I've been using waze for about 2 months, again since I found out how awesome it can be. I signed up with the service when it debuted several years ago, but because there were so few users, I abandoned it. Today I learned exactly how useful it can be, and not just as a police spotter.
On my way to work, I drive over a bridge that offers a fairly decent view not only of the 101 Freeway, but of the airport in San Jose, CA. I noticed that the Northbound traffic was at a standstill. Normally at that time of the day (2:30 PM) the traffic is flowing smoothly, if not sparsely. I happened to glance down at Waze and I saw a plethora of notifications of heavy traffic, so I followed it.
About another two miles up the road were several reports of an accident. Some of the Wazers that were caught in the traffic managed to get some pictures of the scene. I suddenly realized why I had been overtaken by a police officer 15 minutes earlier on the expressway, as he was likely heading toward the action to perform a traffic break.
All this information was more than I might have gotten from either the radio or Google Maps current incarnation. People who were in within the event were making note it, taking photos, reporting traffic and the incident. Even Twitter can't really do as much as Waze can in this sort of situation, because it lacks a map.
What this event showed me was that Waze had some pretty powerful functionality. I can get traffic data and incident data from Google Maps, but the incident data is from the CHP, not users. The CHP doesn't show pictures of what is happening. Google Maps can show which side of the road is affected by the speed of the traffic on that side, but it's only in three colors, Waze provides the average speed.
Waze is really quite good on its own and I can see now why Google would want it. It's too bad that APple and Facebook couldn't get enough money together to buy it. Google really picked a winner.
No comments:
Post a Comment