BUG? - Roads

[mhoppes]

I've noticed two odd things with the Waze interface, and wasn't sure if they were bugs or suppose to work that way.

1) I drive the same route to work and Church every week and have Waze on, so I've "chomped" those roads. Today, on my way to Church all of the roads were as if they had never been driven on and I was getting points for navigating them. What's up with that? Do roads reset after some criterion?

2) I have seen on the map small sections of road marked as if they were never driven, but they are in the middle of road that has been accessed from both sides (and in some cases I know I've driven the entire road!). Additionally, I've seen my car enter a section of road that is marked as never having been driven on, and yet my icon doesn't immediately change to the pac-man wazer.

[jemusser]

Good questions, mhoppes. I have also had these same experiences and wondered why...
All of the roads in my neighborhood, that I have chomped, have reset (after about 2 weeks). I went back and re-chomped a couple of those routes recently.
I am guessing that Waze wants to have every road driven as many times (by as many different Wazers) as possible to collect the data. And, if a road is not frequently driven (or not driven by other Wazers), then it resets after a time period. Is this the reason why the cupcake "goodies" are located in certain places, or is that random?
These are just my guesses!
If anyone can confirm or clarify, please do.

[waynemcdougall]

1. It is my opinion, from observation, that roads do reset to being Pacman, unconfirmed state roads after a period of time of not being driven upon.I'm estimating about 3 months.

I can only see this as a good thing.

2. In terms of middle road segments not being driven upon, I've seen this and invariably the cause has been:
a) that road segment isn't exactly mapped to where it shoudl be...ie the GPS and the plotted map location are incorrect, or
b) there are two roads (or segments) or overlapping segments. You're driving on the road segment below the one you can see on the map
c) it's an area of poor GPS coverage combined with a badly located or very short segment. Waze never gets notified that you are on that segment before you're on to the next

All of these things should be looked at and fixed in Cartouche. If it's a very short segment that isn't actually segemnted by intersections, I'd remove the pseudo junctions to join the road segments. This will also help you identify any road sitting on top of another road.

Happy to look at it closer with a Permalink

[briandb1222]

I've had these instances too...well, for the point thing, I guess that could be a GOOD thing, but if it isn't meant to be that way, a bad thing as well.

For icon hopping, yeah. I've noticed if the segment is short I'll hop to the next street over. Also, if I'm driving in a parking lot where roads aren't mapped out too (though, you could add in parking lot roads in the cartouche...but that would take a ton of time to through and do all that...but it be cool), it would hop to the nearest road as well (the nearest one visible on the screen). Those to me seem like bugs. I have a TomTom Car Kit so I know it isn't reception issues, because that will enhance my GPS on the iPhone even when it pretty bad weather conditions.

I just don't think Waze is built to handle off-road conditions...if you are found off-road (well...off-road according to the GPS), it is told to place the icon on the nearest coordinate set that is on a road. I have seen that on shorter segments it has done this if the segment being driven on is shorter than the actual roads.

This could have been done when the person using cartouche that added the roads in did not zoom in all the way...or the road has been lengthened since being built. If the map builder was zoomed out, drawn roads would appear to match up and go along with the road way, but zoom in even more and you could notice very bad imperfections in the road way that could cause your icon to hop from road to road as the GPS tries to locate your 'correct' position. This is why I think it is important that when using cartouche, that newly mapped roads or even old roads be shaped to the actual road, so that the GPS updates your location accurately and so you don't appear to be going somewhere where the GPS isn't expecting you to go...that is, off the road.

I call that, stick it to road syndrome!

Basically, I think that each coordinate point (X Y) that the road falls on, is marked as being part of a road. Now, IF the software was set to fix your icon to the coordinate points that belong to the road, that could explain icon hopping, being that since you are really off-road, and the software knows that, it follows what it knows best...its programming (set rules given to handle a variety of different cases).

If it were that way, it would have to have a rule in there, if you went 'off-road', to put you on the nearest coordinate point that is marked as being on a road segment. If it wasn't a closed system that mean some serious bugs...like, it putting your icon all the way up on a road in New York while you are actually in Texas.

Just a theory anyways. I've always noticed that when I go off on an unmapped road, I'm always put on the nearest road, adjacent to my path. Now...co-incidence that it does this every time? I think not! And in the above case, I think it should be a un-fixed set-up, to where your icon isn't fixed to the coordinate plane. (Yeah...I'm not expert at code, but I understand how it works. I wouldn't be surprised if someone that does know more jumps on here and goes, YOU ARE WRONG! But hey, I'm just throwing in another idea to the loop! And yes...I'm actually teaching my self C++. Go figure!)

[briandb1222]

1. It is my opinion, from observation, that roads do reset to being Pacman, unconfirmed state roads after a period of time of not being driven upon.I'm estimating about 3 months.

I can only see this as a good thing.

2. In terms of middle road segments not being driven upon, I've seen this and invariably the cause has been:
a) that road segment isn't exactly mapped to where it shoudl be...ie the GPS and the plotted map location are incorrect, or
b) there are two roads (or segments) or overlapping segments. You're driving on the road segment below the one you can see on the map
c) it's an area of poor GPS coverage combined with a badly located or very short segment. Waze never gets notified that you are on that segment before you're on to the next

All of these things should be looked at and fixed in Cartouche. If it's a very short segment that isn't actually segemnted by intersections, I'd remove the pseudo junctions to join the road segments. This will also help you identify any road sitting on top of another road.

Happy to look at it closer with a Permalink

And naturally, I only catch similar answers after I've posted mine! Anyways...this is why people using cartouche need to connect road segments when they create a new intersection to fix the overlap issue. Also to point out something in my previous, yeah...incorrectly positioned roads is the result of the building being zoomed out too far.

[waynemcdougall]

I'll just add that I think roads going back to unconfirmed after a while has benefits besides just points.

Roads can close. They can have speed restrictions put in place. In other words, by gently encouraging us to redrive some roads, we get better speed information, and confirmation that wasn't just a temporary bypass during road construction.

Of course it could just be a bug.

[zCougar]

For icon hopping, yeah. I've noticed if the segment is short I'll hop to the next street over. Also, if I'm driving in a parking lot where roads aren't mapped out too (though, you could add in parking lot roads in the cartouche...but that would take a ton of time to through and do all that...but it be cool), it would hop to the nearest road as well (the nearest one visible on the screen). Those to me seem like bugs. I have a TomTom Car Kit so I know it isn't reception issues, because that will enhance my GPS on the iPhone even when it pretty bad weather conditions.

I don't know exact parameters but I see that Waze algorithm uses fuzzy direction and connection matching. Look at roadmap_fuzzy.c for more information. In case of icon hopping you need to go to Cartouche and add tehse new roads. If you look at archive then all those segments are RED which usually shows "BAD_MERGE_TRACE_TOO_FAR" in this case. Just click "Create new road from this segment" and put it to the map (check direction and allowed turns too). This is the place where Cartouche needs to be used to fix it.

--
Cougar

[support]

Hi guys,

Can you please provide us a permalink to those roads,
so we can check it.

Levon
Support team

[mhoppes]

I'll have to find the location and mark it next time I see it happen.

I agree that roads reverting to 'undriven' is a good thing, the odd part was this road was only undriven by me for a period of 2 weeks, not 3 months.

[waynemcdougall]

Hoskins Avenue is one that has reverted back to being unconfirmed.

http://world.waze.com/cartouche/?zoom=5 ... FTFFFFTTTT

Note that I have recently driven up half its length and saw Pacman but did not drive the full length.

Locke Avenue and Noton Road both reverted to uncomfirmed but I have since driven over them and they have gone back to confirmed. I may have edited Noton Road (in April) but it didn't change back to unconfirmed until August.

http://world.waze.com/cartouche/?zoom=5 ... FTFFFFTTTT

Sylvester Road is also in that same group and is showing unconfirmed. Can't swear that I ever drove over it though. Thought I had.