A screenshot from Waze website.
For decades, harried motorists relied on a lone traffic helicopter or plane to report traffic nightmares to avoid.
The fact that much of the information was old news by the time it hit the air and covered only as much territory as the aircraft could manage mattered little. The eye in the sky was king.
But its reign is nearing an end with the proliferation of traffic apps that are either standard equipment on new cars or can be downloaded onto cellphones. The one attracting the most attention these days is Waze, which has an interactivity feature that sets it apart from the field.
After all, why rely on one eye in the sky when you can have access to hundreds of thousands of eyes on the roads?
The key to Waze's success is that it combines real-time social media information with all the GPS points and algorithms that provide drivers with traffic information. The number of Canadian users has doubled every year since 2015, and it now has more than 400,000 active users in the Greater Toronto Area alone.
In fact, Waze has so much information that the city of Toronto recently partnered with it in an effort to fight traffic congestion.
Waze provides all the advice you get from other apps to get to your destination faster – including Google Maps, which is owned by the same company – plus a little more.
If a driver sees a giant pothole ahead, he can send in the information by voice or let a passenger do it by text. As soon as the report is verified, all Wazers know to head somewhere less treacherous.
Waze can alert drivers to things they're trying to find (restaurants, service stations, police and parking lots) and will also warn them about things to avoid (accidents, slowdowns and police who may or may not be holding radar guns.)
"Waze is basically processing billions of data points every second to give you the most optimized route, based on real time information," says Mike Wilson, country manager for Waze. "It's commuters helping commuters."
But there are a few concerns about the app.
"It has the potential to add another layer of distraction," says Teresa Di Felice, director of government and community relations with the Canadian Automobile Association Club Group, noting that any use of a phone while driving can be distracting.
She also has concerns about how rerouting drivers off clogged highways and into areas like school zones and residential streets might create problems. And tow trucks could use Waze to find accidents and then flock to an already crowded scene.
Then there's the matter of drivers dodging speed traps, though Wilson says drivers slow down when they know police are around, so the app actually contributes to road safety.
Despite her concerns, Di Felice sees a lot of upside to the app when used properly.
"Rerouting people doesn't always save time, but it does keep people moving so that they're not frustrated sitting in traffic," she says.
And, as all who've spent any time on the road will attest, a frustrated driver is a bad driver. Reducing their numbers could be Waze's biggest contribution to driving.