According to Waze (2018), Waze is the world’s largest community-based traffic and navigation mobile application. Waze is an application designed to connect Wazers (drivers) to “improve the quality of everyone’s daily driving”. It is a mobile application of zero cost and is easily accessible for download via android devices with operating system “4.4 and above” (Waze, 2018) and iOS devices with iOS versions “9.0 and above” (Waze, 2018). The main feature of Waze is to provide “real-time traffic updates” (Waze, 2018) at the same time contains “cool social and geo-gaming elements that actually makes commuting fun” (Waze, 2018). These features allow Wazers to find direction and avoid traffic conveniently and allow every Wazers to share details pertaining to the routes. Essential information such as “construction, police activity, accidents and even potholes and disabled cars on the shoulder” (Scott, 2018) can easily lengthen the duration of an individual’s journey. With such kind of data at hand, “Wazers” who are contemplating on a different route to their destination can better understand the traffic situation, before determining whether they should follow through with the concerned route. Although there are many other free traffic and navigation application in the market such as Google Maps that offers similar features, Waze have their unique strengths in term of being community-based and user-friendly that allows them to stand out from their competitors.
Waze is the only traffic and navigation application that is dependent on the community via social networks to improve on traffic updates. As previously mentioned, Waze allows Wazers to share details pertaining to the routes. Waze have an inhouse team that is ready to do any updates upon receiving news of the routes, but this does not deprive from the fact that some of these notifications might be missed although minimised thus, Wazers travelling en route are able to easily update details they discover when it’s determined necessary by individuals. Furthermore, Waze is highly praised for its user-friendly interface. It is suitable for all ages to comprehend as it contains several icons with different illustrations and significance. This application is convenient for people to quickly distinguish the present road conditions and hazards.
Comparing Waze with Google Maps, the latter provides relatively different features as it aims to target a general audience. They provide multiple forms of navigation modes, like “drive, transit, walk, cycle and flights”. Waze, on the other hand, is a dedicated application that will create ease of travel from the community-based feature as it “excels at finding an alternate route around accidents and traffic jams” (Coomes, 2018), this allows convenience for commuters while on Google Maps “The alerts aren’t as informative as Waze…. Mainly because Google Maps doesn’t have social integration” (Coomes, 2018) thus if an accident were to occur on the supposed “shortest path” to the destination, Waze would have smoothly directed the driver to another location whereas Google Maps will be caught up in the jam thus Waze in comparison is a superior traffic and navigation application from the features it possessed.
In conclusion, the biggest difference is that “Waze functions like a crowdsourced social network” while Google Maps is “a standard navigation application”. Waze is an enhanced traffic and navigation application that works via a history of information capturing depending on the community to advise the next users while Google Maps is an application designed to fit all with no dedicated solution. With enhanced features utilizing social network updates, this will update commuters to understand on the route they are going on. Waze will thus be the likely application commuters will depend on as compared to other traffic and navigation application.
References:
1. Orgera, S. (2018). What Is Waze and How Does It Work?. [online] Lifewire. Available at: https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-waze-4153570 [Accessed 28 Nov. 2018].
2. Waze.com. (2018). Free Driving Directions, Traffic Reports & GPS Navigation App by Waze. [online] Available at: https://www.waze.com/ [Accessed 28 Nov. 2018].
3. Grab SG. (2018). GrabCar Singapore – Private Hire Car Service | Grab SG. [online] Available at: https://www.grab.com/sg/car/ [Accessed 28 Nov. 2018].
4. Coomes, K. (2018). Waze vs. Google Maps: Which map app should you be using?. [online] Digital Trends. Available at: https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/waze-vs-google-maps/ [Accessed 28 Nov. 2018].
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