Traffic Jams and the 800 Pound Gorilla

Google just bought Waze, the company that developed an app that warns you about traffic jams and suggests diversions to take. In case you were wondering how that is any different (or better) than what you might hear on the good old radio, then these lines by Jeff Jarvis should help understand:
A long-ago colleague of mine said his rule was to go wherever the radio traffic reports said there was a jam because (a) by the time they found out about it, the jam was gone and (b) every other idiot was listening to the radio and avoiding that spot themselves.”

So how does a phone app like Waze address these two problems?

Well, Waze solves the first problem – delay in identifying jams – by collecting data from all those smartphones in real time and then inferring where the jam is. How? If lots of people on a route slow down or barely appear to move (stop and go traffic), then the Waze servers infer there must be a jam. And warn the others to take alternative routes. Since your movement is tracked via the GPS on your phone, nobody needs to call in or key in such info: the raw data (slow speed) is automatic sent from the phone! To add to it, if things then speed up along that section, it means the jam has cleared. Again, something that can be inferred automatically.

Of course, users can voluntarily add alerts manually too. Or update others’ alerts (“That broken down car has now been moved”).

Ok then, what about the second problem – if everyone takes the diversion, wouldn’t we back to square one? I think this was not an issue for Waze since it was in the Goldilocks zone: it had enough users to make the data accurate; but not so many that their actions changed the environment significantly.

But with Google taking over, the user count could potentially go through the roof (even if it is indirectly done by integrating Waze into Google’s other services like directions or maps). So it would indeed be interesting to see how Google, the 800 pound gorilla, handles that problem. Jarvis though is confident it will still work because, hey:
“Google and Waze are a helluva lot smarter than anybody on radio.”

Comments

  1. It would be good to see this happening. However, warnings about jams will become almost endemic in a city like Bangalore and road users will just shrug their shoulders and continue as it is something they need to live with!

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