Historical traffic data - a year since it got broken in Russia
About a year ago, May 2019, Waze editors in Russia found out that calculated routes and time estimations show no sign of speeds history anymore. All historical speed data gone for good, and does not grow back. It would it was deleted, but it does not. So we conclude it got broken in a way so that speeds became inaccessible. Only historical data is broken. Realtime traffic data was still functional. Only happens in Russia. Neighbouring countries are ok.
Some claim it happened much earlier, at 2019 beginning, or even fall 2018, they've noticed something was wrong but were not sure enough to explain. Historical data loss was somewhat disguised by realtime data making it not so evident. What they saw: weird routing, over-optimistic time evaluations in places where it used to be fine -- all of this occasionally happenned before, now became a tendency. It has becamer clear what's wrong when we tried to 'Plan a drive' - histogram had some bulge at present time, then quickly turned flat and went on flat with minimal time estimation.
Same picture but more clear and detailed is in RouteSpeeds script in WME. At any day or time selected other then current, it only shows default speeds for road types. With realtime data option turned on, 'now' and 'today' it could show some credible speeds on some of the road segments.
Few months later, 2019 July, our champs announced that Waze attached Google traffic data for Russia. It did not fix historical data and somehow affected realtime data so that it became noticeably rare. It still works this way so far.
The problem is severe. Editors are losing hope to see it fixed ever. There is not many users in Russia, it is not a priority couintry for Waze. Sadly, is is hard to attract new users and keep current ones.
Here is some record of observations. Maybe it will help when some Waze developer will look into our issue.
For a start, historical speed data always used to work correctly. Even though there were never too many users, it was enough. Let's see a sample route https://www.waze.com/ru/livemap/directions?to=ll.60.00499927%2C30.32713652&from=ll.60.00274112%2C30.32162189&time=now
Screenshot from 2017 when was functional. It was possible to request a route for some other day and time, for example Thursday 17:00, and to receive some credible ETA. Speeds before crossroad were realistic, they were actually pretty slow.
Now when trying to reproduce same route in same conditions. The crossing itself and junction boxes has not been edited since last shot. Now, no trace of speeds history to see. There are only default speeds for route types. Small deviations from exact default speeds are rounding errors.
We could see some real deviation only if "Now" "Today" selected and Real-Time Traffic checked. Now it looks differently, let's see saved screenshot from year ago, 2019 May. It almost looks real, slow before crossing, moderate at exit, only one middle segment had default speed.
Since 2019 July, segments with realtime data became rare. They still appear sometimes, they can even affect route, but quickly fade.
Example from 2020 March. It was before the lockdown, and the traffic still was typical. There was a chance to catch one slow segment. Anyway, it is onle realtime data. No history.
Another sample route crosses Russia-Finland border. https://www.waze.com/ru/livemap/directions?to=ll.61.13634416%2C28.81750983&from=ll.61.10962451%2C28.85925286&time=now
Testing same route at different weekdays, without any realtime data, we see that some segments show non-default speeds that change. In properties, we see they belong to Russsia, and they show historical data nonetheless. Oddly, not only it is not exact the border, they also are not contiguous.
Thursday 17:30
Sunday 17:30
That's all for today. Hope it helps.
Some claim it happened much earlier, at 2019 beginning, or even fall 2018, they've noticed something was wrong but were not sure enough to explain. Historical data loss was somewhat disguised by realtime data making it not so evident. What they saw: weird routing, over-optimistic time evaluations in places where it used to be fine -- all of this occasionally happenned before, now became a tendency. It has becamer clear what's wrong when we tried to 'Plan a drive' - histogram had some bulge at present time, then quickly turned flat and went on flat with minimal time estimation.
Same picture but more clear and detailed is in RouteSpeeds script in WME. At any day or time selected other then current, it only shows default speeds for road types. With realtime data option turned on, 'now' and 'today' it could show some credible speeds on some of the road segments.
Few months later, 2019 July, our champs announced that Waze attached Google traffic data for Russia. It did not fix historical data and somehow affected realtime data so that it became noticeably rare. It still works this way so far.
The problem is severe. Editors are losing hope to see it fixed ever. There is not many users in Russia, it is not a priority couintry for Waze. Sadly, is is hard to attract new users and keep current ones.
Here is some record of observations. Maybe it will help when some Waze developer will look into our issue.
For a start, historical speed data always used to work correctly. Even though there were never too many users, it was enough. Let's see a sample route https://www.waze.com/ru/livemap/directions?to=ll.60.00499927%2C30.32713652&from=ll.60.00274112%2C30.32162189&time=now
Screenshot from 2017 when was functional. It was possible to request a route for some other day and time, for example Thursday 17:00, and to receive some credible ETA. Speeds before crossroad were realistic, they were actually pretty slow.
Now when trying to reproduce same route in same conditions. The crossing itself and junction boxes has not been edited since last shot. Now, no trace of speeds history to see. There are only default speeds for route types. Small deviations from exact default speeds are rounding errors.
We could see some real deviation only if "Now" "Today" selected and Real-Time Traffic checked. Now it looks differently, let's see saved screenshot from year ago, 2019 May. It almost looks real, slow before crossing, moderate at exit, only one middle segment had default speed.
Since 2019 July, segments with realtime data became rare. They still appear sometimes, they can even affect route, but quickly fade.
Example from 2020 March. It was before the lockdown, and the traffic still was typical. There was a chance to catch one slow segment. Anyway, it is onle realtime data. No history.
Another sample route crosses Russia-Finland border. https://www.waze.com/ru/livemap/directions?to=ll.61.13634416%2C28.81750983&from=ll.61.10962451%2C28.85925286&time=now
Testing same route at different weekdays, without any realtime data, we see that some segments show non-default speeds that change. In properties, we see they belong to Russsia, and they show historical data nonetheless. Oddly, not only it is not exact the border, they also are not contiguous.
Thursday 17:30
Sunday 17:30
That's all for today. Hope it helps.
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