Waze and Braess’s Paradox
Anyone who commutes regularly via car knows the frustration and helplessness of being stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Before the age of GPS systems in cars and on smartphones, there was nothing drivers could do to avoid a rush hour buildup unless they already knew an alternative route. Now, drivers turn to the crowdsourced GPS app “Waze” to tell them the fastest way from one place to another; Or so they think. By collecting traffic and accident data from over 100 million users, Waze gives drivers directions based on what they think will be best route to avoid traffic. However, Waze’s rise in popularity over the past few years has resulted in some unintended consequences. The article I read details how Waze has disrupted many traffic networks by redirecting cars to streets that are not equipped to handle that kind of volume. A Los Angeles lawmaker even proposed legal action against Waze, citing “threats to public safety.” When a city notorious for bad traffic is having traffic problems because of an app designed to reduce traffic, it’s bound to raise some eyebrows.
I found this story to be a very interesting real-life example of Braess’s Paradox. The example we talked about in class focused on the addition of a new road, but in this case, Waze is simply redirecting drivers to roads they didn’t know were there. The result has been a buildup of vehicles on residential roads, leading drivers into more traffic than they came from. Personally, I use Waze almost every time I drive, and I’ve noticed this phenomenon a couple of times on the road. Waze automatically updates your route if it detects a bad accident or traffic buildup ahead on the highway. Since it does this at the same time for everyone, I have been in a situation where Waze redirected me to get off the highway at the next exit, and as I merged right a host of cars all changed course at once and headed for the exit. The article specifically talks about a number of towns in the United States that have had an uptick in residential traffic and accidents resulting from Waze rerouting drivers. Some users even started reporting fake roadblocks on their streets just to stop thru traffic trying to save a couple minutes. Waze has certainly helped me save a lot of driving time in my life, and because of that I have a sort of unconditional loyalty to where it tells me to go. After learning about traffic networks and Braess’s Paradox, however, I may be more inclined to ignore my smartphone more in the future.