Watch out, Waze: INRIX’s new Traffic app is coming for you

Jonathan Gitlin

INRIX Traffic's map screen. It uses OpenStreetMap for map data and INRIX's 275 million connected cars and devices for real-time traffic.

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You may not have heard of INRIX, a traffic data company based in Kirkland, Washington. But if your car's navigation system has real-time traffic data, there's a good chance you've been using its services. For example, the Audi A4 and Telsa Model X we drove earlier this month get real-time traffic data from INRIX. In the BMW i3 and i8, INRIX provides the range finder service that lets you know how far you can go before needing to recharge (and where you can do that).

Today, the company is taking aim at the mighty Waze with a new smartphone app that leverages its vast crowdsourced traffic database.

Do you remember what it was like trying to navigate in days of old? Back when some of us started driving, if you didn't want to get lost, you needed a map. (Remember them?) In 2000, then-President Clinton opened up the US' GPS network, and consumer navigation systems started to proliferate, first as standalone devices, then as installed infotainment systems in our cars, and finally on the screens of our smartphones.

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