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navigation: Toll road vs Toll-free road

Post by tgralex
I live near toll highway and while I use it quite often, I try to use it when I really get an advantage.
Because it cost money to use it!

Here is the problem I have with Waze (and any navigation system I know)

I give you example. Yesterday I was at point A and needed to get to point B.
Waze showed it will take 17 minutes and used toll road.
When I clicked alternate roads it showed that there was a toll-free route, which was again 17 minutes.

I realize that toll-route is probably few seconds faster and that is why it comes first, but can't Waze have a little common sense: would anyone pay an extra $$ for few seconds faster route?
And I don't want to choose "avoid toll-roads" option, because I really use toll roads whenever it is really has advantage to do so! But often I find myself on that toll road unjustified, just because it is few seconds or a minute faster...

If Waze doesn't have a way to help in this problem, I would suggest to create an option that a toll-road should be chosen over a toll-free one only if it is faster by 10-15-20% or more percent and let user choose that %%.

Please let me know if anything like this is planned in future development. Hopefully soon :)
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Re: navigation: Toll road vs Toll-free road

Post by AndyPoms
If you turn on "Avoid" toll roads, only the first suggestion will be toll free, the other possible routes may included toll (and will be indicated as such with a little toll icon).
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Re: navigation: Toll road vs Toll-free road

Post by PhantomSoul
You know, a Waze competitor, shall we say ;), recently took a lot of flak for implementing such an algorithm, where it would choose an alternate free route if it determined the expected delay caused by the free route's detour to be nominal in the context of your trip. Rumor has it they have since scaled this back.

I think avoiding tolls vs not is best kept as a user-switched policy.
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Re: navigation: Toll road vs Toll-free road

Post by PhantomSoul
tgralex wrote:Well, when you choose to get somewhere, the navigation system calculates multiple routes and presents them to you in a user preferred order: Shortest, Fastest.
It means system calculates Routes(Distance, Time):
R1(D1, T1), R2(D2, T2), R3(D3, T3) and sorts them by either Distance or Time.

Now if Waze adds two more sorting options: Smart-Shortest, Smart-Fastest, it could give to toll routes some penalties during that sort. Say R2 has a toll, it will use not R2(D2, T2), but R2(D2*110%, T2*120%) and implement the same sort as it usually does.
But even that simple change will reduce number of unnecessary toll-routes usages.
As I said previously penalty % should be either set by user or depend on a cost of that toll-route.

Its hard to understand how annoying this problem is for someone who lives next to the toll-interstate (I-90) and navigation in 70% of cases tries to take you there and at least half of them are unnecessary...

>> I think avoiding tolls vs not is best kept as a user-switched policy.
System still should have ability to either restrict toll-roads or completely ignore the cost, but it better have a cost-aware smartness available.
Maybe a 3-way switch where a person can choose a smart toll-avoiding route algorithm in addition to existing unconditionally avoiding all tolls and unconditionally fastest route?

In places like northern New Jersey, many of the free alternative roads are prone to random trucks being slow to move out of red traffic signals or random traffic turning into or out of the many driveways along those roads, both of which are out of the scope of current traffic prediction systems. This makes estimating how long it actually takes to go down such roads unpredictable, and if time is of the essence, it's best to just eat the money costs of the Parkway or Turnpike.
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Re: navigation: Toll road vs Toll-free road

Post by PvilleT
I also am not getting (and have never seen) a tolled route among the suggestions when I have the app set to avoid tolls. To test, I just set a destination and three suggestions of 27, 30 and 31 minutes (none tolled). I turned off avoid tolls and got a 23 minute tolled route, along with the original 27 and 30 minute routes.
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Re: navigation: Toll road vs Toll-free road

Post by russblau
AndyPoms wrote:If you turn on "Avoid" toll roads, only the first suggestion will be toll free, the other possible routes may included toll (and will be indicated as such with a little toll icon).
I tested this by setting a destination that could be reached by a toll road. As expected, Waze suggested that route. Then I stopped nav, turned on Avoid Toll Roads, and asked for a route to the same destination. As expected, Waze gave me a non-toll route. Then I hit the Routes button as you suggested: Waze showed me three possible routes, none of which used the toll road.
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Re: navigation: Toll road vs Toll-free road

Post by tgralex
Thank you AndyPoms,
But it just reversing the issue.
I would rather use toll road if it takes me 10 minutes vs toll-free one with 25 minute duration.

I want navigation to give me a smart choice, not me making decision which road to take every time I drive.
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Re: navigation: Toll road vs Toll-free road

Post by tgralex
Well, when you choose to get somewhere, the navigation system calculates multiple routes and presents them to you in a user preferred order: Shortest, Fastest.
It means system calculates Routes(Distance, Time):
R1(D1, T1), R2(D2, T2), R3(D3, T3) and sorts them by either Distance or Time.

Now if Waze adds two more sorting options: Smart-Shortest, Smart-Fastest, it could give to toll routes some penalties during that sort. Say R2 has a toll, it will use not R2(D2, T2), but R2(D2*110%, T2*120%) and implement the same sort as it usually does.
But even that simple change will reduce number of unnecessary toll-routes usages.
As I said previously penalty % should be either set by user or depend on a cost of that toll-route.

Its hard to understand how annoying this problem is for someone who lives next to the toll-interstate (I-90) and navigation in 70% of cases tries to take you there and at least half of them are unnecessary...

>> I think avoiding tolls vs not is best kept as a user-switched policy.
System still should have ability to either restrict toll-roads or completely ignore the cost, but it better have a cost-aware smartness available.
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Re: navigation: Toll road vs Toll-free road

Post by tgralex
I wonder if anyone from Waze read this topic?
If this suggestion is recorded for development team somewhere?

Or where should I write this to be heard?
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