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Does Waze consider smaller roads into it's routing?

Post by kotatsu
My daily commute is a long one and in a densely populated area of the country. As such I have many possible routes to take, including a toll motorway (M6 Toll), a few non-toll motorways, and lots of smaller roads. Waze really, REALLY loves the M6 Toll, but even when it does offer me non-toll routes they're always on the other major motorways, even if they're horribly congested.

Because of this, I have to use other GPS apps on my iPhone when traffic is bad, as they consider smaller roads and can save me a lot of time. As an example, last Friday evening the traffic was spectacularly bad, as it often is, and yet Waze only offered me the same three motorway routes as usual. (two using the M6 toll). Each would have taken around three hours to complete had I been foolish enough to attempt them. By contrast, Co-Pilot routed me through villages and on A roads and got me home in 1 hour 45 minutes. It was a complex route but hugely quicker, and completely avoided the traffic apocalypse on the major roads.

So please, if Waze can be made to consider all roads, then make it so, as right now it just isn't much use when the traffic is bad...
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Post by gettingthere
Shaigan wrote:On the "support" page, enter "penalty" and look at the automatic answer. All is clear for me to understand that smaller roads are taken into trip calculation.
Sure, but any routing penalty for lower classes of roads should be less than a 2 hour traffic delay!
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Post by kotatsu
xteejx wrote:Waze does love the M6 Toll and with good reason. It's at least 10-20% quicker than the M1 or M6, mainly because you have to pay for it.
If you can give us a rough start and end point, and the route you think Waze should take you, we can have a look and see if there are any map problems causing this.
FYI, you'd have got a quicker response from someone in the UK if you had posted in the UK subforum ;-)
Oh, waze does indeed use smaller roads, better than other SatNav apps I find, but the map must be correct, etc.

Sent from my GT-I9100P using Tapatalk 2
Funnily enough it was traffic apocalypse on the M6 tonight, as seems to happen quite often now. Waze as usual wanted to get me onto the M6 Toll and then M6, despite there being a SIX HOUR delay. (yes, 6 hours) It offered no alternatives. (I'm not making this up, I promise)

I fired up Co-Pilot and it routed me onto the A34 and got me home in just under 2 hours. Slow, but rather better than 6 hours. I repeatedly tried Waze when on the M6 Toll to see if it knew the A34 existed, just out of curiosity. It failed every time, and only offered me a single route option - the M6, which was closed, and Waze knew it was a disaster as it reported an average speed of 2mph for many miles.

Getting back to the route I was talking about in my original post, these aren't my exact start and end points, but they'll give you the right idea.

This is the route Waze always wants to use to take me home -

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?saddr=B4 ... via=1&z=11

On a Friday evening, the M42 is car park, as is the M6. It's a really, really, really terrible route. The alternatives it offers me are -

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?saddr=B4 ... ra=ls&z=10

This one is even worse!

And this one -

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?saddr=B4 ... a=1,2&z=11

This is also dreadful. The first of these three, on a Friday evening, would get me home in about 3 hours. The second would be more like 3 1/2 hours, and the third, also around 3 hours.

Compare this to co-pilot, which comes up with this route -

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?saddr=B4 ... 3,4,5&z=12

It knows to avoid the heavy traffic on the A46 in south Coventry, it knows to avoid the M42 as best it can, and it avoids the M6 completely. It uses the toll of course, but if I don't want to pay up it will give me this route instead -

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?saddr=B4 ... 3,4,5&z=11

It's a bit slower, but there's no toll involved.

This is just on Friday evening. At other times Co-Pilot will give me the same routes as Waze does, but as I've said, on Friday evening the usual routes are a disaster zone.

It really looks to me as if Waze just doesn't know the A34 or the A446 exist, as it will never offer them as valid routes, even when the alternatives have truly epic delays.
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Post by kotatsu
xteejx wrote:Wow, nice work with a wealth of information to look at. How I wish more wazers were like this!
I've tried to grab the same route now (10:14pm Tues 17th July) and it's given me A4114, A45, A452, A446 and the M6 to Junction 14.
This is the 2nd route, the first one being pretty much the length of the M6 Toll which is 5 minutes faster according to waze.
I'll take a look at each of those "better" routes and see if there's anything missing or wrong on the waze side. Bear in mind, waze will try to keep to fast roads as much as possible, i.e. lock towards motorways BUT, have you tried this route with the "Avoid Highways" option on? It will avoid the M6 and the M6 Toll completely and may well give the A34 route as an option.
Remember you will need to press the Routes button if the one Waze gives you first off isn't the one you think is right. Especially on longer routes like this where there are a couple of choices with motorways, A roads and that.

Will look into the A34 first off, see if there's anything obvious causing the problem.
As I say, there's nothing wrong with Waze's routing on a normal day, it chooses the quickest roads. Friday evening is the killer though, it needs very special routing to avoid getting stuck in traffic hell. The M42 is largely blocked from J3A to J9. The M6 is completely blocked from J4 to J16. Any route using those roads is a total no-go on Friday evenings. I've tried the avoid highways option but I shouldn't have to keep fiddling with settings, Waze should just recommend the best routes at any given time, especially when it has a lot of traffic reports to draw upon. (there are a *lot* of Wazers around Birmingham)
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Post by kotatsu
xteejx wrote:Ok it's taken a good half hour, but there's nothing on any of those routes that is jumping out at me there.
My only suggestion would be, go the way you think is best with Waze running, let it keep rerouting and at the point where it starts following you the way you want, drop a Map Error report, as this will probably be the point where there is an error (if any).
It could be that even with the M6 and Toll backed up, Waze's algorithm isn't accounting for other possibilities because of the "importance" of using supposedly faster roads like motorways.
There are some URs in and around these routes, but I don't see any that would affect routing. I would say it's a lack of data, but looking at the number of GPS tracks around there, it's definitely not that.
Okay, thanks for trying. I'll have to go with Co-Pilot on Fridays as if I'm routed into the M6 traffic it will really spoil my evening. (to say the least!) But I'll fire up Waze periodically and see if I can see where the maps are going awry.

It does strike me as odd though that when I'm on the M6 Toll (and so about 2/3 through the journey and past all the complex stuff near Coventry) Waze only offers a single route home. The 'routes' button doesn't spawn any more, just one single route, and that route is always from the M6 Toll to the M6, regardless of how bad the traffic is. There are exits from the Toll to avoid the M6, such as - A34 and the A51, so even if Waze wants to give the M6 as an option, it still has two of it's three options free for these other routes, but it always ignores them.
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Post by kotatsu
xteejx wrote:I completely agree.
So the problem isn't that there aren't reports on those Motorways, as you say there are plenty of wazers around Brum. Seems from the evidence it's the routing algorithm being stupid.
On a Friday evening, do you see automated waze reports (the coloured roads) on them motorways? Could be a lack of historical data if everyone just avoids it.
Everyone who lives in the midlands really should know how bad the traffic is here on Fridays, but there are still lots of Wazers stuck on the M6 and M42, all spawning 'complete standstill' and 'heavy traffic' reports at regular intervals. The roads are marked red too of course, with average speeds around 5mph.
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Post by kotatsu
I think the error is rather general and not just restricted to the examples I gave in my initial posts. Tonight for example it was, yet again, total chaos on the M6 with mile after mile of virtually stationary traffic. Fool that I am I stuck with Waze, hoping it would offer me an alternative. (of which there were several) It never did.

I kept trying, right up until I was at the last possible escape route from traffic hell, but this is the only route Waze offered - https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?saddr=Be ... =prev&z=12 That route was of course, terrible, and added a good 20 minutes to my journey.

It could have taken me this way instead - https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?saddr=Be ... via=1&z=13

The purpose of Waze is surely to avoid traffic, and yet in my experience Waze is really rather terrible at avoiding traffic. It knows the traffic is there, the roads are marked red and coated with 'heavy traffic' and 'complete standstill' tags, but it's routing is so faulty it's incapable of doing anything about it.

It would be nice if it could be fixed, as Co-Pilot simply does a better job at what's important right now. In every other way - interface, speed, design etc - Co-Pilot is an unmitigated disaster, but it gets me home quicker.
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Post by kotatsu
This is very much still a problem unfortunately. My route home includes a motorway which can often be badly congested, especially on Friday evenings. There are alternate routes available, at least 3 of them, and two of those are not on urban roads, but on A and B roads through the countryside.

Waze doesn't even know these roads exist as potential routes, and interesting tries desperately to route me back onto the motorway if I take them. (Even when it knows the motorway is a giant car park) These routes can be much quicker if the motorway is badly congested.

So when the traffic is bad, I'm still using Co-Pilot, as it simply knows more routes. I also find that Co-Pilot is much more realistic with its estimated time of arrival when the traffic is bad.
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Post by kotatsu
Last Friday afternoon when I reached the point in my journey when I need to decide if I'm going to take my chances on the motorway, or use an alternate route, I hit the 'routes' button in Waze to see what it could offer.

As usual, just one route, on the heavily congested motorway.

This seems to me to be a really serious problem. It shows Waze isn't automatically preferring motorways even when alternatives exist, it shows Waze can't find any alternatives at all.

For a GPS app to be unable to route, is pretty much the most serious bug possible.
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Post by mirarkitty
RodNav wrote: Copied this from the automatic answer:

Code: Select all

Long Distances:
0-15 km - All road types are allows for routing.
15-20 km - All road types except Streets.
20-30 km - All road types except Streets and Primary streets.
30-200 km - Only Minor, Major, and Freeways.
more than 200 km - only Freeways.
Really? Well, that explains a lot...
Why not use all the roads all the time?

I regularly go over 20km (Stockholm) and regularly gets routed on to bad roads (>Primary). This is stupid...?!?
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