Waze forum

I use Waze on my regular commute here in suburban Detroit. There are a number of routes to my destination which Waze has to select from depending on traffic conditions. The route with the highest average speed is the interstate. The shortest route is a high speed 3 lane (each direction) cross street. The difference in distance between the routes is substantial (at least 5 miles or more than 20%).

Oftentimes, Waze doesn't select the faster and shorter route on its own. I have to select "Routes" and then select the cross street route instead of the Interstate even when it shows as on parity (or even shorter) time wise and a much shorter distance.

It would be really great if there was an option for "Smart Routing" which selects the longer interstate route but only if it saved a certain % of the total time (for my 40 minute commute, I'd think it would be something like 2-3 minutes or 5%).

This is still important to provide:

xteejx wrote:Can you ... give a permalink so someone can look into it.

dgb2n wrote:I wonder if there isn't a change in the routing algorithm based on the length of the route (somewhere around 20-25 miles). Any ideas?

There are road type routing preferences based on distance which will affect Waze's routing selection. Unfortunately. There is testing going on with new routing code, which is going through iterations of tweaks and adjustments. Hopefully, we'll land on something really good in the next few months.

Could you post the permalinks to the livemap routes. Create the routes in the livemap that the screenshot show, then without zooming click the "powered by waze" logo in the upper right. A URL should be created (sometimes in a new tab or window). If you paste that in a post here, we can then duplicate this specific route.

I realize I posted this a while ago but these images show the problem very clearly.

This first image shows Waze offering two good routes. Notice how the shorter route goes directly up Mound Rd and then routes onto a freeway. Mound Rd is listed as a Primary Street.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/455 ... outing.jpg

In this second image, I've moved the destination just about a mile further north on the same road. This time, it refuses to route directly up Mound Rd and instead routes across on a major side street over to Van Dyke Ave (even though this route is clearly longer and the only change to the destination is adding an extra mile north).

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/455 ... outing.jpg

On the reverse route, it seems to capture it properly (going from the Rochester Area to the Warren Area). For whatever reason, the routing algorithm will continue to try and push me over onto Van Dyke until I get north of Metro Parkway (the east west road that it routes me over onto) and then the client will show the route directly up Mound Rd. When it recalculates, usually the time to my destination is at least 5 minutes faster than the previous route (over onto Van Dyke).

I wonder if there isn't a change in the routing algorithm based on the length of the route (somewhere around 20-25 miles). Any ideas?

I'd like to volunteer for this specific route to be a test case for the new routing algorithms.

For whatever reason, it really seems to struggle to choose the right route or even list it among the options whenever the destination is at or north of the destination shown in the second image.

The preferred route (along the interstates from 696 to 75) is substantially longer (perhaps 7 miles or nearly 30%). When it does offer a route taking the surface streets, it always routes me over to Van Dyke even though that route is longer. Once I get north of 16 mile road (also called metro parkway), it recalculates and puts me on the correct road and usually it calculates my arrival time at least 5 minutes faster than the originally recommended route. I can grab some screen captures from my next commute if it helps to illustrate this.

I'm very thankful for the responses and hope this can make Waze an even better app.

It should do this by design. It may be that there are map errors or not enough data for those roads.
Can you tell us the country, area and give a permalink so someone can look into it.

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AlanOfTheBerg wrote:There are road type routing preferences based on distance which will affect Waze's routing selection. Unfortunately. There is testing going on with new routing code, which is going through iterations of tweaks and adjustments. Hopefully, we'll land on something really good in the next few months.

I may be wrong But I was under the impression that road types had nothing to do with with the routing algorithm (from my recollection at the meet-up). If fine tuning by making road types applicable....I'm all for it. We'll just have to make sure there is no ambiguity amongst all editors to type a road correctly.

Again, I may have missed something about distance. I just remember skbun's presentation and what Ehud had to say.

Here are some permalinks that might help.

https://www.waze.com/livemap/?zoom=10&l ... &to_seg=-1

https://www.waze.com/livemap/?zoom=11&l ... &to_seg=-1

https://www.waze.com/livemap/?zoom=11&l ... &to_seg=-1