On the weekend of Chasé-Croisé I often rhyme with traffic jams. With a Saturday, August 2, black in the direction of the departures, the traffic jams will be there for vacationers. A solution favored by motorists to expect to escape these inconveniences remains Waze, the navigation application belonging to Google.
The strength of this collaborative GPS is that it shows in real time the information related to road traffic. If a plug is formed on your route, Waze will make sure to avoid it and you can offer you an alternative route.
Credible trips?
Is the application only reliable? Most of the time, but it doesn’t have a glass ball. Waze analyzes real -time traffic using what is called “crowdsourcing”. In other words, the application is participatory, all the information provided in real time by all its users to evaluate traffic is feedful.
If several cars, with Waze on, slow down the same place and the controllers report it on the application, the application will indicate on your card. Motorists who have to take the way in the minutes that will see their route to change it to avoid it, or their time to go to bed if there is no alternative.
The reliability of travel time is also a common problem. Since it is a matter of real time, Waze cannot always anticipate improvised decelerations in advance, in particular those caused by traffic accidents, or those due to occasional events (concerts, parties, policy displacement, etc.). It is not uncommon, especially on long trips, see the travel time shown at the beginning that finds completely modified.
However, the application manages to anticipate a lot of perennial obstacles. This is, for example, the case of work or periods of strong crowds. Questioned by our colleagues in Figaro, Ludovic Leclercq, transporter by transport at the University of Gustave Eiffel, explains that Waze extracts some information from public services, which “freely shares public data with information about work or non -accessible roads.”
Difficult to take into account the parameters
Surely he has experienced it, it is not uncommon for Waze to lead the drivers in small roads, instead of favoring the main axes. When the algorithm establishes a trip, it takes into account three main parameters: distance, average speed and real -time traffic. This sometimes leads to the application to favor the routes that are generally frequent less, especially when the main axes are blocked or include tolls.
In fact, the driving wizard is at the origin of a known phenomenon and yet harmful, both for motorists and for residents: “The Waze effect.” It affects certain small municipalities that have seen traffic exploit in its streets. The drawback is that road infrastructure is not always adequate, creating traffic traffic jams. At the same time, the inhabitants undergo the noise generated by traffic.
As explained in a study conducted at the University of Berkeley in 2019, the capacity of road roads is difficult for hierarchical by application. Some routes are, at the base, designed to accommodate low traffic and are more exposed to deceptions when traffic increases. In addition, these small roads are often more accidental, for motorists who do not know them.
And in certain situations, Waze participates in a phenomenon called La Paradoja de Braess, as explained in another study of the University of Berkeley dating from 2024. This mathematical principle demonstrates that any time, the most motorists take the most optimal trip proposed by Waze, the more alternative paths are created and the more the travel time extends.
In short, Waze is still pragmatic and is content to offer the shortest route. The application remains blind in the capacity of each route, a parameter that plays a lot with the fluidity of the traffic.
Some tips to save time
If you are looking to shorten your travel time, several options in Waze allow you to adapt the route, according to your media:
- Have you planned a toll budget? You can ask the request to suggest payments (what you don’t always do). To do this, go to the menu in the upper left of the card (icon “≡”), then in “configuration” and “navigation”. From this menu, you can deactivate the option “Avoid toll roads”. You can also modify this parameter from the “Avoid” button by validating the trip.
- Do you want to go at the best time to avoid jams? You can enter your trip in advance, but instead of pressing the “Go” button to start navigation, press the “Later” button. A menu will open, in which the travel time will be estimated depending on the arrival time. What avoids the hours of strong crowds and saves a few precious minutes.
- Do you drive on a motorcycle? You can, from the configuration, on the “Information about the vehicle” tab, change the type of your vehicle. This allows two -wheeled vehicles to take paths that are more suitable for them, or even have time.
- Are you not afraid of the snack without traffic lights? Still in the “Navigation” tab, you can choose to deactivate the “Avoid difficult intersections” option to get more trips. The difference in travel time is not often obvious, but allows you to take a few minutes.
There are other options like that to “avoid roads.” Accumulated, these small tips can save a few minutes and allow roads to be taken a little less frequented by uninformed Waze users.
Source: BFM TV
