Waze forum

Hi all! My police car idea was not popular, but lets talk about train mode.

People sometimes want to help drivers and change their waze icon to train (only one icon more!) while they travel by train. Others may see trains on map and maybe in future some warnings or re-directions or "get friend from train" will be calculated?

...and ferries?

A dashed line that is not used for routing, that does not bring points if you drive it, that does not report traffic if you stand still at the station, and that changes your Waze-mood into a little train. Right.

kriimsilm wrote: and you may superfast pick phone from pocket and turn Waze off

Either that or initialize a selfdestruct-mode on the iPhone.

While Wazing on trains and other forms of transportation is not supported, it happens. And it often happens unintentionally: people forget to turn off Waze when they get out of their car and hop on the train, for example. And that is where the solution of providing different modes breaks down: if people forget to turn off Waze when they get on the train, they are probably going to forget to switch to 'train" mode.

This is the main argument for mapping (but not connecting!) rail lines. Hopefully the client will "snap to" the rail segment and isolate GPS tracks from the adjacent roads.

In theory, Waze has the infrastructure to start keeping track of (above-ground) rail activity, and even offer a "use public transportation" option on the client that considers these alternate forms. But anything along those lines would be far down the road (no pun intended) from here.

kriimsilm wrote:

harling wrote:if people forget to turn off Waze when they get on the train, they are probably going to forget to switch to 'train" mode...

Yes, some people forget to turn Waze off in train, but this is quickly solved problem with new option "on railway turn Waze to train mode". We will see train on Live map! In my opinion railway "GPS tracks" are not dangerous, it is easy to ignore them.

So you're suggesting that when the client snaps to a railroad segment, it should become a train-ish icon on other Wazer's clients and the Livemap?

That would be cute. Still a long way off, though, unless Waze seriously increases its development staff. [Preferably in Boston. My resume is waiting.]

Once you're on a train, or a bus, or anything else that follows a predetermined route, traffic avoidance--Waze's raison d'être--becomes a non-issue. At this point, the only purpose served by mapping a railroad (for example) is so that Wazers who forgot to turn off Waze do not pollute traffic data or generate/clear automatic reports when the tracks run parallel to a roadway.

I don't mean to say that I see no potential usefulness (e.g., incorporating public transportation when routing), just that doing so would be a serious undertaking on the scale of what they have already developed for motor vehicles.

I would love to see a train mode.
- For days I ride the train to work (most days) it would allow me to share the status of the train with others and for me to know the status of the train from others.
- It may cause some to consider riding the train reducing traffic for all
- I do use Waze anytime i drive - but resist using it on the train

The person who referred me to waze used to drive everyday and now rides the train most days... I mention this fact because I'm not the only person that does both and I bet there is a lot of users who would use and benefit from the feature and would probably cause waze to grow in use by people who ride a train everyday and drive only sometimes...

Would be willing to BETA test such a feature.

I like the idea of waze switching modes if it notices you're on a railroad. Many, many railroads already exist on the waze map, I noticed, so it shouldn't be too hard.

Of course, even better if waze could *use* the information for other commuters (people catching trains, people crossing traintracks). But that's a different feature alltogether.

I am seeing more and more map errors caused by people on trains with Waze on... I update the maps in the DC /Baltimore area, and as people learn about Waze it is becoming more common of an error.

I am now even seeing people try and Pave their train routes! (For Reasons Unknown) As the roads marked as train tracks don't show up on the Waze app.

So I think this feature is Needed!

harling wrote: -cut-
if people forget to turn off Waze when they get on the train, they are probably going to forget to switch to 'train" mode.

This is the main argument for mapping (but not connecting!) rail lines. Hopefully the client will "snap to" the rail segment and isolate GPS tracks from the adjacent roads.
-cut-

Yes, some people forget to turn Waze off in train, but this is quickly solved problem with new option "on railway turn Waze to train mode". We will see train on Live map!

In my opinion railway "GPS tracks" are not dangerous, it is easy to ignore them.