lzaidel wrote:Hi Waze experts,

I'm not an expert, but since no one else has chipped in, I'll offer my considered opinions.

lzaidel wrote:Now, when I "drive to" this favorite address, it only gives me this same new route that I've been taking and not giving me the alternatives that it gave me before. I've since realized that this new route is only SOMETIMES fastest, depending on conditions. What happened? I thought that Waze was supposed to give me the best (i.e. quickest possible) routes based on the current road conditions, speeds, etc every time I route to a particular address.

Waze will always give you the quickest possible route, based on what it knows. You gave it a whole lot of useful information that it didn't previously have, and it's applying that.

Why your other alternatives have disappeared? Because it's decided they are so much worse than the best one that it's not worth even showing you. Again, this may be a lack of information. You could driving what you think is better, and Waze will consider the data and offer what it thinks is best. And as other people drive those routes it will get better and better.

You can get more alternatives if you look at the route on the Livemap http://www.waze.com/livemap

lzaidel wrote:In particular, this new Waze route from Los Feliz to Woodland Hills does the following: Los Feliz Blvd going East to the I-5 North to 405-South to 101 North (West). My original new route was the following: Los Feliz Blvd going East to the I-5 North to 134 West to 101 North (West). Doesn't this latter route seem like it's going to be the fastest?

I'm not sure. The closest I could come to your route was something like this:
http://www.waze.com/livemap/?zoom=6&lat ... &to_seg=-1

Two alternatives, and both seem reasonable. In fact as far as I can tell those are the two you refer above - the new Waze route, and the latter that you think should be fastest.

So the latter is 4.5 minutes faster (but that's going to depend on road conditions, and the time of day), but depends heavily on exactly where your destination is. If it is further north, the former route may do better.

lzaidel wrote:Also, If this new Waze route truly is the fastest route, then why did Waze give me a completely different main route that took me on Franklin going West to 101 North all the way to Woodland Hills. This route must be the fastest at least some of the time right? And what happened to the whole bunch of other alternative routes when I began using Waze.

I think this depends on the data. How much information is available, and how much at particular times of day.

lzaidel wrote:While I like the idea that Waze "learns" from the routes that I actually take to route me somewhere, I hope that in the process, it's not actually "dismissing" likely fast alternative routes (that it used to use at the beginning), and actually doing less work by ceasing to consider external variables (e.g., relevant Wazer reports on current road conditions, the other sources for road conditions that Waze traditionally uses).

You will be reassured by this: Waze doesn't learn routes. Not at all. Doesn't thibnk about routes. Doesn't learn your routes. Doesn't know the meaning of the word.

What waze learns is how fast you travel in a direction on a segment of road at a time of day. Then when you ask for a route, it looks to see what speed you can do on the segments of road between you and your destination. It may not have any data for 3pm - it might have to use the average speed between 2pm and 4pm, because no wazer has driven on it at 3pm. But it works out what route will be the fastest, just looking at the road segment speeds, and current wazers actual speeds on the roads right now.

And then it gives you a route.

So the more wazers, the better. And the more times you drive the roads with Waze on, the better.

I hope that makes sense.

Feel free to do what Waze says - that's what I do, and sometimes it says "hey, this isn't such a good route choice after all, let's try something different" (more accurately, as the average speeds on the route change, it finds a different route has a lower average speed). But I also like people who ignore Waze. If they are wrong, then it just adds more data to Waze. And if they are right, they add more data to Waze. Either way, we all benefit.