[Feature Request] Speed Trap / Police Reporting

[seniorm0ment]

Requesting the feature for speed trap/police reporting, or at least fetching.

I'm unsure if Waze/Google's API is open for this, but if it is, I think it would be great to be able to at least fetch user reports for speed traps/police reports while driving. If not, then implement a non-Waze/Google connected speed trap/police reporting system. (The downside being that it may miss a lot of reports due to the lack of OSM users. Seeing most everyday users do use Google Maps or Waze. Which is why the Waze/Google fetching would be the preferred method for accuracy in my opinion.) This is personally the one feature I miss from Waze, and I believe even Google has implemented it into Google Maps recently.

Worth noting, I had suggested this in #3565 because I thought that OP was referring to this when he mentioned "police" for "traffic data", but I see that most likely was not OP's intention. (If it was, then I'm sorry for this post if it would be considered spam. These were not my intentions.) There it was suggested that it may not be a good idea because it can "encourages using the device while driving which is hazardous and instead should be discouraged.", which is understandable, but at the same time it does not REQUIRE user interaction. This is entirely user decision based. If anything, it can be used purely as an auditory warning. Most users on Waze already do use this feature, and have for a long time. Again you do not need to report stuff, and if the user wanted to, it COULD be done from a safe, non-moving location (spotted a cop while sitting in a parking lot for example).

I will also argue, that it can also be extremely helpful in improving awareness on the road, for safety purposes. Yes of course, the user should be focused on the road anyways, but to receive an auditory warning half a mile or so before a cop is marked, is extremely helpful. Just because a cop is there, does not mean he is still doing a speed trap, he could have pulled someone over, he could be in pursuit, he could be there for an accident, etc. It gives drivers a heads up warning to be very cautious in that area.

Should be worth noting, that a few police officers will voluntarily mark themselves on the road. But also many of them try to get unmarked when reported. So I feel this should be taken into account for if an unmark solution was implemented, that it would require a certain amount of unmarks or something along those lines.

Of course speeding should be discouraged, and this should not be encouraged as a way to "get around tickets" by speeding and when a cop is marked then slow down (remember police are able to make false marks anywhere as well). It can be used that way, but there are MANY other uses for practicality and safety purposes that can be argued for having this feature. Again, Waze has had it for a very long time, and personally is one of the main features I miss from Waze. And I know is one of the bigger features users look for if they make considerations in switching to other navigation/map apps. I think it would be great feature to have implemented. Hope to see it in the near future, thanks.

[jfburke3]

Waze & Google navigation are closed. There is no way that any non-Google-owned product will be able to pull any data from those systems, at least not without paying Google a very hefty fee.

Magic Earth implements its own traffic-issue reporting, including police. Not sure how they do it, though.

[seniorm0ment]

Late response, but maybe at the very minimum implementing our own system would be a start, even if there may not be many users in the area using OSMAnd, It'd be better to have 1 report than not even having the ability to.

[connervieira]

I would absolutely love this feature. Even though OsmAnd can't access Google data, OsmAnd is in a unique position as one of the most widely used open source map applications. Just adding crowd sourced live data to OsmAnd would make OsmAnd a drastically better Waze alternative in my opinion.

[C0rrupted0mn1p0tence]

Waze & Google navigation are closed. There is no way that any non-Google-owned product will be able to pull any data from those systems, at least not without paying Google a very hefty fee.

Magic Earth implements its own traffic-issue reporting, including police. Not sure how they do it, though.

First, thanks @jfburke3 for your contributions to the project. Just adding a point of clarification for any future readers. It is not impossible to pull data from Waze/Maps, it just may be difficult. For example, numerous fake Waze drivers could be created using a combination of emulation software and spoofed GPS data on a server. Your OSMAnd app connects to the server, sends its navigation request, the fake Waze driver makes the query before sending it back to you. Some students had demonstrated the ability to create fake drivers which reported a false traffic jam back in 2014. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/waze-hacked-fake-traffic-jam @seniorm0ment I completely understand what you're saying. The lack of this reporting feature is the sole remaining reason I have not switched fully to OSMAnd.

[seniorm0ment]

I would presume this coule be implemented as an overlay if it can be scraped in some way

[connervieira]

I just thought I'd pop in to mention that OsmAnd is rated the second best alternative to Waze on AlternativeTo, and the main negative comment is the lack of police and other alerts. It seems like this is a pretty strong reason for people not using OsmAnd over Waze

[Technoguyfication]

I'd absolutely love this feature. I'm looking to do something similar for it in a home project and I'd be interested in the progress.

[seniorm0ment]

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.highwayradar.app

It looks like there is an app HighwayRadar that has a lot of these features and more. It might be worth looking at how they do a lot of their aggregation, where they pull from, etc.

Honestly a pretty cool project, would be cool to see them as plugins for OSMAnd.

For example:

Crowd-sourced alerts: Highway Radar can connect to a sever aggregating crowd-sourced alerts and show them on the map. It also issues audible voice warnings and optionally a beeper to grab the attention. Currently, the application supports alerting on speed traps and road hazards reports.

Aircraft alerts: In some countries, aircraft traffic enforcement is in use. Highway Radar collects information about air traffic around though various ADS-B exchange sites (ADSBx, OpenSky). Then it matches every aircraft to multiple registration databases and alerts drivers only on those which can potentially do traffic enforcement.

Historical data analysis: Highway Radar aggregates data about past police and speed trap reports and estimates the risk of a given area being heavily patrolled. The app also features a heat map that shows places with especially frequent speed trap reports.