11-22-2017, 07:04 PM
Onamuji wrote:
[quote=Filliam H. Muffman]
One big limitation with Waze is it's terrible at predicting traffic ahead of time. It can see 10,000 people starting their drives at the same time, day after day and getting stuck in traffic, but it won't warn about bad traffic until it sees those users going 5 mph on the freeway. Using Google Maps or Waze online can give historic traffic patterns and estimate "worst case" average travel times, but they are not going to give you actual travel times for a big rig blocking the interstate at 5 PM on Wednesday before Thanksgiving until it sees the speeds people are traveling.
That's not quite what I see.
It obviously cannot predict a traffic accident on your route. But it's a little slow to update when there is such an accident. The window seems to be about 15 minutes. If an accident occurs ahead of you when you're already on route then it may be 15 minutes before it updates your course or arrival time to reflect that change and by then you could be stuck.
15 minutes is a good rule of thumb, but I have seen Waze update traffic in just over five minutes when there has been an accident. I think it depends on how many super-users report the accident and really bad traffic promptly. Committing to a specific route that doesn't have easy/quick alternatives will always be a problem, especially with traffic growing above peak levels from around 2008.