A change in traffic patterns in Israel has screwed up Waze’s algorithm leading to incorrect directions
During the pandemic, there was no traffic on these roads. Now that Israelis are no longer staying at home, the traffic patterns are completely different and these changes are affecting the algorithm used to compute the fastest route between two points.
The speedometer, found first on Waze, is now part of Google Maps
Berkowitz said, “The history of the road – which is part of our algorithm – no longer reflects reality. Think of a road whose history shows that there are no traffic jams, and today it is full. So the coronavirus has killed our history and the algorithms need to change and give much more weight to what is happening in real time – and this is not always true, because the way we direct you is not necessarily the short or fast way, but the Waze way.”
Waze makes money by selling hyper-local ads
With Waze, users can get turn-by-turn directions from celebrities (Boy George is a current option) and you can even arrange to record your own voice and receive directions from yourself.
