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Post by fvwazing
If workings are as described, we will need at least 6 reporting Wazers to shut down a typical stretch of highway.

Consider this situation - road blocked at "X".
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Wazers on the blue track will report THE NEXT SEGMENT closed. As soon as that block works, Wazers coming from the same direction will be guided off the highway ONE EXIT TOO EARLY and into the roadblock - over the green track. The density of loose Wazers driving around and reporting the entry-ramp closed is far less than those on the highway - per definition, almost.

It remains to be seen how many Wazers will find the time to report AND do it right - I estimate it is far less than 100% unless they have a Waze-enthousiast as a passenger.
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Post by fvwazing
Ppl, the previous post was not meant to END discussions, but to IGNITE them! I have seen traffic-jams with roadblocks over the past months that had dozens of Wazers involved in them and where enough critical mass would have been to make the described scheme work out. However... we have roadblocks (for short periods) every day, and my critique is that this scheme is not sensitive enough to catch most of those.

Any real-life experience collected yet?
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Post by fvwazing
Well, today I had the chance to witness a situation develop on a freeway near me. A stretch of freeway was closed in both directions because of a big fire - the smoke created dangerous situations. It started almost 5 hours ago, and it is not over yet. All the traffic jams around it were signalized by the dozens of Wazers that were routed into the area. Yes, DOZENS. From n00bs to royalty - at no time the freeway was signaled closed by Waze. Not visibly marked, and not avoided by the routing. The Wazers stuck in the jams may have had opportunity to report as the traffic jams slowed down to 5-6kmh.

Total failure. Assuming that the road-blocking by itself technically works as advertised: we need a lot of education for this feature (and a lot of patience).

http://ldimg.no.publicus.com/apps/pbcsi ... 1&NoBorder

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/03/01/sudeva3u.jpg

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/03/01/gubezu8y.jpg

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/03/01/6y2ygeqe.jpg




...and the misery goes into its 6th hour, with the fridayafternoon-jams expected anytime soon (this is just the prelude).
Irrespective of the continuing roadblock, WHY does Waze send me into a 40 minute jam, without as much as blinking?

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/03/01/9ebuqy8u.jpg
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Post by fvwazing
The route with the jam is presented when I plan the route from a 50km/30min distance. When I plan from a location closer to the "disaster area" I do get a better alternative (20min gain) presented 1st. I have no idea which alternative would have won if I really moved there but the sheer number of Wazers NOT following the faster alternative but sheepishly queuing up suggests to me that not all/very few of them do get the faster alternative. Anyway, situation has relaxed a short time after my last screenshot so I can not investigate further.
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Post by fvwazing
I had a second look at my example, and I noticed that traffic was reported (dark red line) on the stretches of freeway between off-ramp and on-ramp. These are the exact stretches that would be expected to receive a closure-report. This is what may have happened: someone reports this stretch between the off-ramp and on-ramp closed but before a second (or third?) closure-report comes in to confirm that and make it valid another Wazer comes up, with the routing still over the freeway. As this other Wazer diverts from the freeway and lines up in the jam on the off-ramp his position STAYS LOCKED on the freeway, thus creating a jam there as well as obliterating the closure-report. No chance that enough closure-reports come together to confirm the closure!
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Post by fvwazing
Yup, if it is clear 100% from the drivingpattern (going left or right) that you cannot have been on the freeway the jam should not get reported or even get revoked. And the stickyness should be related to the actual GPSaccuracy (which can be as good as 7m). These are cuckold issues that, by never addressing, now prevent further development. (Don't get me started!)
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Post by fvwazing
It wasn't the case in my example, but I just remind that the practice of inserting a short (15m) segment in a freeway as means of a "wayfinder" segment or to force directions is not compatible with reporting closures as it works now. [sorryhavenolinkathand]
If it stays like this we will have find different workarounds for those.
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Post by fvwazing
Yeah, BEFORE a split that is. But I must admit I will have to check that hypothesis, if true it snaps everywhere you have extraneous nodes - every basemap has millions and it would be a very big oversight if that meant you cannot "reach" the next split in the road.
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Post by fvwazing
I have no positive confirmation, though I asked around in our local forum (would be a miracle by itself, given the participation here). I have not had the opportunity myself to report a valid closure of a freeway. I estimate that 40-50 Wazers were involved in the incident, over a timespan of 5 hours. No doubt that many are not aware of the functionality (I saw a brief reminder of it pop up once, a minute after I drove off). And of those who are aware - not all find the right buttons even though that jam was standing still. Kind of a "Drake's equation" here. What are the odds?
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Post by fvwazing
I just did some testdriving. My area is so clean that I had to make a 20km detour to reach a segment of freeway with extraneous nodes. Well, I could have saved myself the trouble. It is indeed impossible to reach the next split if you are behind an extraneous node. Worse than that; if you are behind a "join" you can select the joining node - but the segment that is reported closed is the one before the join, the segment you are driving at the moment of reporting. Counterintuitive, that is.
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