Crowdsourced traffic app Waze to launch in SA

Crowdsourcing seems to be all the rage. It’s been used for everything from funding startups to forming national constitutions. But what about traffic?

If the people behind Waze, a free, user generated traffic app, are to be believed then that’s been taken care of too.

Waze calls itself the world’s first community-based traffic and navigation app for smartphones. The app allows drivers to outsmart and beat the traffic together by sharing the information the app passively transmits about a user’s speed and location to identify where traffic is moving slowly.

The company claims to have a user base of around 12-million — a number it is looking to increase by entering into South Africa where it has over 30 000 early adopters.

People using the app, called “Wazers” can also create or join groups with friends, colleagues and/or drivers that share similar routes.

This reportedly enables users to communicate directly with the members of that group to inform them about things like accidents, road conditions or closures that are specific to their particular route. For safety purposes though, typing is disabled while driving and users are advised to only use Waze in conjunction with a hands-free car kit.

“Waze was developed to alert and route drivers around slow-moving traffic, road hazards or accidents,” says Uri Levine, the co-founder and President of Waze. “In doing so, drivers benefit from time saving as well as less spend on fuel and reduced stress levels linked to driving in heavy traffic.”

The app uses a “geo-gaming” aspect where users “can gain points for activities such as reporting traffic information, validating roads and collecting drive-through “candies” that are randomly scattered throughout the map”.

Waze claims that these points count in the user’s favour if he or she applies to become an area manager. On applying to become an area manager, a user’s status is evaluated and if they’re granted permission they are then able to process pending road deletions and update requests from other users on the map in their chosen area.

Much like the Wikipedia model, the Waze community ensures that the data users input is legitimate and that any incorrect map data entered is corrected in order to improve everyone’s driving experience.

Waze is available across most smartphone platforms. The only cost to users is the data that the app consumes and as such, users are encouraged to use the app in conjunction with a mobile data package.