I've just read the last few pages of this thread and don't see an explanation. Why is it that often Waze won't allow you to report a closure on a turn it wants to route you on to?

As an example, I used the Report Closure feature the other day. After reporting the ramp closed, Waze routed me around it. All great and good.

What confuses me (and I've seen this before) is that Waze wouldn't allow me to select the ramp while the route wanted me to get on it. Instead (I pulled off the road) I had to "stop navigation" at which point when I tried to report a closure the arrow appeared for the ramp. Then I restarted my route and it routed me past the closure. I was not "too close" to the ramp, Waze clearly had me on the road the ramp crosses, and did have the arrow to mark going straight as closed, just not the turn onto the ramp.

I also saw this once before when trying to report a freeway offramp. Waze would let me select straight, or the turns onto the ramps both before and after the one that I was being routed on to, but not the turn onto the ramp I was supposed to take (which was closed).

In addition, in a thread dealing with a major even with lane closures, it was suggested to use GPS spoofing on an Android phone to report the closures, but to be sure not to have a route through the closures open as that would mess up the ability to use the closure feature. This makes no sense to me? People are most likely going to report closures along the route Waze wants them to take, not on cross streets Waze doesn't want you to take.

I reported a closure the other day - a side street under construction for a week and half. Attached a photo too. Nothing shows on the map. I won't bother in the future.

CBenson wrote:You can't indicate the road is closed in the middle of the segment you are on.

I had this problem many times in the past. There is no way to report when a two-way road segment is closed in the middle.

You know the road is closed until you reach that point in the middle of that road segment. Then you have to go back and look for an alternative route. You can't close the road at this point, because the app don't let you close the route you have taken. Also you can't close the road once you go back and reach a junction, beacuse the app don't allow you to close the road segment where you are coming from.

Caradellino wrote:The need to proof a report as legit comes from the fear of false reports (my hypohtesis) Maybe there won't be a need for harsh restrictions on accepting reports, if just a single Wazer going over THE WHOLE closed segment would reset the closure, therefore allmost imediately clearing any false reports...

After a single wazer goes over THE WHOLE segment: In case of roads closed in the middle, the reset should be made after the user completes all the way thru that segment and must be ignored the users that go back. Moreover, when many wazers go back from one point is an indication that something is happening.

Today I tried to do a road closure and document the problem of requiring many users to report the same road closure before it takes effect on routing.

A main route in Costa Rica is being closed because there are nightly maintenance works. This road closure cannot be managed by time restrictions because it is not on the same place every night and nobody knows (somebody must know but probably he is not a waze editor) the exact place where they will work the next night.

The issue here is that a simple road closure report could help a lot of wazers to avoid being redirected and take a lengthy detour. But instead of that, and the waze objective of "Outsmarting Traffic, Together", waze is suggesting the closed route instead of another main route to go to the same place.

I travel through these routes almost every night. Waze sometimes choose one, sometimes another. Most of the time waze chooses the right option. But since one of the main routes is on maintenance it always prefers the closed option. Maybe it thinks: nobody is driving on that route, "it should be faster". But hey, nobody is taking that route because it is closed.

When this kind of situations occurs, a single wazer reporting a road closure could help many other drivers to avoid taking a long detour. But not, when a road is closed and you follow the waze suggestion you have guarantee you are choosing the wrong route.

If someone makes a fake road closure report, it could be identified because many wazers are using that road. In worst case scenario waze will recommend you to take a lengthy detour until someone else use the reported road, but you have the chance to ignore taking a detour and choose the road you think could be faster.

If you ignore a waze suggestion and drive directly to a closed road then you cannot blame waze for that. But when you take the suggested route and you drive directly to the closed route you have right to blame waze for that, and then you have an option to report the issue and prevent another wazers to take that route. How you can help other drivers if waze does not trust on you?.

EDIT: I think that if you have enough level to edit and even delete a segment, you should be able to mark that segment as closed from the app. It just have no sense that waze trust you to edit and does not trust you on road reports. Even if you don't have enough level, maybe a road closure could have effect until someone else drives along that entire segment.

According with my observations I can confirm that road closure requires more than 1 report even if you have permission to edit the reported segments. I can also confirm that waze prefers a closed route over an open one, this makes you have to take a detour. I've been making this exercise many days.

The first image is a screenshot of my cellphone. You can see that a police report is shown on both images. However, the road closure reports are not displayed to other users or livemap (second image).

It just so happens that they're doing a massive pavement grinding/repaving operation all around my building and parking garage this week so I've had the opportunity to play around with the Road Closure feature.

My main problem is similar to other reporting problems with Waze: ability to report something other than where you are RIGHT NOW. Specifically it only allows the closure of segments immediately adjacent to the segment you're on, or segments adjacent to where you just drove. During an entire week of road closure reporting I have never managed to successfully report all the affected roads as closed because Waze won't let me.

Examples:
1) Driving north on a split boulevard, I observed that the south-bound lanes are closed. Hit the Report -> Road closure feature, but it would not let me report the other lane as closed because it was separated from mine by one segment (the cross street at the nearest intersection).
2) I observe a road closure ahead. Because of one-way streets, I turn off this road 1 block ahead of the closure. The next segment is open, and I cannot report the closed segment because it is too far away from me. I assume that if I could have hit the report button while in the middle of the intersection just as I was turning Waze would think I was going straight so I could have reported it, but reporting a closure isn't worth a wreck.
3) I observe the road I am on is closed at the next intersection, and successfully report it closed. But the closure extends for 3 blocks, and I cannot report the adjoining segments.
4) This morning, the segments for my parking garage (both entrances) were closed. The entrance is a very short distance down the segment so I was able to drive around the signs and enter anyway. It would not let me report my segment was closed because obviously I was driving on it. I could have reported it BEFORE I entered the segment, but I assume that driving on it afterwards would have nullified the closure report.

The examples in (1-3) are ones that have been rehashed several times; the other situations were with people reporting a closure while exiting a highway, but because they're only allowed to report the next segment Waze will just route people around that segment and right back into the mess.

The example in (4) has huge implications with interstate driving because segments are often ridiculously long (another complaint of mine). Because divided highways will always be separated by at least one segment from the other driving direction, and you cannot report your own segment, no one will be able to report it closed until the backup reaches one node to the rear. The road could be blocked by a huge wreck in the desert and people could be setting up tents, building campfires, and cooking supper in the middle of the road. But 20 miles back Waze is happily routing new sheep into the carnage.

The solution is simple:
- Expand the closeable roads to include 3-4 segments in either direction starting at the one you're on, including the segment you are on.

The only change with my suggestion would be that there would simply be more roads available to click on. No advanced gaming skills required.

Actually, you are helping to make my point. While sitting in slow traffic one segment before the exit ramp, you can spend all the time you want to report the road 3 segments ahead is closed. Give a detailed description. Carefully make sure you select the correct road segment(s). Type a novel into the comments box.

The problem comes when you have to wait until you are right at the turn before you can report the closure (and possibly an accident) while trying to accelerate along with traffic.

Same exact complaint when sitting in a traffic backup behind a wreck (not a closure, just a slowdown), or in construction, or whatever. Do you report the wreck in the wrong place with lots of info, or do you wait until you are passing the wreck to report it correctly but with no information?

bretmcvey wrote:This just happened to be my view of the closure. I've yet to run into an instance of someone else reporting a closure. This particular one was given a "long term" status for closure due to the road being torn out completely for construction that will last months. It stayed visible to me longer than a few hours, but by the next day was no longer visible.

Something affected for "months" should be changed in the Editor.

bretmcvey wrote:Has anyone had any success at attempting to close an interstate ramp or similar acute deviation from the route being traveled?

I made an attempt last week at a mapped weigh station with an exit ramp that was closed due to construction. The ramp's close "x" icon wasn't far enough apart from the interstate (forward) section. If I'd pressed the only closure x there in the diagram, it would have resulted in me submitting the interstate and not the ramp was close down.

The client may need to factor in shallow angles and better offset the buttons in those cases.

This sounds like a place where you can help. Go to www.waze.com/editor and change the ramp angle yourself

Zoom way in and make the ramp angle about 45 degrees for just a few feet then turn back to the real-life shallow angle. The road will look the same when zoomed out, but it will handle directions better and things like the road closure arrows will stand out better.

lakeyboy wrote:I honestly think that Waze has set it's bar too high for accepting road closures. I'm a level 3 editor and I tried to report a closure on a local road which no wazer has probably ever driven down, and the icon appears for a closure after filling out the form, but then goes away quickly and doesn't close the road for others. I can understand for frequently used roads it takes a few wazers but if one experienced user can't close one unimportant road, something is wrong.

This is one of my standard complaints. Reports from people who take the time to prove that they want to improve the system instead of just gain points should have extra weight. I'm trusted to open a browser and completely delete a road, but for some reason I'm not trusted to report a temporary road closure because of construction.

I'm a level 4 map editor with over a hundred thousand map edits, tens of thousands of driving miles, and hundreds of reports. But according to Wazes's computers and automated algorithms, I'm just as worthlessly untrustworthy someone who installed Waze 101 miles ago. Something is wrong with this picture.