Optimum Navigation – Evolving Roadmaps The interesting thing about the apps I mentioned – Waze and Google Maps – is that they are interactive. When you open Waze, your smart phone automatically shares information with the other Waze users on the road and you are rerouted around potential traffic jams, stalled cars and are even warned of traffic police! Google Maps is similar.
It uses other smartphones, which if these have Google Maps open and location services turned on, send anonymous data back to Google to determine how traffic is flowing. In effect, people send information to other people so that they would not make the same mistakes they have made, and also to watch out for hazards they have seen.