Enterprise New Media

Road Traffic has Gone Social

For those who work or stay in and around South Africa’s major cities, you’ll be pleased to know that avoiding bad traffic has been made easier.
For those who work or stay in and around South Africa’s major cities, you’ll be pleased to know that avoiding bad traffic has been made easier.

Google has expanded its live traffic coverage to Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town, via Google Maps. The different levels of traffic, ranging from fast- to slow-moving, are displayed over Google Maps with three basic colours - green, yellow and red. Simply put, green indicates that traffic is good, yellow is average, and red warns to try and avoid that route at all costs.

How does it work?

Google’s live traffic coverage operates on a concept known as crowd-sourcing - a successful collaboration between Google Maps and smartphone users.

Dave Barth, the product manager at Google Maps, explained that Google uses the GPS data from thousands of smartphone users who have installed Google Maps on their phones. This way they can gather speed and travelling time information to gauge traffic conditions in real time.

Users are also able to choose replacement routes to their destinations with an estimated time of arrival.

Avoiding bad traffic will now become a social event, as according to Google Maps software engineer, Matthias Ernst, “If the roads you are travelling do not yet show traffic information, don't despair. You can help your fellow drivers and improve traffic data by using Google Navigation or Google Maps for Mobile while travelling.”

Apple is also set to introduce a map service later this year for iPhones and iPads. It will have 3D images of cities called "Flyover", turn-by-turn navigation and real-time traffic updates.

South Africa, along with Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Mexico, Peru and Romania, has received the live traffic service from Google.

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