Photo: autoevolution
Waze is an application that millions (or even more) of drivers turn to on a regular basis, and it’s all because it mixes navigation capabilities with crowdsourcing for one very efficient approach.
The Google-owned company relies on user reports and historical traffic patterns to provide us with the fastest way to reach a specific destination, and in many cases, it’s as accurate as it gets.
But this system relying on historical traffic patterns is what caused Waze to go nuts all of a sudden.
It happened in Israel, where drivers ended up being sent far out of their way simply because Waze no longer knew precisely what was happening on the road in real-time.
Local reports reveal that it was all caused by an algorithm error, as the recent increases in road traffic made it impossible for Waze to accurately predict where drivers could come across traffic jams.
So, in other words, the rapidly changing traffic trends have made it much harder for the navigation app to guess when and where traffic jams are happening, so drivers ended up being provided with broken routes to their destinations.
Some say they were sent far out of their way, while others complained they’d been routed directly into a traffic jam. The good news is Waze is already working on the whole thing, explaining that it would ship updates to its traffic models rather sooner than later.
Unfortunately, the same continuously changing traffic trends are happening all over the world. After a year (or maybe more) of reduced traffic, more and more cars are getting back on the road, and this obviously makes it impossible for navigation apps to use their historical traffic patterns accurately.
Google has already announced that it’s updating its systems for the new traffic trends in order to improve the navigation provided by Google Maps, and now it looks like Waze is getting similar polishing as well.
But this system relying on historical traffic patterns is what caused Waze to go nuts all of a sudden.
It happened in Israel, where drivers ended up being sent far out of their way simply because Waze no longer knew precisely what was happening on the road in real-time.
Local reports reveal that it was all caused by an algorithm error, as the recent increases in road traffic made it impossible for Waze to accurately predict where drivers could come across traffic jams.
So, in other words, the rapidly changing traffic trends have made it much harder for the navigation app to guess when and where traffic jams are happening, so drivers ended up being provided with broken routes to their destinations.
Some say they were sent far out of their way, while others complained they’d been routed directly into a traffic jam. The good news is Waze is already working on the whole thing, explaining that it would ship updates to its traffic models rather sooner than later.
Unfortunately, the same continuously changing traffic trends are happening all over the world. After a year (or maybe more) of reduced traffic, more and more cars are getting back on the road, and this obviously makes it impossible for navigation apps to use their historical traffic patterns accurately.
Google has already announced that it’s updating its systems for the new traffic trends in order to improve the navigation provided by Google Maps, and now it looks like Waze is getting similar polishing as well.
Google News