Traffic congestion in Bucharest would be 10-20 pct higher without Waze app, says minister of communication

Augustin Jianu, Romania’s minister of communication, suggested that the traffic congestion in Bucharest would be worse if drivers didn’t have the Waze navigation application.

“This app gathers data from traffic, from users, using certain algorithms and offers an optimized path. The magnitude of change brought by this app would be seen if it wouldn’t be used anymore, I think the congestion rate in Bucharest would grow by 10-20 percent,” said Jianu during the WeLoveDigital Forum 2017. He said that he had used the app to get to this event in the Romanian capital.

Talking about the digital literacy of Romanians, he said that although there are a lot of good experts in IT and communication, their share is relatively small compared to the rest of the population.

“The general population of Romania is at this moment digitally illiterate. In order to adopt the transformation, we need to the drive the literacy,” said the minister.

Bucharest ranks third out of 390 cities from 48 countries on traffic congestion, according to a report by TomTom, the maker of navigation equipment for vehicles.