Thousands of Waze app users’ data is being given free to Los Angeles city and county traffic managers in exchange for road condition info. How will they use it?
Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.scpr.org
Los Angeles is now the 10th Government to share traffic management plan data (road work) and other information with Waze in return for the ability to have access to anonymous drivers’ real time trips and incident data from Waze users.
I have frequently tested Waze in New Zealand and found that it really is more focused on people telling each other where to find speed traps. As a travel information application I found it severely wanting.
That may be because there isn’t a critical mass of users n New Zealand. On my trips it frequently misinterpreted normal waiting at red traffic lights as congestion and on one commute took me on a big tour around a few busy intersections and increased my journey time by about 10 minutes. In the US there may be a lot more users of the app, which would help to make it more effective.
On the other hand I have to say that the quality of congestion and travel time data on their owner’s Google Maps app has improved significantly. In fact on my morning commute it has become more reliable in predicting travel routes than my old favorite TomTom Go Live and as a TomTom fan of old, that says a lot. So if Google gave all of the Google Maps data to Waze, it would be a lot more useful Down Under.
Of course these Smartphone apps don’t have information like accurate speed zone data, which means I’m still frequently using the TomTom as well. The last thing I want to do is be caught speeding and given that in many cases most people are going faster than the legal limit, it is not a legal defense to do the same; and I have better things to spend my money on than speeding tickets.
So bottom line, for an all round solution that’s perfect in New Zealand for all conditions, I’m not sure there is one right now.
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