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Waze App Useful Resources

Historic Data

Post by sublimese
When I tell Waze to take me from my home to my work in the morning, it appears to not take historic data into account.

For example, let us say I have 2 routes I could take to get to work. Route A and Route B.

Route A is the route I would take when I know there is no traffic (night, weekend, holiday, etc...). When there is no traffic, or when traffic is flowing at optimal levels, this route takes me 35 minutes. On a typical work-day this route takes 55-60 minutes.

Route B is the route I take on a normal day. Route B when there is no traffic takes 45 minutes. On a typical work day this route takes 50 minutes.

Route A, during rushhour is ALWAYS slow. Additionally, there is a huge on-going construction effort on this route that always causes additional delays. In 2 years of taking Route A during a normal work day, I have NEVER had it take less than 55 minutes to complete the trip.

For a week now, at 7:15am, I tell Waze to take me to work. Every morning Waze wants to take me down Route A. Every morning it tells me Route A is going to take 35 minutes. This is wrong. During the work week, Route A will NEVER be this fast. Route A is NEVER the fastest route.

Does Waze not take historic data into account at all? Waze should know that by 7:30 most of Route A will be heavy traffic and the commute time will increase accordingly. Why should I keep using Waze if it insists on guiding me down the slowest route. If I have to constantly ignore what waze is telling me....whats the point?
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Re: Historic Data

Post by sublimese
AlanOfTheBerg wrote:Has it been asked yet (and answered) whether your Route B shows as an alternate route in the app? I've seen odd behavior sometimes where, for whatever reason, the route Waze chooses isn't actually the fastest. (You do have "fastest" selected in the app settings, right?)
I do have "fastest" selected.
Route B never shows as an option until I am over 1/2 way to my destination. The initial route Waze gives me is Route A. When I tell it to show me the optional routes, it shows 3 additional routes, all of which are variations on Route A. All of which show best-case commute times, not current actuals or historical times.
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Re: Historic Data

Post by sublimese
AlanOfTheBerg wrote:
chrysrobyn wrote:(I wish Waze had a helpful way of permalinking a route, including waypoints.)
You can in Livemap. Well, you can permalink the origin/destination, but not the route itself. That may be future functionality in the app, though, having Waze actually remember your preferred route.

http://www.waze.com/livemap/?q=denver,% ... &to_seg=-1

With issues like these Waze is going to start facing an insurmountable dilemma. Trust. I am starting to lose trust in Waze's ability to route me around problems. When I am driving down my preffered route is Waze re-routing me because there is a problem on my route, or because Waze inexplicably likes an inferior route better? Once I have lost trust in Waze, its not going to come back.
Here's the thing. I am a developer myself. I understand how software works. I understand that algorithms take a while to mature. Because of this I am going to be more forgiving (case in point, I am still using it, though its more or less worthless to me right now). Now throw a non-technical newbie at this. How many times can Waze send them on the worst route before they erase the app and never look back?
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Re: Historic Data

Post by sublimese
>>How close to 285 do you have to get before Waze agrees to allow you to go that way? Do you actually have to get off 470?

While driving down I70 West, Waze tries to get me to get off on Colfax, so that it can route me to 6th East, to get me over to I25. As soon as I blow by the Colfax exit, Waze finally switches to C470 to 285 as my route.

>>As for Waze appearing not to consider current traffic speeds and vastly underestimating the speed of I-25, do you leave at the very beginning of rush hour? Is it possible the streets near your destination really are flowing very well when you leave but very congested by the time you get that far? It's not supposed to work like that, and I don't see it myself, but if it would explain what you see that might help isolate your problem.
7:30am is the start of rush hour. This has led me to believe 1 of 2 things.
1) Waze is not taking historic data into account (which is why I started this thread to begin with)
or
2) Waze is not taking anything into account (history or current) on the initial route selection

I am leaning towards #2 because the time that Waze initially gives for the route is the absolute positive best case scenario, which even at 7:30 is not the reality.
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Re: Historic Data

Post by sublimese
CBenson wrote:I've had basically the same problem for last couple of days. I'm 99% convinced that my issue is not a map problem, but a routing server problem where the current/historic traffic info is not correctly taken into account. Interestingly, waze has been rerouting for me, so it is only the initial route calculation that seems to not take into account the traffic. Haven't really been able to verify that traffic is not taken into account in the initial evening route I receive, but it seems clear to me in the morning that the initial route is not taking into account the traffic data.

....

Stolen tanks?
>>it seems clear to me in the morning that the initial route is not taking into account the traffic data.

YES. EXACTLY. In the morning Waze tells me Route A will take 35 minutes. 35 minutes is the absolute best case scenario assuming 0 traffic issues, 0 accidents, 0 slow-downs, and low low low traffic volume. You know, the opposite of what is going on during rush-hour.

The 1 time I allowed Waze to take me down "Route A", 5 minutes into the drive, Waze started to try to redirect me to other routes and my 35 minute estimate balloons into 50+ minutes. The problem is that once you are 5 minutes into Route A, there is no good work-around route because everyone else on Route A is trying work around routes. The only solution is to bypass Route A all together....which Waze appears incapable of doing.
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Re: Historic Data

Post by sublimese
chrysrobyn wrote:
sublimese wrote: For those that really want to know....
I live in North Arvada CO. I drive to the North end of the Tech Center
Route A == Kipling south -> I70 East -> I25 South -> Belleview (50-70 minutes)
Route B == Kipling south -> I70 West -> C470 South -> 285 East -> Happy Canyon South (45-50 minutes)

Waze only gives me the choice of Route A (or a few variations on it) and tells that that Route A will only take 35 minutes. You try driving route A during rush hour and tell me that it only takes 35 minutes.......
Having never spent a minute in Denver, I wanted to see what I could about your problem. I think you're saying you drive this instead of this. Is that right?

(I wish Waze had a helpful way of permalinking a route, including waypoints.)

That is correct.

>>I wish Waze had a helpful way of permalinking a route, including waypoints.
me too. I wish I could tell Waze, in the morning take me on my permalink route (my house, babysitter, work), and don't suggest anything else unless there is an accident, or hazard, or something else causing out of the ordinary slowing on my permalinked route.
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Re: Historic Data

Post by sublimese
Sure, but lets be honest here......even if their "historic" data only goes back 3 days....is waze really using it when it tells me it will take 35 minutes to get from north arvada to north tech center using I25?

The only time the drive takes 35 minutes is when there is 0 traffic and I can go 65mph (on the highway) with no slowing. 65mph with no slowing does not exist on I25 and I70 at 7:30am on a workday.

I'll take a screen shot of it tomorrow morning
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Re: Historic Data

Post by sublimese
bgodette wrote:I'd like to know what route B is because every single destination I've set inside the 470/nwp loop and into central Boulder has been accurate to +/- 2 minutes even during rush. The only times I've had it be inaccurate is when an accident has just happened or there's something that doesn't happen at the same time on the same day of week (sports, presidential debates, stolen tanks, etc).

It's all my phone's fault for using Tapatalk.

Please re-read what I have written. I have never wrote that Waze's data for route B is bad. The problem is that route B (even though it is the fastest) is never given to me as an option by Waze. Waze ALWAYS tries to take me down route A (or some variation of route A) despite that fact that route A is always slow.

For those that really want to know....
I live in North Arvada CO. I drive to the North end of the Tech Center
Route A == Kipling south -> I70 East -> I25 South -> Belleview (50-70 minutes)
Route B == Kipling south -> I70 West -> C470 South -> 285 East -> Happy Canyon South (45-50 minutes)

Waze only gives me the choice of Route A (or a few variations on it) and tells that that Route A will only take 35 minutes. You try driving route A during rush hour and tell me that it only takes 35 minutes.......
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Re: Historic Data

Post by sublimese
AlanOfTheBerg wrote:How often have you driven route A, purposely getting caught in the slower traffic so that Waze learns that this route is slower? Just because it might know how fast Route B is doesn't mean it has the data about route A in order to make the right choice.

Why do I need to drive route A? Isn't the entire point of Waze that we are crowd-sourcing traffic? If route A is currently full of waze users, does waze really need me to also drive down route A so that it can tell me that that route A is bad?
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Re: Historic Data

Post by sublimese
Route B appears to be fine.

The reality is that there are many routes to take, and Waze dutifully chooses what it thinks are the 3 best. Of the 3, it always has Route A as its top choice and always shows a commute time of 35 minutes. (Route B never makes the list, despite the fact that I have manually choosen to drive it every day since I started using Waze). The only time Route A 35 minutes is when there is a complete lack of traffic. In the 50 year existance of Route A, there has never been a time that there has been a lack of traffic during rush hour on a work day.

Why then does Waze always say Route A will take 35 minutes?

Route A == I-25 in denver, south bound, from I-70 on the north end to C-470 on the south end. Every day this stretch of highway has heavy, slow traffic. Every day its full of waze users reporting heavy traffic and slow downs. Every day Waze tells me to travel this stretch of highway.
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