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This is a very specific issue i found, recently one person "fooled" google maps by using 99 smartphones.

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The services provided by Google Maps do not encompass details of all possible routes available, especially in rural parts of developing economies such as India.

Secondly, the condition of the roads/routes, in terms of deterioration or potholes is often not Incorporated when Alternative routes are suggested by Google Maps. Thus, in some situations, the alternative routes suggested might take up much more of the commuter's time than the original 'congested' route

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Pros.
Traffic routing is through traffic apps enable optimization of routes through geographic locations. This optimization leads to lower lead times and or reaching your destination faster than before.
Cons.
However these apps are more often than not dependent on cell phones and this can increase the risk of motor vehicle accidents due to distractions from use of these devices.

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Based on some review of the availabe information on the Web the majority of links found mention pros and cons but all of them related to traffic and  mobiles features, also road safety (cons). The point is that is not clear wether a second purpose of data collected or not. Who the benneficiary is? and Why.
http://mdscodelivers.com/pros-and-cons-of-traffic-apps/

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I'm wondering about who benefits from real-time traffic data. The assumption seems to be that we need cars to move more efficiently through our cities. But should that be the priority? What about quieter routes to cycle on? Safer routes that are lit for people walking alone - Durham station can only be reached on foot up a dark, steep, overgrown path, I believe (there must be a road way in as well though). For a woman trying to get a train, this is ridiculous. I recall also a project being mentioned on the Freakonomics podcast that was building up "beautiful" routes. Should we make it MORE difficult for cars to improve our cities?

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Your Navigation App Is Making Traffic Unmanageable

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Your Navigation App Is Making Traffic Unmanageable

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Navigation apps like Waze or Google Maps create traffic where there was none before and make urban planning and mobility management difficult. This article talks about it.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/your-navigation-app-is-making-traffic-unmanageable

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http://transportpolicy2013.blogspot.com/2013/04/singapore-traffic-congestion-solution.html
Singapore traffic management systems are possibly the most connected in the world. This is how Electronic Road Pricing system works: Citizens owning a car are required to install an In-Vehicle Unit (IU) in the car.

A cash card is inserted in the IU. When a vehicle passes through an ERP gantry, the amount charged is deducted from the cash card. Based on an optimal speed range of 20-30 km/h on arterial roads and 45-65 km/h on expressways, ERP rates will be adjusted accordingly.

It is no wonder that ERP system is unpopular with the people of Singapore.
BUT -- it is part of a system that works.

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Considerable effort goes into data gathering to support effective roading investment decisions.  I know how relatively  small changes in driver behaviour can be used to estimate  and predict future road use because I did this for a living a few years back.  One of the important issues is that the temporary , and not so temporary, alterations to route choices can introduce subtle but important signals that can then end up as inputs to a system of Roading Investment Logic that goes on to affect priorities - even to the extent of land/properties being purchased by force of law to accommodate expansions for additional lanes.  There is also some evidence that the knock on effects of drivers being routed into unfamiliar one-way systems etc., increases the net congestion and environmental costs

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We need to consider why there is a demand for traffic routing-- are our streets getting busier or are we changing our expectations of how long our commute should take? What alternatives can be developed to meet this demand without overstressing residential streets and neighbourhoods- there are huge advantages to developing good public transport systems (here in North America, most are abismal, and traveling or commuting by car is the only realistic option for so many, especially as our cities and rural areas are so spread out). When cities invest in streamlining driving routes instead of investing in a better public transport system, this disrupts our neighborhoods and makes no gains in improving accessibility of the city for young and old people, poorer communities, and of course decreasing emissions. Residents don't always know what to expect either:

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CALGARY -- Margaret and Mark Anderson's view from the front door of their Woodbine home is now almost exclusively of construction. The southwest leg of the ring road is just steps away from the home they moved into in 2014.

Margaret says she did extensive research on the ring road project and its plans when they were deciding on whether to purchase their home in 2014. They knew the project would be built adjacent to their property and were in favour of the plans at the time.

Now, Margaret and Mark say, the highway has been moved 50 metres closer to their home and 10 metres higher than what they expected - and they only found out months ago.

"It's just absolutely devastating," Margaret says.

"When I talked to the man at Alberta Transportation who verified the road was being elevated by 10 metres, meaning it was at the same level as our home, I didn't sleep. The next two nights I didn't sleep, I forgot to eat."

Construction on the southwest portion of the ring road started in 2016. When it's completed, the segment of road will stretch 31 kilometres and carry upwards of 100,000 vehicles daily.

In a statement, a provincial spokesperson says Alberta Transportation held annual information sessions for residents and updated the project's website with changes to the plan. The Andersons, along with more than a dozen nearby residents who spoke to CTV News, say the changes were not clearly communicated and came as a surprise.

"This project is in the late stages of active construction. Changing the design at this late stage would significantly impact the cost and timeline for completion of the project," an Alberta Transportation spokesperson wrote.

The project changes now have the Andersons considering whether they should try and move, though they say the ring road will negatively affect the value of their property if they try to sell.

"We don't know what we will do. We thought we were here for a long time. So it's really having a big impact on us," Mark Anderson says.

The southwest ring road is expected to be completed in 2021.

view larger image

Woodbine residents say surprise changes to the ring road is bringing it closer to their homes.

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Woodbine residents say surprise changes to ring road brings highway closer to home

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CALGARY -- Margaret and Mark Anderson's view from the front door of their Woodbine home is now almost exclusively of construction. The southwest leg of the ring road is just steps away from the home they moved into in 2014.

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Anecdotal experience: Cab drivers are told to do a turn in no U-turn places, counterflow a one-way street, or pass through a route that would mean doubling back and circling around in a route that would take 4x the amount of time. Good thing we have lots of veteran cab drivers who have "built-in cerebral GPS."

For the passengers, this is a hassle. For the drivers, they could get into an accident. For the traffic authorities, they could man these "bermuda triangles" and engage in corrupt practices. For the neighborhood, more accidents and run ins with the authorities (road rage) will mean less security, and real estate property devaluation.

https://www.wraltechwire.com/2020/01/23/where-are-we-cops-say-waze-app-misdirected-drivers-in-new-jersey/

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A sheriff in Southern California thinks that the police tracking feature in Waze should be disabled as it could put officers’ lives in danger

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A sheriff in Southern California thinks that the police tracking feature in Waze should be disabled as it could put officers’ lives in danger

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https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/sheriffs-want-popular-police-tracking-app-disabled/104343/

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Fake traffic on google map while the roads are empty

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Fake traffic on google map while the roads are empty

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https://wtop.com/tech/2020/02/artist-pulling-wagon-fakes-out-google-maps-creates-traffic-jams-on-empty-streets/
This is a smart idea. If it’s so easy to trick google and manipulate the system.

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In Brazil, you could be lead to death.

The news are in portuguese (sorry about that), but both Google maps and Waze show user routes that often are not safe. There are several reports on people geting killed by blindly trusting these apps

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Fernando Calmon

Colaboração para o UOL

24/05/2017 10h04

Aplicativo traz novas facilidades a motoristas, mas ainda precisa corrigir alguns percursos. Fernando Calmon analisa

A tendência dos motoristas brasileiros de utilizar novas tecnologias que facilitem sua vida no trânsito pesado do dia a dia fica amplamente demonstrada pela rápida aceitação dos sistemas de navegação por GPS.

Era um acessório relativamente caro no começo, mas a introdução nos telefones inteligentes impulsionou sua utilização. Hoje, os chamados navegadores portáteis caíram em desuso.

Centrais multimídias nos veículos passaram a incluir o GPS, porém esbarraram no preço elevado e na necessidade de atualizar mapas. Mais uma vez os celulares deram sua contribuição, pois mapas digitais recebiam atualizações frequentes e sem custos.

Google Maps, Navtec (hoje, Here) e TeleAtlas (agora, TomTom) abriram novas fronteiras para traçar rotas. Permitiram ao motorista chegar a lugares onde nunca passou antes dispensando informações de terceiros ou mapas de papel.

Isso, no entanto, era insuficiente. Uma startup (empresa iniciante) israelense, batizada de Waze, deu o terceiro e decisivo passo para revolucionar o modo mais rápido e prático de chegar de um ponto a outro. Tudo graças à rede de dados móveis das operadoras telefônicas e à colaboração dos usuários do serviço.

Estes passaram a relatar problemas no trânsito, acidentes, alagamentos e a agregar informações de forma automática sobre o percurso ao simples ato de abrir o aplicativo no celular.

A empresa logo foi adquirida pelo Google, mas as duas redes continuam independentes. Pelo que se sabe, compartilham apenas dados de acidentes. Os concorrentes TomTom e Here reagiram por meio de convênios com redes controladoras de tráfego e outras informações.

Porém, só em São Paulo Waze tem 3,5 milhões de usuários, o que a torna a cidade mais conectada ao aplicativo no mundo. Se o motorista informa o final da placa, recebe caminho alternativo (quando possível) para evitar a zona de rodízio.

O engajamento dos motoristas chega a apontar mais de dois mil buracos por dia, bom roteiro para a prefeitura que desejar amenizar esse martírio.

Zonas de risco e outros problemas

De outro lado, há queixas sobre roteiros passando por locais perigosos.

André Loureiro, diretor da empresa no Brasil, informou à Coluna uma providência: "Em agosto de 2016, iniciamos um programa piloto no Rio de Janeiro onde usuários podem apontar zonas de risco de criminalidade. Nossa equipe checa as informações e alimenta os algoritmos de atualização. Aos poucos teremos roteiros alternativos e esse serviço se estenderá a outras cidades".

Outra facilidade em falta é a integração do Waze ao Android Auto. Centrais multimídia têm telas maiores e de melhor resolução.

Feita a conexão, acaba o problema de dirigir enquanto se mexe no telefone (o que é proibido por lei) ou mesmo o de ter que fixar o smartphone no para-brisa ou no painel (prática que no Brasil, infelizmente vira chamariz a assaltos), além de aumentar a segurança na exibição da rota e facilitar acionamento de comandos.

Loureiro não pôde informar quando isso será possível.

Versão para caroneiros

O diretor do Waze confirmou, porém, que até o final do ano o programa Waze Carpool estará disponível na capital paulista.

O aplicativo poderá ser usado por quem está a pé à procura de carona solidária. O custo, calculado automaticamente, cobrirá apenas despesas de combustível. Promete tornar-se alternativa de mobilidade, diferente de serviços do tipo Uber e outros.

Como funciona a projeção de celulares? Entenda
UOL Carros

Imagem: Alta Roda

Roda Viva

+Queda das vendas de veículos novos tende a diminuir a frota brasileira. Segundo estudo do Sindipeças (sindicato dos fabricantes de peças automotivas), em 2016 havia 42,9 milhões unidades entre automóveis e comerciais leves e pesados, apenas 0,7% a mais que em 2015. Comerciais leves (-1,1%) e ônibus (-0,9%) recuaram pela primeira vez desde 1990. Motos também diminuíram 1,2%, para 13,5 milhões.

+Audi decidiu abrir o leque de seu portfólio. Aposta firme nas versões esportivas de alta gama: R8 (motor V10 Plus, 610 cv), R$ 1.170.990; RS6 e RS7 (V8 turbo, 605 cv), R$ 669.990 e R$ 728.990, respectivamente. Nos próximos meses e adentrando em 2018 terá mais oito novidades, entre elas o novo Q5 importado do México e, portanto, a preço mais competitivo.

+Entre os sedãs compactos o HB20, na versão de topo Premium, se destaca pela oferta de bom equipamento multimídia e volante multifunção. Motor de 1.600 cm³ e câmbio automático convencional de seis marchas formam um conjunto equilibrado. No entanto, com carga total falta um pouco de fôlego e perde em estabilidade direcional frente a alguns concorrentes.

+Abordagem mais técnica e menos política. Assim a cidade de São Paulo enfrentará os atropelamentos que cresceram este ano. Tempo de semáforos aumentará 20% para travessias de pedestres. Companhia de Engenharia de Tráfego detectou que a maioria dos acidentados tinha mais de 50 anos. Com o envelhecimento da população torna-se importante essa providência.

+Câmara dos Deputados analisa proposta que torna crime adulterar tecnologia ou substância para reduzir poluição ambiental. Hoje é fraude comum, praticada por motoristas, transportadoras e oficinas mecânicas, anular a ação do Arla 32 em motores diesel de caminhões e ônibus. Volume desse reagente é 50% menor que o previsto na frota circulante.

** Este texto não reflete, necessariamente, a opinião do UOL

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São Paulo é cidade que mais usa o Waze no mundo; quais os prós e contras?

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Fernando Calmon Colaboração para o UOL 24/05/2017 10h04 Aplicativo traz novas facilidades a motoristas, mas ainda precisa corrigir alguns percursos. Fernando Calmon analisa A tendência dos motoristas brasileiros de utilizar novas tecnologias que facilitem sua vida no trânsito pesado do dia a dia fica amplamente demonstrada pela rápida aceitação dos sistemas de navegação por GPS.

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This article finds that with the mass uptake of mapping apps, in situations of drivers re-routing to avoid a highway accident, this worsens traffic both on the highway and in adjacent neighbourhoods.  However understanding the net impact on the entire traffic system is not easily known; which is a major challenge.  How can city planning, which may already be an expensive, laborious undertaking be done effectively without an overall understanding of impact?  Individuals often can freely choose whether to use and act upon mapping apps,  so it's uncertain what remedies can be taken to address this at the root cause and to avoid a reactive response.

James.sy

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"This problem has been vastly overlooked," Alexandre Bayen, the director of UC Berkeley's Institute of Transportation Studies, told me. "It is just the beginning of something that is gonna be much worse."

Bayen and a team of researchers presented their work earlier this year at the Transportation Research Board's annual meeting and at the Cal Future conference at Berkeley in May 2017. They've also published work examining the negative externalities of high levels of automatic routing.

In the Cal Future talk, Bayen walked through a simulation created in the commercial-transportation simulator Aimsun. The video below shows how the flow of a freeway changes in response to an accident under two conditions: when no drivers use routing apps and when only 20 percent of drivers use routing apps. When there are more app-using drivers, congestion builds up at off-ramps, creating more traffic on the freeway.

"The situation then gets much worse because hundreds of people just like you want to go on the side streets, which were never designed to handle the traffic," Bayen says. "So, now, in addition to congesting the freeway, you've also congested the side streets and the intersections."

While it's clear that traffic on local roads gets worse with the use of these apps, Bayen said that nobody has managed to do a multi-scale analysis that can determine if the apps, even if they create local problems, are better or worse for whole traffic basins.

Nonetheless, the adoption and use of these apps continues to grow, too, Bayen said. Over the last 10 years, traffic-routing apps have become a standard accessory for the driving public. According to a 2015 Pew survey, 90 percent of Americans with smartphones use maps for driving directions at least some of the time. As smartphone penetration reaches up above 70 percent, a vast number of people now have access to real-time traffic data on their phones. The driving public is better informed about routes and road conditions than ever before.

In many local neighborhoods, residents have complained about increased traffic volumes. Bayen's team has been gathering stories from around California of resident complaints and found dozens in even a short time window, as shown in the map below.

Bayen's team showed that their concerns are real. In the chart below from a 2016 presentation, drivers who are routed by mapping applications spend many more minutes on "low-capacity roads," which is to say side streets.

But the Berkeley research suggests there could be a deeper, broader issue. A few people using route-planning maps makes things better, but a lot of people using them might force a deterioration of driving conditions. It is a very 2018 version of Garrett Hardin's " tragedy of the commons," where we, ourselves, are the cattle, the mapping software is the herdsman, and the roads are the common pasture. Nonetheless, the outcome is the same. In transportation-engineering terms, it could be that routing apps increase the price of anarchy.

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The Perfect Selfishness of Your Mapping App

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"This problem has been vastly overlooked," Alexandre Bayen, the director of UC Berkeley's Institute of Transportation Studies, told me. "It is just the beginning of something that is gonna be much worse." Bayen and a team of researchers presented their work earlier this year at the Transportation Research Board's annual meeting and at the Cal Future conference at Berkeley in May 2017.

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Real-time traffic routing causes more problems than benefits for cities

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Real-time traffic routing causes more problems than benefits for cities

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by stasha_neagu
Optimized to keep an individual driver’s travel time as short as possible; they don’t care whether the residential streets can absorb the traffic or whether motorists who show up in unexpected places may compromise safety.

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IEEE Spectrum: Technology, Engineering, and Science News

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This is a really interesting piece about the financial value of traffic data and suggests that councils could use the collection of data as a commodity to fund other services. One interesting fact I learned was that traffic data degrades at the rate of 2% a month! It also shows the predicted value of this market over the next ten years...quite considerable.

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It is said the British love to queue. However, that tolerant attitude to standing in line does not extend to sitting in traffic - everybody hates a jam. For city planners, dwellers and commuters the world over, congestion is the enemy.

According to the INRIX 2015 Traffic Scorecard, while the United States had the worst congestion on average, it was a UK city that topped the world list for metropolitan areas. In London last year, it was estimated that drivers wasted an average of 101 hours, or more than four days, in gridlock. This figure marked the first time a metro area had surpassed the 100-hours threshold, making the capital a record-breaker of the wrong kind.

Congestion is bad for business. An earlier INRIX study conducted in 2014 with the Centre for Economics and Business Research forecast the cost to the UK economy would be a staggering £307 billion between 2013 and 2030.

And congestion is also harmful to urban resilience, impacting negatively on both environmental and social sustainability, in terms of emissions and global warming, plus air quality and public health. As for the liveability of a modern city, congestion is effectively part of the urban transport user experience (UX).

Calculating levels of UX satisfaction at any given time means solving a complex equation with a range of key variables and factors: total number of transport assets (such as road and rail capacity, plus parking spaces), users (vehicles, pedestrians), incidents (roadworks, accidents, floods and breakdowns), plus expectations (anticipated journey times and passenger comfort). To do the maths requires one essential - data.

Data for smart transport

Driven by one trillion sensors becoming active throughout our environment by 2025, it is boom time for big data and the internet of things. Figures from Gartner estimate 6.4 billion connected things now in use worldwide, up 30 per cent on last year and rising at a remarkable rate of 5.5 million new additions a day. Total things will hit 20.8 billion by 2020, of which a quarter of a billion will be connected vehicles.

This growing availability of data sources within our cities means analytics offer potential to open up a whole new era of smart transport, explains Hussein Dia, associate professor at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia.

"The fusion of urban data from increasingly complex networks of sensors allows for new ways to 'sense the city' and enhance transport capability and resilience. Predictive analytics provide a unified approach for extracting useful urban mobility information from networked infrastructure, connected vehicles and smartphones, for real-time estimation of traffic patterns, and deployment of management strategies," Dr Dia says.

However, it is only early days. He adds: "While decision-makers and city leaders are recognising the role of data analytics in 'sweating of assets' and providing innovative solutions to meet demand, deployment at a global scale is still in its infancy."

Dr Dia's cautious optimism is echoed by Mark Wedlock, associate director of smart mobility and intelligent transport systems at Arup. "Predictive analytics on its own is not the solution to rising congestion," he says. "However, what it does enable is a transition from reactive to proactive traffic management regimes.

"As the amount of data about current and future travel demands increases in the connected world, so the possibility of better analytics increases. In order to have real benefit, though, predictive analytics for transport as a whole is required."

The emerging science of predictive analytics has already seen numerous successful urban transport applications

Alongside need for scale and a more systemic application that would support better modal shift, requirement for real-time inputs is also critical, says Tim Barber, vice president for software solutions, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, at global technology company Pitney Bowes.

"Collecting reams of data isn't enough. You have to be able to validate, link and access data in real time to extract meaningful, accurate insight, and predict trends and patterns. Data decays at 2 per cent per month, so the real-time element is crucial," he says.

Predictive analytics

Caveats aside, the emerging science of predictive analytics has already seen numerous successful urban transport applications.

In the US, use of the world's largest community-based traffic and navigation app Google Waze helped tackle the scourge of double parking in Boston, Massachusetts. Whereas, in the Irish Republic, IBM has been using big data with the City of Dublin to identify and solve root causes of traffic congestion in its public bus network.

Using an array of sources - timetables, inductive-loop traffic detectors, rain gauges and CCTV cameras, plus GPS updates every 20 seconds for each of the city's 1,000 buses - a digital map of Dublin gets overlaid with real-time positions of services using stream computing and geospatial data.

Focusing on benefits to intelligent systems and networks, it is easy to lose sight, however, of the urban UX. Here, for example, predictive analytics can be vital in facilitating emergency response, both for general road users and key services.

As project director at Mott MacDonald, Martin Perks, explains: "Data analytics has a great role to play in helping professionals inform drivers interactively and reduce the risk of accidents, plus support management of incidents when they do occur. Opportunities are far greater for the traffic management community than the individual motorist at the moment, but the community is working hard to improve journey-time reliability."

This opening-up of the data to the private user, with widescale interoperability, is the real direction of travel. Mr Perks concludes: "Accessibility to the individual of analysed metadata against the backdrop of live traffic information is where the future is headed."

CASE STUDY: CITY OF MORENO VALLEY

As one of California's fastest emerging cities, Moreno Valley has witnessed spectacular population growth since incorporation in 1984, with total numbers up four-fold to more than 200,000.

Given that its rise over the last three decades has spanned two global recessions, the growth spurt has not been without its challenges. As a result, the City of Moreno Valley found itself keen to address a basket of civic and development issues to make the most of in-house capabilities coming under significant budget pressure.

Prime mover behind the quest for innovative solutions was the Moreno Valley Police Department, desperate for technological support to back up and boost its shrinking staff numbers. With public safety therefore a priority, it made sense to pursue a community-wide camera system and video platform, but with additional data blend and analytics capabilities, plus strong interoperability to enable partnering.

The municipality adopted Hitachi Visualisation, working with public and private entities to build an effective and accessible video and data ecosystem, combining edge-capture devices and cloud-based software.

Devices include high-definition video cameras with analytics, plus intelligent gateways for external sensor data, third-party video integration and live streaming. The unique software is ideal for capitalising on rapid response and actionable data intelligence in the event of emergency or crisis.

The resulting integrated video and data resources are displayed, along with any real-time alerts and live feeds, on an intuitive, map-based screen. A software-as-a-service or SaaS model also enables turn-key deployment and easy integration.

A ten-month implementation period saw 212 cameras mounted initially throughout the city, rising to 275 active now. With real-time monitoring, signal-timing adjustment and priority-routing capabilities, the benefits to transportation management have proved significant, says city traffic engineer Eric Lewis.

"From special events, such as the air show and July 4 parade, to what's happening in construction work zones, we are moving traffic in the ways it demands. We have central-control software for both traffic management and emergency vehicle pre-emption. Now we can see exactly what's happening, what resources to deploy and make any changes on the fly," he says.

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How big data is now busting city traffic jams - Raconteur

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It is said the British love to queue. However, that tolerant attitude to standing in line does not extend to sitting in traffic - everybody hates a jam. For city planners, dwellers and commuters the world over, congestion is the enemy.

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https://gulfnews.com/uae/transport/monitoring-devices-must-for-all-heavy-trucks-from-august-1.2197763
Interesting example of how the UAE are trying to reduce safety risks with large trucks (a real problem) but use the driver rather than the vehicule as an entry point to monitoring...

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This is a rather wonderful example of an individual pushing back against real-time traffic monitoring https://www.wired.com/story/99-phones-fake-google-maps-traffic-jam/

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