Uber ‘Movement App Provides Users With Clear Image Of Traffic Flow

Uber is no longer just a cab hailing service that people who have had a little too much to drink can call to take them home. Now, it’s also a maker of an app called “Movement,” which provides users with a good overview of traffic flows in cities where the company’s cabs are in force. This makes it easier for city planners to get an idea of how to help reduce traffic jams or other users to know which routes to avoid.

The ride-hailing company is in a particularly unique position to provide users with a service such as “Movement” thanks to its stores of vast traffic data gathered via its thousands of cabs, The Verge reports. Each cab essentially gathers information every single time its driver signs in, giving Uber deep insight into the density of traffic flow and the times when the roads are at their most crowded.

The service is only available to users who registered for it, at the moment, but the company intends to make it more widely accessible in the near future. In the meantime, some of the target audience that Uber wants to use the app are city planners, engineers, and local governments. Since these are the entities that often have a hand in altering routes, adding roads, or changing lane patterns, it only makes sense.

Being able to look into a significant store of data with regards to the specific times when traffic jams were at their worst makes it a lot easier to see for planners to make particular adjustments. With “Movement,” users can get access to the hour of a particular day and then move that along days or weeks after, Tech Crunch reports.

On the matter of privacy, Uber is assuring passengers that only relevant data is gathered while maintaining anonymity. In cases where data gathering does not guarantee anonymity, no results will be shown.