dmcconachie wrote:Use navigation and stop making the decision yourself! This isn't Google Maps.

Being able to see which segments Waze knows about the traffic conditions on and which it doesn't let's the user decide if the navigation should be trusted.

AlanOfTheBerg wrote:

mikeholczer wrote:

dmcconachie wrote:Use navigation and stop making the decision yourself! This isn't Google Maps.

Being able to see which segments Waze knows about the traffic conditions on and which it doesn't let's the user decide if the navigation should be trusted.

Just because a road is red and traveling 14mph doesn't mean it isn't the best routing option. So, just because a nav system sends you there doesn't mean it shouldn't be trusted.

That's true, but if Waze doesn't have information about every road I can't know that it is. I just want to be able to know what Wase doesn't know.

Waze handles that kind of reporting in real time, unrelated to the "are you stopped in traffic" questions.

If a 55 mph road usually sees traffic flowing at 60+ mph most of the day, but everyday it slows to 35 mph at the same time, Waze will do two things:
1.) It WON'T ask if you are stuck in traffic
2.) It WON'T draw a line on the map showing traffic

So that seems to be what you are asking for. Waze just needs enough historical data to be sure that the slow down is "normal" for the time period (in 10 minute slices).

Note: quite a few Wazers actually hate this method and want to know everytime a road is flowing slower than its all-day average. Personally I like Waze to hide "normal" traffic otherwise every single road will be red at rush hour in most major metro areas

AlanOfTheBerg wrote:Speed limits are only a nice-to-have feature. Waze works with real traffic data, so regardless of what a segment's speed limit may be, Waze works off of what the limit really is at any given time of day. I also would seriously hate to see every single segment on the entire map colored mostly green, with sprinklings of red, orange and yellow. It would be a horrible mess and would be pointless. And actual speed relative to speed limit is a useless data point. What is useful and actionable data, however is actual speed relative to expected speed that time of day.

I'm not sure I agree with this. I can see the argument and it's not without validity but traffic is traffic, even if it's typical for that road at that time of day. If I don't normally travel a road and I see that it's green, I have no expectation that there is "traffic" on that road. Even if I travel the road every day, I would like to know how bad the traffic is.

I drive the same route, pretty much, every day to and from work. It's 50 miles each way. I have two main choices to get to and from work. One is Route 295 and the other is the NJ Turn Pike. 295 is a little shorter but they are both almost the same. the TP is a toll road, 295 is not. The traffic can really vary on the best route ( 295) quite significantly. I don't know what waze thinks is the normal speed at rush hour but if there is traffic I need to know what that means. Sometimes there are traffic "pins" all over the map but waze will report that the road is green. I guess it's because waze knows that there is normally traffic there so it ignores it? So that makes it harder for me to decide which route will be best. The other day I ignored the pins and trusted the red/green and stuck with 295... It took me 2 hours to go 50 miles. Worst commute I have ever had. Normal time is 1 hour. I assume it was because Waze knows there is normally traffic on that road so it didn't alert me?

that gave me an idea. If the toll road is faster but will cost you an additional 2 dollars, what is the time value of your money and should you take that faster route? Lets say you assume your time is worth 50 dollars an hour, that is roughly 83 cents per minute. So it would only make sense to take the faster route if it was more than 3 minutes faster.

AlanOfTheBerg wrote:

mikeholczer wrote:

dmcconachie wrote:Use navigation and stop making the decision yourself! This isn't Google Maps.

Being able to see which segments Waze knows about the traffic conditions on and which it doesn't let's the user decide if the navigation should be trusted.

Just because a road is red and traveling 14mph doesn't mean it isn't the best routing option. So, just because a nav system sends you there doesn't mean it shouldn't be trusted.

Waze will fairly regularly advise me to take a road which is not the best road. It's not perfect. The drawback of the current system is that it can't tell you when a road is better than normal. Green is green.

I find that looking at user pins reporting traffic is much more reliable than going by the colors. If I see alot of pins, I know traffic is bad. I should take screen shots on my phone. there will be times the whole route is green but there are heavy traffic pins all over the place. The only thing I can count on is that if the route IS actually yellow or red, I know it's really bad. If it's clear ( green) I don't actually know anything unless I look at pins.