As you, loyal reader, might already know, traffic conditions in and around Luxembourg can be pretty bad. We do have radio stations that on a regular basis list a few issues, but they’re not always “up-to-speed”…
Same goes for those apps that use the public network of highway cameras – what good are they if you don’t take the highway? 😉
And then it hit me. The only way to have this working out for everyone, is if it is all of these at the same time: free of charge, quick to update, easy to use, rewarding and useful (of course). Now imagine you’re on the highway stuck in a traffic jam, you take your iPhone® or other Twitter®-capable device, switch on your preferred Twitter®-app, and tell this to your followers: “hey guys, am stuck in traffic, again…”. Now imagine your followers could also recognize the geo-tag of where you’ve written this, and they would know exactly where not to drive without you needing to explain it to anyone.
Now the funny and interesting thing I read about Twitter® the other day was how the “hash”(#) came into usage. The community apparently was to blame or acclaim for this, and it makes for most interesting searches on Twitter®. You may also save searches on topics of interest for you, and it will show you everyone’s posts, no matter if you’re following them already or not. Try for instance searching for “apple“® and then searching for “#apple“®. Imagine now how useful it would be if all traffic related issue to Luxembourg was for example tagged with a #trafficlu? You get into your car, you quickly check your saved search, see the most recent tweets first, with their respective geotags. I am sure, but have not checked, that you could even limit the tweets showing in that search to those relatively close to you, say within 10km?
Any feedback on this would be greatly appreciated, and of course it would be fantastic if you tried using it yourself/started spreading the idea 🙂
The only thing, and this is so far the only negative part, please please PLEASE drive carefully. If you’re just passing some incident, stop your car a little further, and only then tweet about it!
