We've both been using WAZE, which is a free mapping/navigation app, for a couple of years. It's a great piece of software. I thought TOMTOM was good (and it is!) but WAZE has the edge in that it's real-time.
So whereas if you sign up for the traffic notifications option (a paid service) in TOMTOM, you'll get the official traffic updates as per the various traffic news agencies, with WAZE it's a bit more like Twitter or Facebook in that anyone who is logged on can report on various things they see, en route, and it'll be pinned to a map based on their location, and you will be notified, if your journey happens to go past that point!
The first time I noticed the accuracy of the information, was an information message popping up to say there was a car stopped on the hard shoulder, in 500, 400, 300, 200m and then there he was! Wow, I thought, that's a little more accurate than the Matrix signs on the motorway gantrys which often have last night's 'queue ahead' warning still displaying the following morning.
There are about half a dozen buttons for declaring hazards en route. Weather, stopped vehicles, accident, traffic jam, etc, which makes it easy to report just by poking the screen once. If you get caught in a jam, it will notice and say "waze has detected you slowing down, are you stuck in traffic?" and it also reports on general speeds of the roads ahead of you, if they're slower than the national speed limit.
Recently we noticed a new feature which allows you to send your journey to a friend and then they can follow you in real time.
So this morning, I'm following Dan to Liverpool...
Update at 07:43 from the 'follow my drive' bit of the application...
Arriving in about 1 hour
quicko99 is stuck in light traffic
(that's Dan by the way!)
So whereas if you sign up for the traffic notifications option (a paid service) in TOMTOM, you'll get the official traffic updates as per the various traffic news agencies, with WAZE it's a bit more like Twitter or Facebook in that anyone who is logged on can report on various things they see, en route, and it'll be pinned to a map based on their location, and you will be notified, if your journey happens to go past that point!
The first time I noticed the accuracy of the information, was an information message popping up to say there was a car stopped on the hard shoulder, in 500, 400, 300, 200m and then there he was! Wow, I thought, that's a little more accurate than the Matrix signs on the motorway gantrys which often have last night's 'queue ahead' warning still displaying the following morning.
There are about half a dozen buttons for declaring hazards en route. Weather, stopped vehicles, accident, traffic jam, etc, which makes it easy to report just by poking the screen once. If you get caught in a jam, it will notice and say "waze has detected you slowing down, are you stuck in traffic?" and it also reports on general speeds of the roads ahead of you, if they're slower than the national speed limit.
Recently we noticed a new feature which allows you to send your journey to a friend and then they can follow you in real time.
So this morning, I'm following Dan to Liverpool...
It's a fabby bit of navigation software. Try it out!
Update at 07:43 from the 'follow my drive' bit of the application...
Arriving in about 1 hour
quicko99 is stuck in light traffic
(that's Dan by the way!)
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