for example, might have cars parked in it, and might also have skips or large rubbish bins too.

Here's one example: Old Abbey St: https://www.waze.com/editor/?env=row&lo ... =148528987

I think this approach should be used sparingly, but it does work. People whose destinations are on the private road will still get routed to them, but other users won't get routed through these roads.

I noticed that there is an "unfavored" routing option when creating a new road, but it's greyed out. It would seem to be an ideal solution for this kind of situation. Is this option likely to be made available or is it restricted to higher level editors?

This is a new feature, but I don't think it's been turned on yet. It's also visible in the beta editor, but I don't think it has any effect there yet. I don't know whether it'll be restricted to higher-level editors or not. I guess we'll have to wait for a few weeks until it's turned on to find out.

++David \ davidg666

Hi David,

I've done that, thanks. I had considered it before but was reluctant to change streets to private roads, however in the two instances I've opted to use it they are little more than alleys so it should work.

I presume the option to disfavour routing is to appease the Californian secondary route residents who are plagued with traffic since Waze took off!

'morning Diarmuid

I've done that, thanks. I had considered it before but was reluctant to change streets to private roads, however in the two instances I've opted to use it they are little more than alleys so it should work.

Yes, I'm reluctant to use it too, since private roads render a little differently in the map. I suppose that reflects our wish for them to be less prominent...

I presume the option to disfavour routing is to appease the Californian secondary route residents who are plagued with traffic since Waze took off!

Hoho. I'm curious to see how well it works too; I imagine that it'll be more useful for telling Waze to favour important roads that have a lesser road type for some reason or other. I also wonder if it'll be as good as the private road trick for stopping traffic from being routed down tiny alleyways.

I think our US colleagues use the private road type or even the parking lot road type for narrow alley ways (since many of their cities have a lot of them) to stop people being routed down them.

++David \ davidg666

It is common practice to use Private Roads for alleyways that shouldn't be used for routing, and it works very well. Parking Lot Roads and Dirt Trails can also be used to the same effect.

It won't be possible to 'unfavour' a Street, as Street is the lowest type of road that is considered for normal routing.

Another option you can employ is the vehicle restrictions, although these are less obvious to other editors and are overkill for what is needed.