Don’t just navigate traffic — beat traffic. Thanks to Waze’s newly introduced Planned Drives feature, you’ll be able to take the guesswork out of your road trips, and enter a date and time for your destination to determine when you should actually hit the road. So if nothing angers you more than sitting in gridlock, you’re going to want to check out the Waze app as soon as possible.
This nifty new tool, currently available only to iOS users, is the latest in Waze’s ongoing mission to make driving less of a hassle, especially in congested or convoluted roadways. Since its founding in 2007, the app has become the go-to choice for commuters, and Google bought the Israel-based company back in 2013 for over $1 billion. But this latest feature takes things to the next level — because drivers can now schedule their trips in advance, you’ll be privy to a ton of useful information, including “expected traffic conditions based on smart algorithms, aggregated traffic history, and predictive analysis.”
Better still, Waze will pull in all your calendar or Facebook events and schedule them for you, so you can be assured that you’ll not only remember all your engagements, but arrive on time for them as well.
And if you’re curious as to why the app is telling you to leave 30 minutes in advance for what should be a 10-minute trip, Waze has answers for you — another new feature allows drivers to see the catalyst for a traffic jam, whether it’s construction, an accident, or something else entirely.
So take the stress out of planning a trip — long or short — and let Waze do all the heavy lifting on your behalf. As the navigation company notes, you can just set and forget all your events and locations, and rest assured that you’ll “receive a reminder closer to your event with an updated departure time based upon real-time road conditions.” Driving has never looked this easy.
