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Traffic routing algorithm

Post by rkb321
In the past, Waze has very deftly routed me around bad traffic, but it doesn't always do it. I read a few posts that talked about the inaccuracy of routing users around traffic jams and several of them seemed to assume that maybe the jam just wasn't bad enough to capture Waze's attention. But I was in traffic from south of Washington DC to Richmond a few weeks ago that is normally a 90-100 minute drive that took me 5+ hours. Clearly, that jam should have been identified (there were tons of Wazers on the road with me and reporting that day) and I should have been re-routed. At one point, I finally hopped over to Rte 1 and it was clear sailing the rest of the way. So my question is: what algorithm is used to determine whether or not I should be re-routed to another road and what setting do I need to use, to get that activated.
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Post by CBenson
Its been awhile since I've been in bad traffic and waze has not rerouted me. When I'm being routed through heavy traffic and I think there may be a better route, I will ask waze manually for alternative routes. If the request times out, then I figure that waze is not updating with the best routes.
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Post by CBenson
Waze is pretty good at keeping me from sitting in DC traffic. I don't cross the Potomac, so there are plenty of alternative routes to get me downtown. Today it took an hour to get from the beltway to essentially the convention center. But waze rerouted me at least three times and never had me sitting in stopped traffic.
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Post by CBenson
The routes button in the initial destination box or the routes button in the main menu when you have a route selected provide alternative routes.
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Post by nzahn1
You can open a support ticket by continuing to ask questions and clicking links until the support page gives you an option to send a message. Just keep clicking!!


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Post by rkb321
In my trip between DC & Richmond, there were lots (and lots, and lots) of Wazers reporting the traffic that we were all in. I assumed Waze would re-route me, so I didn't bother hopping over to Rte 1. It was frustrating to see that, by all accounts, Waze probably should have moved me over to Rte 1 hours earlier, but didn't. Next time, I'll pay more attention to alternate routes manually ... of course, that's how I use Google Maps, so maybe I'll just drop Waze for that if I'm gonna have to manually adjust my route anyway.
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Post by rkb321
There doesn't seem to be a mechanism to open a trouble ticket (as is the case with a lot of companies, these days :? ), so I guess at some point, I'll have to decide whether or not it makes sense to use Waze anymore. Since they seem to be getting their revenue through on-screen ads, maybe someone of importance is listening and prepared engage in this discussion ... although I doubt it ...

Color me, disappointed :roll:
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Post by rkb321
I was unaware that I could ask Waze for an alternate route, maybe that'll do it. I'll look for that on the app and figure it out. Thanks!
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Post by ScottZane
I'm not sure what the rhyme or reason is either, but I've generally found that Waze will automatically re-route me if it finds another route that is 5+ minutes quicker. When it does so automatically, it has been a wonderful feature.

As CBenson suggested, I will regularly ask Waze for alternate routes - especially during afternoon commutes. It's really not that big a deal. It only takes a few screen touches to make it happen anyway.
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Post by Superfraggle
Well as far as I know, waze will only know about traffic/slow roads.

If either, a) its always slow at the time, and wazers have travelled through it, or b) There are active wazers on the road at the time.

With regards to re-routing, as I understand it, the app will effectively check your route periodically to see if there are any issues. What I am not sure of, is if this is prompted by traffic on your route or if it just requests the same route every 5 minutes and provides any updates if the routing servers provide a different one, some of this information is kept "classified" shall we say to ensure wazes product secrets. But hopefully one of the champs may know.

Now as you said in the first case there were users reporting stuff, but was there any in the "traffic" if so we know that wasn't the issue, I've seen this before and if I request the route manually it does change, so it may be a client issue. Of course other issues can be if you have no network, the client will not be able to check/update your route. If there are issues with the routing server.

Otherwise its possible despite users on the road, there may have been none in the traffic so waze just didn't know. Some people when they see the traffic will take their own route - As you did, however in this case waze will no longer know the road is slow. To work effectively, waze always requires at least one person to "take one for the team"

Perhaps one of the champs can comment though as they know far more...
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