Tech helps dodging traffic and speed traps

Hilton Tarrant

Hilton Tarrant is production editor at Moneyweb. He also project manages new website launches for the company and covers ICT issues, chiefly through his weekly...

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Remember those radar trackers that were so popular in the mid-to-late nineties? The kind you would plug into your car cigarette lighter and which would beep uncontrollably if Sersant du Toit was sitting behind the bush on the N1 to Bloem?

Thankfully, the world has moved on. There are similar (illegal) devices on the market, but technology – specifically mobile tech – offers new services for motorists who are trying to avoid traffic jams (and so-called “smile zones”).

Speedtraps.co.za, a long-running and popular website, offers a list of speedtraps by region. Usefully, it has also published a list of hijack and smash and grab hotspots. The problem is that the content is static (even historical) and often outdated.

Enter trapster.com – billed as a “speed trap sharing system”. What an amazing implementation! This global website is built on top of Google Maps, and allows users to simply submit

Trapster also has a number of applications for mobile phones, including the Apple iPhone, any BlackBerry, phones using the Windows Mobile or Google Android operating systems, Nokias as well as other devices like Garmin and TomTom.

It uses what it terms “virtual radar technology”, and simply mount your phone in your car and launch the Trapster map application while driving. It provides (spoken) audio warnings if you’re near a hotspot, and if you see a speed camera or road block, you simply click your phone as you’re passing by.

There are different types of hotspots highlighted on Trapster: “Police often hide here”, “Red light camera”, “Speed camera” and “Mobile speed camera”. These are rated at various confidence levels as well (Green, yellow, red, grey) based on the number of users that report a given trap.

The Trapster system also “learns” the credibility of users over time. With 3.3m users and 1.2m traps reported globally, this resource is already popular.

There are a few hundred “hotspots” in Johannesburg alone, with a fairly large amount in other metropolitan areas and major routes in South Africa.

This type of location-based technology is not limited to avoiding speed cameras.

A South African company, Swift Holdings, has developed a mobile traffic warning app for Blackberry.

The application, SwiftGo, provides warnings about traffic delays and was launched in November. What is great about it is that it doesn’t rely on your knowledge of road names and numbers.

The app works by simply constantly sending information back to the SwiftGo servers, which analyse it.

If a user should be doing 120km/h on a freeway, and slows to a crawl, SwiftGo works out that there is a delay and transmits this to all other users in the area.

The application is free, and because this first version is for BlackBerry, users do not pay any data charges for the data transfer that happens while using it.

Liron Segev, CEO and founder of Swift Holdings, told ITWeb that within two weeks, the application passed the “500-user mark, a target it had only initially expected to meet in February this year … Currently, 600 people use the application.”

He also said that users are able to submit information to the application, like accident warnings and broken traffic lights.

“But user-submitted information is double-checked, and SwiftGo staff also load radio traffic reports on to the maps.”

SwiftGo will be expanded to other devices, according to Segev. “The company is developing the application for Nokia and Windows Mobile-based phones, such as the HTC, Android and iPhone. Phones require GPS, a data plan and cellular coverage.”

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