waze
waze is an Israeli-developed GPS-based geographical navigation application program for smartphones with GPS support and display screens which provides turn-by-turn information and user-submitted travel times and route details, downloading location-dependent information over the mobile telephone network. Most notable is that “Waze differs from traditional GPS navigation software as it is a community-driven application which gathers some complementary map data and other traffic information from users.” In the words of the AP article, Waze has become “explosively popular” and it is said to be the leading technology of its type.
During 2006, a community project was founded by Ehud Shabtai - "FreeMap Israel". The aim of the project was to create, by the community users, a free digital database of the map of Israel and to ensure its free content, update and distribution, for non-commercial usage, as convenient as possible.
Waze was developed in Israel, funded by early-stage American venture capital firm Bluerun Ventures, and was acquired by Google in 2013 for $1.3 Billion.
The crowd sourced traffic guide that offers turn-by-turn navigation to help you get around town avoiding jams, police blockades, and accident hotspots.
The sole purpose of Google behind acquiring WAZE was to improve their mapping service and get the users to contribute via a community, this step alone contributes to this technology hitting critical mass.
Google’s Waze is reported to be the world’s largest community based traffic and navigation app. It is convenient to join the community of drivers around the world. You can join the drivers in your area who will share real time traffic and information about roads so that you can save money, time and improve overall commuting for the users.
Features of Google Waze
- GPS navigation application for smartphones
- Acquired by Google in 2013
- Send accurate locations and arrival time
- Voice guided navigation
- Real-time traffic updates
- Live maps updated by the waze community
- Notifications - cheapest gas stations
- Navigation to Facebook and Calendar
- Earn points - give to the waze community
Incentive Capable
Sensitivity Analysis
- Early adoption / Google Here
IT as an enabler:
WAZE technology is an IT enabler Freeway
https://hubzero.org/groups/isssytems/freewayapp