I literally just had the best idea ever.
When you are driving somewhere do you ever take a different route in hopes of avoiding traffic or an accident or construction but then arrive at your destination and wonder if it wouldn't have been faster to just stay on the original route? Since I commute daily and there are frequently traffic jams and I am the kind of person who would prefer to be moving on a slower, light-filled street than not moving at all on the freeway I wonder this often.
This is where my idea comes. You design an app that lets you input two routes and it will tell, based on current traffic conditions, which would be faster.
It would have be a combination of Google Maps, which already use current traffic conditions to predict travel times, along with some voice recognition software because it would be useless if people were trying to input all this information and got into a crash themselves. There would also have to be some way for the app to know how the light systems on streets work because if you hit all green lights on a road it is going to be significantly faster than if you hit all red lights.
In my mind the app would have a favorite routes function so if I am traveling home and there is a crash on I-15 all I have to do is say which would be faster route 1 (I-15) or route 2 (getting off somewhere and taking side streets) and the app would magically come back and say, "Route 1 will take 5 minutes less than Route 2."
Alternately the app would be able to just tell you the fastest route to any given address, so if you are in a unfamiliar place and don't really know the side-street routes the app can tell which way is faster and then guide you in getting there.
I really don't know why no one has thought of this before. Doesn't everyone want to get to where they are going the fastest and most efficient way possible? Doesn't everyone hate sitting in traffic jams?! I obviously don't have the technical knowledge to make this happen but I would definitely buy the app if someone else created it.
