Navigation platforms including Google Maps, Apple Maps, and Waze consistently fail to distinguish between active and shuttered motorways during late-night journeys. Diverted drivers are regularly directed onto minor side roads that quickly clog with heavy traffic, while navigation software repeatedly attempts to guide them back to the blocked highways. Broadcaster Adrian Chiles experienced this firsthand when an unheralded M25 closure redirected his late-night journey from Gatwick onto Surrey backroads, leaving him lost around Epsom at 2 a.m.
Key points
Digital navigation services regularly leave late-night drivers stranded by failing to det…: Digital navigation services regularly leave late-night drivers stranded by failing to detect planned middle-of-the-night roadworks.
Detoured highway traffic frequently causes heavy congestion on small local roads unsuited…: Detoured highway traffic frequently causes heavy congestion on small local roads unsuited for large vehicle volumes.
Automated navigation software consistently instructs diverted drivers to return toward ro…: Automated navigation software consistently instructs diverted drivers to return toward road blockades manned by maintenance crews.
Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1
The worst three words in the transport lexicon are often said to be “rail”, “replacement” and “bus”, in that order. But there’s worse. “Motorway closed” is worse. At least with rail replacement buses you get fair warning, on booking apps and whatnot. You can resolve to embrace the pain or, more likely, abandon the journey. Motorway closures, in the dead of night, invariably come as a nasty surprise.
Waze, Google Maps, Apple Maps, etc can reliably get you from a car park in Penzance to a cul-de-sac in East Kilbride, but often can’t tell the difference between an open motorway and a shut motorway in the middle of the night. Football fans know all about this. You travel across the country for an evening match, and you lose. The prospect of a long drive home blackens your mood further, but as you slope away from the ground you cling to one consoling thought: at least there won’t be much traffic on the road. And this is true, but light motorway traffic looks rather like heavy traffic once it’s bullied on…
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