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NFT: Help With Waze or Google Maps

Samiam : 6/7/2021 7:06 pm
A few times a week, I need to travel about a 40 minute drive and then home and both trips are in rush hour. There are maybe 8-10 ways to get where I’m going and I always use Waze or Google maps to plan the trip. Each usually gives me 3 options and most of the time, 1 or 2 are duplicative so I get 4 choices.

Is there any to tell Waze or Google Maps that the 3 choices are not good and to give me others. For example, some of the choices involve driving on roads with lots of large trucks or roads that are too dark for my old eyes. I can’t figure,out how to reject all 3 choices and get other options. Is that a possibility? I tried Apple Maps but had difficulty with it.
It sounds like you kind of know where you're  
oghwga : 6/7/2021 7:20 pm : link
Going but want the map as a backup. If that's the case, go to Google maps on your computer and get directions, you can then drag the route where you want it to avoid the roads you dislike.

Once you have a route you like on your computer, you can send the trip to your phone and you'll have those specific instructions.
Waze and Google Maps  
pjcas18 : 6/7/2021 7:38 pm : link
both suck for that.

What I usually do is start driving the way I want to go and eventually after telling me every 2 minutes it's "recalculating" to send me their way eventually I get to a point where it's best to go my way and the app then suggests my preferred route.

this happens when I go from Boston to many places in jersey and I want to take 84 to 684 and that's not the shortest distance or time (per se), but it's my preferred route so the whole way from Hartford to somewhere between Waterbury and Danbury Waze keeps telling me to exit until the way I'm going becomes the best way.

then I can click the "routes" button and see other ways to go based on my current location.

but using the app I don't think you can do it yet. Oghwa is right about the desktop version, but I don't think that is adaptable (meaning you can't have it adjust to provide other routes)
Its kind of kludgey  
Jim in Fairfax : 6/7/2021 8:46 pm : link
But you can force a route to a degree on Google maps by adding stops between you and the destination.
Wake is the best  
BigBlueShock : 6/7/2021 9:08 pm : link
I travel all the time and that app has saved my ass a million times due to construction, accidents etc. I’m not trying to be a dick here but the app is built to send you the quickest way in real time. It isn’t built to compensate for people having a hard time seeing at night. My suggestion would be to go old school and have a map or atlas available in your car.

Google maps sucks.
Waze  
BigBlueShock : 6/7/2021 9:09 pm : link
Not Wake…
I'm in the minority  
81_Great_Dane : 6/7/2021 9:13 pm : link
but I switched to Apple Maps. After its disastrous launch it's become quite good.

I like Waze but don't use it much anymore. Waze says it learns your favorite routes. I've never seen any evidence of that.
RE: I'm in the minority  
Jim in Fairfax : 6/7/2021 9:29 pm : link
In comment 15281938 81_Great_Dane said:
Quote:
Waze says it learns your favorite routes. I've never seen any evidence of that.

Maybe it’s using the info to tell other people not to go that way. :-)
RE: I'm in the minority  
BigBlueShock : 6/7/2021 9:42 pm : link
In comment 15281938 81_Great_Dane said:
Quote:
but I switched to Apple Maps. After its disastrous launch it's become quite good.

I like Waze but don't use it much anymore. Waze says it learns your favorite routes. I've never seen any evidence of that.

I mean, if it’s your favorite route, why do you need GPS? Also, if you just get started on your favorite route, Waze will adjust the route as you go that way. Assuming you don’t need GPS from the minute you leave your house on your way to your favorite route, of course. ;). Just kidding
RE: Wake is the best  
RomanWH : 6/7/2021 9:42 pm : link
In comment 15281933 BigBlueShock said:
Quote:
I travel all the time and that app has saved my ass a million times due to construction, accidents etc. I’m not trying to be a dick here but the app is built to send you the quickest way in real time. It isn’t built to compensate for people having a hard time seeing at night. My suggestion would be to go old school and have a map or atlas available in your car.

Google maps sucks.


It's all the same. Google bought Waze in 2013 and assimilated many of the same features into Maps. Constuction zones, accidents, speed traps, etc. are all in Maps now.

But to the OP, either one will defer you back to one of their defined alternate routes until you force it to do otherwise. For example, sometimes to avoid a particular toll bridge that I know backs up, I check the avoid tolls option to plan me an alternate route around said bridge.

Best way to do it is to plan out the route ahead of time like someone above mentioned and set intermediate waypoints for a particular route. Then, save that route as a widget on your homescreen so it's one touch easy navigation for that particular route(call it Primary or option A). Then, set up another route with other waypoints going a different way. Save that as Secondary or option B. Continue until you have all the necessary options saved. Then when you ready to embark, all you need to do is touch an option with your finger and it'll bring up the navigation along with the times associated. Swipe that one away, try option B and see the times with that. And so on. Choose whichever one works best for you that day.
I put waze on sometimes when I don't need directions  
pjcas18 : 6/7/2021 9:43 pm : link
to warn me about traffic and cops
Roman HW  
BigBlueShock : 6/7/2021 10:14 pm : link
You have a completely different experience than I have had or anyone else I know has had with Google Maps then. From my experience, once you get started on a route with Google Maps, that’s the way it wants you to go. Everything else be damned. It doesn’t redirect you in advance of accidents or backed up traffic nearly as well as Waze and if you try to take a route other than the one installed, it will try for half an hour to get you to do a Uturn to turn around. Waze recognizes rather quickly that you’re taking an alternate route and adjusts accordingly. From my experience anyways. Glad you’ve somehow had a better experience with Google. You’re a rare breed in that regard, lol
RE: I'm in the minority  
bluepepper : 6/7/2021 10:20 pm : link
In comment 15281938 81_Great_Dane said:
Quote:
but I switched to Apple Maps. After its disastrous launch it's become quite good.

I like Waze but don't use it much anymore. Waze says it learns your favorite routes. I've never seen any evidence of that.

Yeah, drives me nuts how I will drive same way to work 90% of the time and still have times when it is not even shown as an option. I wonder is it a bad traffic day? Then I check Google Maps and no, it's same travel time as ever just the algorithm deciding that I should go one of these other route to save 60 seconds.

Really do not understand how they've never let you just save your preferred route so that you can always check that route first for traffic and then get other routes if need be.
they're designed for fastest route  
giants#1 : 6/8/2021 7:12 am : link
while incorporating traffic, but even then still have some flaws. I was travelling up to the Meadowlands for my vaccine and would normally get on I-78 right by my house. I could see it was at a standstill (overturned semi) so took the frontage road which literally runs parallel to I-78 for ~2 miles. Luckily, those 2 miles were enough to pass the semi and save me 30+ minutes of traffic, but Google maps wasn't smart enough to have me take it. Wanted me to get on I-78 at my exit plus the subsequent one which wasn't yet past the accident.
This is not directed at anyone  
oghwga : 6/8/2021 7:25 am : link
But the fact that we can complain about google or apple maps which use live information from millions of phones and constantly update their info based on construction and tolls and traffic and have literally photographed every single road in the country and didn't even exist 25 years ago shows just how fast technology has come along and how much we all take it for granted.

We live in a pretty amazing time all things considered.
After they put me on I-95 (the Cross Bronx) to save 60 seconds  
Del Shofner : 6/8/2021 7:43 am : link
a few times, I started taking their advice with a grain of salt. They're great if you don't know how to get where you're going, but if you do and have a couple of familiar routes you can already choose from, I don't always follow their suggestions.

Just curious...  
Dan in the Springs : 6/8/2021 9:13 am : link
But have you tried Google Assistant? I've found the more I use it the better it seems to get for me. Try activating it and asking "find me another route that avoids downtown areas" or something like that.
RE: After they put me on I-95 (the Cross Bronx) to save 60 seconds  
giants#1 : 6/8/2021 9:32 am : link
In comment 15282117 Del Shofner said:
Quote:
a few times, I started taking their advice with a grain of salt. They're great if you don't know how to get where you're going, but if you do and have a couple of familiar routes you can already choose from, I don't always follow their suggestions.


If you're familiar with multiple routes, its only utility is the real time traffic data. Definitely beats waiting for the next traffic update on the radio!
It's Been Over A Year Since I Took A Long Trip  
Trainmaster : 6/8/2021 2:48 pm : link
But I've found that Google Maps is more "strategic" (gives better routes and estimates for 5 hour plus drives), but Waze is more "tactical", especially with its warnings about "Police Ahead" and "Object In Road".

I usually have both running, mostly staying on Waze for its "tactical info", but checking overall routing on Google Maps.

In driving around the greater Los Angeles area (i.e. lots of traffic), I find Waze more often wants me to get off the freeway and take the streets (in neighborhoods I wouldn't enter without Seal Team 6) to save a minute or two.

Have you gone into navigation settings in Waze  
AJ23 : 6/8/2021 2:55 pm : link
to enable (Avoid freeways) and (Avoid toll roads)? This may help you get the route you're looking for.
If there are 8-10 ways  
BH28 : 6/8/2021 6:09 pm : link
Why would you want it to give you the worst 5 choices instead of the top 5? Just because you think there is a quicker way doesn't mean that is the actual case.

If there is a certain way you want to go, just drive that way and the map will adjust. If not, it's probably better to just use the recommneded routes instead of thinking that maps is 'hiding' a better alternative.
RE: If there are 8-10 ways  
Jim in Fairfax : 6/8/2021 6:28 pm : link
In comment 15282694 BH28 said:
Quote:
Why would you want it to give you the worst 5 choices instead of the top 5? Just because you think there is a quicker way doesn't mean that is the actual case.

If there is a certain way you want to go, just drive that way and the map will adjust. If not, it's probably better to just use the recommneded routes instead of thinking that maps is 'hiding' a better alternative.

You didn’t read the OP all the way through. The quickest way is not his concern.
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