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Comment by gffrd | Hacker News Reader

100% on this.

Every time I use Waze, I end up pulling my hair out from all the stress-inducing second-shaving measures. Left turns zig-zagging across the city? What could be bad about that??

The idea of low cognitive-load routing is great. One could take in to consideration "how does this driver/cyclist typically navigate to the point they've requested," and providing a route that augments an already well-worn mental path with something a little better and easier (or faster) as well.

Does Strava take user feedback as an input? It irks me how Maps/others seem to not take elevation, road condition, or general "pleasant-ness" in to consideration when it comes to routing …

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Huh. That is the reason I used waze: it's the only app that would take advantage of back streets.

That can backfire when Waze routes hundreds of cars onto the same narrow back streets (eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKy4ekd_SHU)

Anecdotally, my impression was that Waze users tend to prefer routes that keep you moving and engaged (by making turns), while Google maps has tended towards picking equally fast routes but that might be more stop-and-go and boring.

… which reveals a lot of implied preferences that have been made. For in-city drives, what I'm looking for will depend what mood I'm in: Do I want to zone out and listen to a podcast? Blare music, scoot around, have fun? Take the scenic route?

I would agree that Maps and Waze strike me almost as opposing forces in how they do things … without making it apparent.

> Blare music, scoot around, have fun?

This is exactly why I hate Waze: people "scooting around" are exactly the worst ones to have on residential back-roads, where children might be playing, people sleeping, and where there's less often a cycle path.

Fortunately, traffic engineers in the larger European cities sometimes block off residential roads to cars to prevent "rat running".

Hmm!

Maybe routing apps should have an initial onboarding (or route-specific questions) similar to 401(k) / investing apps: "what is your tolerance for risk?" and "how well do you know this area?" and "do you like calm or active routes?"

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