The world be a better place if everybody used waze

[ngwe23]

yes the maps part i understand.

but the real mystery for me - how exactly does google/waze "know" that there is a traffic congestion 1500meters ahead?

i'm starting to think they are using location/speed tracking - as that is the only way i can think it gets so accurate?

i use google maps quite often while travelling on the Gauteng highways, and mostly google maps is accurate to a 100meter of traffic starting.

really mind boggling.

mostly crowd sourcing and tracking users. Think about it: everyone that has cell phone is mostly being tracked and if they are on the highway google can tell that all the user suddenly slow down, therefore traffic. The power of big data. Waze has the added advantage that user can report road hazards, accidents etc directly. But then Google has access to that info anyway.

 

[SauRoNZA]

yes the maps part i understand.

but the real mystery for me - how exactly does google/waze "know" that there is a traffic congestion 1500meters ahead?

i'm starting to think they are using location/speed tracking - as that is the only way i can think it gets so accurate?

i use google maps quite often while travelling on the Gauteng highways, and mostly google maps is accurate to a 100meter of traffic starting.

really mind boggling.

Well I always assumed they use the location/speed tracking to measure congestion...I figured that's what they all do?

Even so much so that I asked them to implement a motorcycle mode, because my lane splitting would throw out their data and they told me not to worry because they don't use a single user's data to mark congestion.

****

On an unrelated but related note I see the R300 in Cape Town now uses the notification signs next to the road to indicate how long it will take for you to reach the next highway.

Pretty cool. Last night it just read "7 minutes till N1" or something like that.

 

[ngwe23]

If everyone used Google Maps for every journey and actually followed it instead of "I know better" it could route traffic much more efficiently and a lot of traffic problems would be solved.

I have learnt the had way to trust Waze/Google more than my instincts. This morning before I left for work I got a notification via my phone that my route was congested and I took the suggested route. I later heard on the radio that a truck had shed it load.

 

[OMB]

No it would not! People should be concentrating on the road and not reporting on every single car stuck in the shoulder lane..

Until they figure out a way of reporting hazards without having to handle your phone, the app is the biggest hazard.

But for the record, the few years before I used it, it does work very well, when its not crashing..

handset in a cradle solves the problem of handling the phone, it's also about being selective what you report, I flag stationary vehicles and road hazards. It's never crashed on me yet

 

[Park@82]

Google owns Waze. Aren't they pulling that data through to Google Maps?

yes but users cant report incidents via Google maps...

 

[isie]

Any on MYBB forumites in the top 50 waze users in south Africa ?

 

[OMB]

Any on MYBB forumites in the top 50 waze users in south Africa ?

I'm not even close

 

[Polymathic]

does it chow data?

as that might be a problem for some without contract phones;

For me it used less than a meg of data but I did view my route at home with wifi, so the map might of already been cached when I left