11 Oct How To Confirm / Validate Traffic Updates in Lagos
I am passionate about traffic information, and how we relate to them. This has led to the development of Tsaboin’s recent product, Traffic Talk (www.tsaboin.com)
I have always believed traffic information is sensitive and should not be taken lightly or joked with. It saves time, energy, fuel and lives. If traffic information is played out well, organized, filtered and disseminated with complete and absolute precision, it will achieve purpose.
What importance then do we attach to these information? How do we share it? What are we doing about it?
With the recent hoax shared by @FRSCNigeria handle, its shows that even at official level, we do not know how to manage traffic information. Other twitter handle and unofficial traffic sharing sites can afford to contain unconfirmed information but definitely NOT @FRSCNigeria.
I told one of my colleagues to take a screen shot of the information 3mins after it was shared because I knew this will definitely be a hoax and argued that it is impossible for a BRT Bus to fall of Third Mainland Bridge and that I am sure FRSC will deny this soonest.
Lagos Traffic Radio dismissed the information the minute they heard of it and classified it as a hoax. How FRSC Nigeria deemed it fit to share is beyond me.
@FRSCNigeria eventually deleted the update, and later on apologized.
Please, how then is @FRSCNigeria different from all other twitter handles that road users has been using to help other road users via Facebook and Twitter that has been plagues with hoax, spams, wrong information, marketing gimmics etc.
Tsaboin Traffic Talk features five key actions that help ascertain and validate traffic information shared on our platform and we believe, people will use it holistically to help each other make good judgement of the traffic information shared on our platform. This is the only way we can help people judge the crowd sourced traffic information as people are free to share their own traffic experience.
1. Time: You can try to know the time it was shared, hence you will know if the information will still be valid especially if you are conversant with the area.
2. Confirm: How many people confirmed the traffic update? This can help you judge for yourself if to rely on the information received. We encourage our users to confirm updates if they have had similar experience.
3. Source: Did the user use mobile or web? We believe, its prerogative, but we also believe you should know. Some of us might trust information that came from mobile than the one that came in via web/desktop as it is sure the user is behind a laptop or desktop and might not have sourced originally from the road.
4. Broadcast: We allow people with the same traffic experience to broadcast the same update to their own users and others without necessarily writing another one. This shows you how many people have the same experience.
5. Location: Where did the update come from? How close is the update location to the reported area. We try to source this information from the internet service provider if the user allows this. Would you trust an update about Anthony by someone in Lagos Island. Though it is not impossible but the decision is yours.
We at Tsaboin believe these actions on Traffic Talk will help validate and confirm traffic update that are shared on our platform, making them more reliable than the ones you get from other platforms that are not dedicated nor purposed mainly for traffic updates around Lagos.
Thank you.
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This article is courtesy : www.deleodufuye.com
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