Street direction at some hours

[CBenson]

Not yet. But if no-one think this an absurd idea, maybe I should.

[CBenson]

I'm not sure what I'm proposing. But Rock Creek Pkwy in Washington, DC changes to one way for the rushes. A significant fraction of the URs in the city result from waze's inability to handle the timed directionality changes. I guess at this point, I'm wondering whether it would make sense to ask waze if they could easily change the data for this road to solve the routing problems that the timed directionality issue causes. It seems a little like when they handle road closures for the Boston Marathon or Carmagedon. Only in this case it would be left in place permanently (or until they provide a way for editors to enter time based restrictions).

[CBenson]

Sure, there are problems for anything waze does. My point is road directionality wouldn't require a change on the back end at all. I'm not expecting an interface change to enter road directionality data soon. But maybe for major reversing directionality issues, it would be worth it for waze to simply change a bit of the speed data.

Does anyone see any particular obstacles to implementing time based road directionality?

* Getting the data correct in Waze
* The data changing with updated signs being posted

Lets say there is a major commuter artery for a city that changes direction completely during the rush hours and has for years. Getting the data correct would be easy. Set the speed data to zero for a few dozen segments max during the times the road is closed in a particular direction. In this case wouldn't it be worth it for waze to go in and tweak the data to make the routing work.

* Day of the week differences (eg. no left turn Monday - Friday 9am - 11am)

Right, but the speed data now includes day of the week differences (at least Monday-Friday vs. Saturday-Sunday, which is all that is required.)

* Building the interface to allow data entry based on clicking an arrow in the editor, currently there is not extra data for a turn, only allowed or denied

That's exactly why I bring this up. I'm not talking about putting in any data regarding a turn. Rather simply set the existing speed data to zero (as drivers can't add speed data during these times in these directions, the existing data may well simply be the default values, why not just change them to zero).

* Adding the extra data to the database - it's my understanding that all database changes are 'frozen' until at least July 2012 for Waze to complete infrastructure changes.

Again, there is no need for extra data, just change some existing data to zeros.

* etc, etc.

I'm thinking that where a reversing road really messes up a city's routing in waze it would be worth it for waze to address the road. It doesn't look like it should be difficult at all from where I sit.

[CBenson]

I've been thinking about this a bit more. My assumption has always been that if we get the ability to indicate time restricted turns, then we will be able to handle time restricted road directionality. That is we can simply indicate when all the turns going in each direction on the road are allowed.

However, it occurs to me that time restricted turn restrictions are likely much more complicated than time restricted road directionality to implement. My understanding is that waze already bases routing decision on speed data for a segment for the particular time of day. Shouldn't it be fairly simple just to force a speed of zero for a direction of a segment when the road is closed in that direction.

Does anyone see any particular obstacles to implementing time based road directionality?

[CBenson]

Unfortunately, no there is not.