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Comment by nkrisc | Hacker News Reader

I think part of the solution is to allow users to add personal weights to different roads. Obviously the shortcoming with this is it only works if you already know the area, when one of the major features of navigation systems is navigating an area you don’t know. So it doesn’t solve the general problem, but it would lets individual users massively improve their own experience with the navigation system.

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If you already know the area, why would you need your nav to direct you to the alternative route instead of just driving it?

Road closures or traffic jams?

My navigation apps keep up with those better than I can.

Because traffic can be very variable and there are always reckless drivers crashing their cars and blocking roads. And the geography in my area is such that once I’m on a route, I can’t really go another way without going all the way back.

Often I’ll prefer a slightly longer route over another, but if it’s much longer time wise because of bad traffic then I’ll go with my second choice. But navigation apps will almost always suggest the fastest way, even if it’s only an estimated minute faster.

Apple Maps will suggest multiple routes if they’re close in estimated time, but I’d like to weight some of them more heavily such that they might still be the preferred route even if it’s 10 minutes slower since it’s simply more pleasant safer.

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