Waze Ltd. today announced a new real-time closed roads feature, six weeks after a winter storm flooded Tel Aviv's Ayalon Highway and Waze's navigation app failed to function. Drivers seeking to evade the huge traffic jam that clogged central Israel were directed by Waze back to the closed Ayalon Highway. The app crashed completely at times during the day, resulting in another flood of complaints by frustrated users.
Waze's new feature offers users crowd-sourced real time information about closed roads. Users can tap on the new "closure icon" on the report screen to mark the exact location of the closure on the map and provide additional information, such as the reason for the closure (construction, hazard, or "event"), and how long they expect the closer to last. . For extended closures, the map editing community will close the roads via the Waze map editor. Once a road closure is properly reported, Waze will close off the road and route others around it.
The real-time road closure feature joins Waze's other update features, such as accidents, congestion, and police presence.
The feature uses a smart system to prevent inaccurate or misleading reports, and Waze will only report the closure after several users report it. The system takes into account the user who reports the closure, giving extra weight to users with credible track records of accurate reports. Once Waze detects cars driving on a closed off street, it will automatically return the road to its normal status and routing will resume as normal.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on February 28, 2013
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