When you own and use a smartphone there are many ways to get your directions, whether it’s through Google Maps using the directions or navigation, or through apps like Waze which provide a slightly more personal approach due to much of the app being powered by information and data from local users. While Waze users themselves could swear up and down how great the app experience is and how much they love it, Waze wanted to figure out which regions had the best user experiences over all, so, they took a driver satisfaction survey which incorporated feedback from over 50 million users across 32 countries, which contained a total of 167 metro areas. The verdict, users are pretty happy with Waze.
The goal though for Waze with the global driver satisfaction index wasn’t just to see which regions loved Waze but also to see what country or region is the best place to drive. According to all the details and findings that Waze acquired throughout the process, it turns out that the U.S. was rated one of the highest and ranked in the top three best places to drive, actually coming in at number three, behind latvia and the Netherlands which were rated number two and number one respectively. Waze states that they used six “key factors” to determine the results of the index, which includes traffic level by frequency and severity of traffic jams, road quality and infrastructure, driver safety based on accidents, road hazards, and weather, driver services like access to gas stations, and easy parking, socio-economic including access to cars and impact of gas prices, and finally a term known as “wazyness” which is basically the description for how helpful and upbeat/happy the users are.
As traffic is one of the main indicators of driver satisfaction, this was one of the ratings taken into account by Waze, and in this regard the U.S. essentially came in 5th behind Czech Republic, however they also tied with the same score of 7 along with Sweden and Slovakia which also received a score of 7 on the traffic scale. Thinking it about it his way, all four of these countries tied for the 2nd best place to drive based on traffic. Things were also broken down by cities, and Phoenix Arizona came in at number one. In addition to traffic and other details, Waze also looked at things like the time of the average commute in each region. Whether you’re a Waze user or not, it’s interesting to see just how things stack up for users. It’s also nice to know that overall, those of us who live here in the U.S. as a whole aren’t the most unhappy drivers in the world.
