Traffic App Waze Names PH City As The ‘Worst Place In The World To Be A Driver’
2 min readIs there a country worse than the Philippines to drive in?
With the recent Waze Driver Satisfaction Index just in, prepare to be not shocked as once again, we topped the navigation app’s list of places least satisfying to be a driver. But if you’re thinking the worst city to drive is located somewhere in Metro Manila, you’re mistaken.
This time, the Queen City of the South has been the champion at the bottom end of the spectrum.
Out of all the 186 cities ranked by Waze on its annual index, Cebu placed the last on the list at the 186th rank, a spot previously occupied by Manila.
The capital city, which was last year’s worst place to drive in, has improved by 16 places and is now at the 170th spot. Another city found on the bottom part of the list is Angeles City in Pampanga at 147th.
According to Waze’s Driver Satisfaction Index Score, Cebu got a disappointing score of 1.1 out 10 after getting low ranks at all the factors used by the app to judge cities.
Meanwhile, Manila’s jump to the rankings may be contributed to the high scores it got in terms of safety and number of driving services available to drivers. While the capital may have gone up the list due to the said factors, both cities are still inhospitable for drivers as Manila and Cebu got 0.3 and 0.6 points for traffic, respectively.
To measure a city’s friendliness to drivers, Waze uses the following criteria to create a score for a city:
- Traffic. Density and severity
- Quality. Road quality and infrastructure
- Road Safety. Density of accidents, road hazards and weather
- Driver Services. Access to gas stations and easy parking
- Socio Economic. Access to cars and impact of gas prices
- Wazeyness. Happiness and helpfulness of the Waze community (measured by the number of reports “thanked†by other users as well as the mood set by drivers)
With three measured cities belonging to the lower tier of the index are from the Philippines, the aggregate scores of our country is 3.1, placing us just above El Salvador as the least satisfying place to be a driver.
The said Central American country got a score of 2.9 from only one entry, its capital city San Salvador.
On the other side of the fence, Waze once again hailed Netherlands as the best place in the world to drive, citing “its smooth traffic conditions and solid road quality and infrastructure†as the key figures to such high score.
Following the said European country at the top of the index are France, the United States, the Czech Republic, and Sweden. On city rankings alone, France topped it with Valence with a solid score of 8.8 due to “satisfying driving experience, due to good-quality roads, low gas prices and traffic, and a helpful Waze community.â€
While Manila still has to work on a lot of things to improve its traffic, the government has already started implementing changes to decongest the metro’s hellish roads.
Just a few days ago, several concerned agencies formed the inter-Agency Council for Traffic to create an inter-agency effort in reducing the country’s traffic woes. Aside from this, the Duterte administration is also looking at the use of emergency powers to enact rules as well as kick-start infrastructure projects that will ease the country’s pervasive traffic.