My podcast conversation last month with INRIX co-founder and CEO Bryan Mistele increased my already considerable interest in traffic information on phones...

Podcast 32: INRIX TRAFFIC! Real-time & Predictive Traffic Information Free for Your iPhone

I've found INRIX's free TRAFFIC! iPhone app very useful and generally consult it every afternoon before driving home from the office. INRIX's data and predictive power comes from fleets of commercial vehicles. So, even relatively backwater (data-wise) places like my hometown gets pretty good information from TRAFFIC!.

A week after my discussion with Bryan, Brady Forrest wrote an interesting piece on another mobile traffic app...

Waze: Make Your Own Maps in Realtime

Unlike INRIX which starts with good commercial fleets provided data and adds iPhone user data on top of that, Waze seems to depend entirely on mobile phone end-users for its data. The problem is that it requires a critical mass of end users using it before it is able to get sufficient data to be useful. This is probably why the app has a 2.5 star (out of 5) rating in the iTunes App Store...

Waze 1.0.0

And, 671 of the current 1093 reviews gives it one (442) or two (229) stars. My hometown isn't listed in their list of cities with data. So, I won't be trying it myself anytime soon.