Traffic, Games, and Crowd-Sourced Data
One of the benefits enjoyed by smartphone users is the myriad of apps available on a device that is literally right at your fingertips. Apple claims over 425,000 apps for the iPhone (http://www.apple.com/iphone/apps-for-iphone/), not to mention those for other platforms such as Android. Among all of the games, calculators, and apps made for both business and pleasure are a growing number of tools designed to help users avoid traffic delays. Many of these apps are crowd-sourced, meaning that the information they provide is generated by users. In an app called Waze, drivers provide information about road conditions in real time so that others can be informed and avoid delays. Waze collects information in two distinct ways. By simply turning on the app while driving, GPS data from the user’s phone is collected and used to update traffic information. Additionally, drivers can choose to provide more specific information about road conditions in the form of words and images. Waze even incorporates some aspects of social networking—drivers can form “groups” and chat with other users.
Waze and other apps like it provide a possible solution to a problem that drivers face on a daily basis: the payoff (or travel time) associated with taking a particular route depends on the unknown choices of other drivers. Traffic-dependent travel times can be calculated through the use of graphs, but this method does not provide a best strategy for an individual driver if the actual number of travelers on each route is unknown. The situation is complicated further when unforeseen accidents, road construction, and other delays are added into the mix. When apps like Waze are made available, travelers can make more informed choices by learning what others are doing before deciding on a route. This allows them to avoid playing a game in which they are forced to guess the actions of others in order to maximize their expected payoff. This is a huge benefit and has the potential to make travel significantly faster for many drivers. Of course, the app is only useful if it does not contribute to the problems users are trying to avoid. If drivers are paying less attention to driving while they are using their phones, the app could in fact cause accidents and slow down traffic. Waze attempts to prevent this by disabling most features while the vehicle is in motion, which is detected by the GPS.
Apps like Waze are similar to social networks such as Facebook in that they become more useful as they gain more users. The closer Waze comes to representing the real time, real world network of traffic, the more beneficial it is to drivers. Perhaps the information provided by this kind of app can even be used to identify sources of traffic in order to engineer better networks of roads in the future. The availability of large quantities of real-time traffic data from these apps can potentially benefit both present and future drivers.
Source: http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/09/04/3337217/smartphone-app-tracks-traffic.html
The app: http://www.waze.com/