People who use Waze, a social mapping app that lets participants post real-time reports on traffic and weather to help users find the fastest routes, are helping the service better understand Thanksgiving travel patterns.
Contrary to popular belief, for instance, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving is not the biggest driving day of the week in some big cities, according to Waze’s research on aggregated user data.
Last year in the New York area, Waze users drove more on Thanksgiving than the day before. The app’s users in New York drove 1.5 million miles last Thanksgiving, compared with one million miles the day before, the company said.
“I don’t know what that means from a New York cultural standpoint,” said Trak Lord, a global communications manager for Waze. But he theorized that many New Yorkers may not leave for Thanksgiving until Thursday because they work a longer day on Wednesday — or because they typically drive shorter distances to celebrate with family and friends — than many people in other cities do.
Waze, which was acquired by Google last year, found the opposite trend in Washington.
Last year, Waze users in the Washington area drove 2.3 million miles on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving compared with only 1.86 million miles on the holiday itself.
But the Sunday after Thanksgiving was even busier for Washington-area drivers. That Sunday, Waze users drove 2.5 million miles.
“You have people leaving D.C. throughout the week and everyone is coming back on that Sunday,” Mr. Lord said. “That’s why there’s such a huge spike.”
(Last November, Waze had about 1.9 million active users in Washington and about 1.5 million in New York City area.)
As for the popular Black Friday shopping day, driving in the New York City area was actually better last year than on a typical day. Waze users posted about 60 percent fewer traffic alerts last Black Friday compared to an average Friday.
“Maybe people leave home earlier on Black Friday,” Mr. Lord speculated.