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Traffic Light Wait Times

Post by davidzeb
:idea:

I did a quick search of the forums and didn't find any other suggestions like this...

If Waze was able to track average wait times at traffic lights (intersections), routing directions could take those times into account and route wazers in a more efficient manner.

I go out of my way on my daily commute to avoid horrible intersections, even though Waze tries to route me right through them.
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Post by bgodette
gettingthere wrote:FWIW, someone at the Waze meetup in Palo Alto asked if Waze had logic in the routing server to deal with intersections and the difference between straight through and left turns. Waze stated, yes.
That was me, and the full answer was along the lines of "transit through a junction time" was calculated by considering the current segment, junction, and destination segment. IOW the junction stores transit time for each "turn" direction like a segment stores transit time for its directions, presumably live and historical.

For signaled turns your "transit through a junction" time for a turn would be much higher than going through the intersection. This can result in some odd routes where the most direct route is not selected because it has a long wait for a signaled turn vs going to the next intersection. This is especially noticed at lighted intersections that switch to a timed sequence vs demand sequence in the late evening.
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Post by CBenson
gettingthere wrote:I do suspect this filter is still in play and that the data is ignored for both jams and average segment speeds.
I would be very surprised if the data is ignored for average segment speeds. I don't think waze could possibly route the way it does on my commute if did not take into account time spent at traffic lights in speed calculations. I have always thought the filter was just for jam reporting. Of course I have no inside information so I could be completely off base.
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Post by davidzeb
That's good to know! Waits for each turn for an intersection would certainly need to be tracked independantly of straight through traffic.
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Post by davidzeb
It's certainly more complicated than when the thought first popped into my head.

It would be interesting to track wait times over 1 hour increments to find bad intersections during specific times of the day, regardless of traffic conditions.
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Post by dmcconachie
That should already be factored into the segment times with one exception, it can't differentiate between different turns at each junction (unless the logic has been smartened in the last year!)
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Post by gettingthere
Although it is possible that some other algorithm(s) that Waze uses to avoid false traffic jams may also impact the collection of speed data for portions of segments. So it is possible that Waze is ignoring data, in some cases, for long cycle traffic lights.

I am referring to the 'lowest 50 meter' filter that filters out the slowest 50 meters of data in each segment. So if you were sitting for 5 minutes at a traffic light and did not move more than 50 meters, Waze may be ignoring that data in the traffic jam algorithm and the average segment speed.

It is unclear if Waze is still filtering in this manner. In addition, if they are still using a filter similar to this, it is unclear if they are only ignoring this data for both jams and average segment speeds.

I do suspect this filter is still in play and that the data is ignored for both jams and average segment speeds.
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Post by gettingthere
FWIW, someone at the Waze meetup in Palo Alto asked if Waze had logic in the routing server to deal with intersections and the difference between straight through and left turns. Waze stated, yes.
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