The Waze craze continues with more features in Waze apps for parking and GPS, as well as Waze surveying drivers to rate driving in cities and countries.
Satisfied Drivers
Waze Driver Satisfaction survey named the best and worst cities for drivers. For the second time, Greensboro, NC came in first place as the most satisfying drive in the United States and Honolulu, HI has the least satisfying drive in the States .
The Worst American Cities to Drive:
- Honolulu
- Memphis
- San Diego
- Portland
- Los Angeles
The Best U.S. Cities to Drive:
- Greensboro
- Grand Rapids
- Cleveland
- St. Louis
- Dayton
The Best Countries to Drive:
- The Netherlands
- France
- The United States
- The Chzech Republic.
- Sweden.
Portable Bluetooth Beacon Project
Often while driving in cars, the GPS signal can be lost, especially in tunnels. Waze is implementing Waze Beacon program to enable navigation in tunnels. Installed on tunnel walls, Waze Beacons are, battery operated, low-energy “microcontrollers” with Waze configurations – that transmit messages directly to a smartphone allowing Waze or other navigation providers to offer real-time routes and alerts.
Waze worked with Bluvision to create custom beacon hardware designed to suit moving vehicles and tunnel location challenges. Waze claims it is the first navigation app to accurately route drivers, in real-time, as they navigate through tunnels where Waze Beacons are installed.
The Waze Beacons Program has four pilot partners including three Waze Connected Citizens municipal partners: PennDOT (Pittsburgh, PA); Sanef (Paris); and Rio de Janeiro COR with partner CET-Rio. The fourth partner is Carmelton (Haifa, Israel).
If Waze drivers want to get a signal from the beacons, they turn on smartphone Bluetooth functionality within Waze Beacons-supported tunnels and then they will not miss an in-tunnel exit again.
Speed Limit Notifications for Back-to-School
The Waze Speed Limit feature helps drivers avoid tickets and drive safer by letting you know when you’re going over the legal limit. It’s especially helpful during the back-to-school months when some speed limits on school routes change to keep kids safe.
Parking
INRIX parking lot information is now incorporated into Waze. The collaboration between the two companies extends smart driver services from INRIX to more drivers through the Waze app to further improve urban mobility.
Available as a feature on Android and iOS, Waze recently introduced its first “where to park” feature, which suggests parking lots closest to a destination and allows users to navigate there directly. Also, if a user doesn’t select a parking lot prior to arrival, Waze will give the option to select and navigate to one when approaching a final destination. INRIX parking data adds to the Waze database, comprised of parking lots sourced by the Waze community and other companies.
Waze recently announced the Waze Global Event Partner Program which will help partners outsmart event-related traffic and better communicate road information with attendees and the broader community.
Waze is doing some amazing things, that’s for sure. 🙂
My biggest problem with it is that it cannot estimate what the traffic at a particular place might be like /by the time I get there/.
I know it’s a tall order to ask of an app, because it requires some pretty significant AI, and no small amount of guesswork.
The thing is, I drive 35km to get to work in the morning, and Waze gives me a route which it says is going to take me 25 minutes. But that involves me driving past a certain interchange 15 minutes after Waze’s initial calculation, and by the time I get there the estimate FROM THAT POINT has jumped up to 30 minutes. That happens a few times on one route, and before I know it, Waze’s initial 25 minute estimate has resulted in a 65 minute trip to work.
Waze’s route is still not something that can be followed blindly, for that reason. I often look at Waze’s suggested route, along with its time estimate, and just shake my head and take another route instead – then I hear about a pileup or something on the route Waze originally wanted me to take, and I just think: “Yup. Told you so. There’s been an accident at that offramp every Wednesday morning for the past two months. What makes Waze think this morning will be any different?”
So ja, Waze is awesome, but they really need to work on their traffic pattern estimates, especially for people who drive long distances. For people who live, maybe, 10kms or less from work, I’m sure it’s PERFECT. 😛