Given how regularly crazy traffic in Metro Manila is, I feel quite blessed to be able to do all of my work from home and only venture out on the road for meetings either in Makati or BGC.
When I do drive to a meeting, I use Waze to get to wherever I am going in the least time possible. I don’t really care if I have to squeeze my car though narrow back streets just so long as I am not stuck on EDSA or some other main traffic artery.
It’s great that I can play my favorite playlist on Spotify while getting instructions from Spotify (I use Waze’s Coach voice), because after a while the whole thing feels like a game of sorts and before you know it, Waze tells you that “You’ve arrived at your destination!”
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This morning, as I was browsing through my Facebook newsfeed, I came across a couple of memes where the MMDA was asking people to “help solve traffic together” and I thought that sounded so familiar.
In fact, Waze’s slogan says “Waze. Outsmarting Traffic Together.”
And I thought, “Why doesn’t the MMDA just team up with Waze?”
Good old Jon Limjap chimed in and commented that Yves Gonzales had started talks with Waze. (A search for MMDA + Waze turns up an article by Rappler published in November 2012 which compares the MMDA’s app with Waze.)
If I remember correctly, it was Yves who created the MMDA App where you can see the bottle necks along EDSA and C5. I am not at sure if future versions of the MMDA App would allow it to help drivers navigate though Metro Manila’s traffic, but that would be a logical path for the MMDA App to evolve until Waze started becoming popular in the Philippines.
With the advent of Waze, it would seem that the more efficient way for the MMDA to come up with an App that could help people navigate through traffic would be to just find a way to team up with Waze.
That’s just the broad and general idea. I don’t have a definite idea on how the MMDA and Waze could work together. Just off the top of my mind, here are a couple of ideas:
- The MMDA can share its traffic data from CCTVs to augment the traffic data gathered from Waze’s users. Perhaps this would make Waze’s ability to sense traffic congestion more accurate. Thing is, I’ve noticed that sometimes Waze flags certain roads as heavily congested when they are not and probably this is because it wasn’t able to update its map information.
- With the National Free Wi-Fi in place, perhaps the MMDA could also request the Department of ICT to enable these Wi-Fi routers along major arteries to pick up signals from smartphones in the area and use that as an additional means of gauging traffic flow in real time. In effect, these Wi-Fi routers would act like sensors used to determine the vehicle load of major arteries and if the data could be fed to Waze’s system, again, we’d have more accurate traffic information.
- One neat thing about Waze is that it allows you to report traffic conditions (moderate, heavy, standstill, hazards, and accidents. Perhaps the MMDA can request Waze to include additional reporting buttons for illegally parked cars, warn people of flooded streets, advise motorists to make way for emergency vehicles passing through an area and perhaps even a panic button for people in distress.
These are just ideas and who knows, maybe they’ve already been discussed somewhere else.
Thing is, another friend caught sight of the short discussion I was having with Jon on Facebook and he asked MMDA Chairman Tim Orbos about the possibility of a tie-up of sorts between MMDA and Waze.
Lo and behold, he comes back to me with word that the agency in charge of managing Metro Manila’s traffic was already on top of it.
The actual words were, “We are already about to close the deal.”
If so, then I think MMDA Chairman Orbos deserves some praise for following through with an MMDA-Waze tie up. For one, it is a departure from what usually happens when a new administration comes to power and that is when it either junks projects just because it was gestated by the previous administration or renames a project as a way of claiming it for the new administration. For another, it seems people won’t be able to tell this MMDA Chairman what he should be doing because he’s step ahead and already on it.
But of course, the rest of the MMDA has to catch up and it will take time for things to happen.
In the mean time, just do what I do… Make sure you’ve got some good music in your car, make sure your Waze is on, and wearing an adult diaper won’t hurt.
Writer.
Nobody gives way to anybody. Everyone just angles, points, dives directly toward his destination, pretending it is an all-or-nothing gamble. People glare at one another and fight for maneuvering space. All parties are equally determined to get the right-of-way–insist on it. They swerve away at the last possible moment, giving scant inches to spare. The victor goes forwards, no time for a victory grin, already engaging in another contest of will. Traffic in the capital is Failippines life, a continuous charade of posturing, bluffing, fast moves, tenacity and surrenders.
Before the Philippines can be considered an independent Asian country, its people must think and behave like one nation first. Filipinos must set aside personal differences and learn to work together, to rebuild their society that had been destroyed by their arbitrary narcissism—not by violent cultural purification, but through humility, selfless sacrifice, and spirit of commonality instead.
There is no other way to solve the Traffic congestion in Metro Manila. There are too many cars, sold as second , even third hands. The streets of Metro Manila are too narrow.
Only thru the improvement of the Metro Railway System, can we remove the traffic congestion Metro Manila. Yearly flooding; Pot Holes; Traffic rules not implemented; police corruption; etc…
Extension of the Railway system; and improvement of the Railway services are the only viable solutions, that I can see !