When I read the comment about Waze app, one idea was interesting for me. This application was successful and Costa Rica was selected because it is one of the five countries in Latin American that most uses this app. That is incredible because Costa Rica is a small country compared with other, as Mexico, Brazil or Colombia.
I think that Waze is a useful tool for drivers for many reasons: our streets are small, there are a few highways for fast traffic and every year increases the cars' number. In this moment, there is not an option for fluid traffic in the Grand Area Metropolitan. I believe that application is very useful both in the capital and in rural areas.
Last year I traveled to different Sarapiqui and Guacimo’s areas. I had to go at 40 high schools, because I had to give the results of academic aptitude testing of TEC. The driver and I did not know this zone and the directions of high schools were confused, for example, 800 meters north of community build of village or the six land of Sarapiquí. Moreover, in these places, there are the same picture; everywhere there are a lot banana and pineapple’s plantation, therefore, for many kilometers is the same. In this reality, we used the waze app to find the high school. It was a great helpful. The main problem was the lost signal of mobile telephone.
I think that we must search for other options, as we chance some habits, for example, the people could travel by other transportation, as public or private bus, train or shared car. In addition, we need to changing the aptitude on the street: we should be more patient and tolerant with other drivers. In summary, the formula is: Waze + positive aptitude + better streets = least traffic jam.
At first, they mention the most important caracteristic of "ticos": in Costa Rica, the people don't say directions mentioning street's numbers or avenue's numbers.
Some places in Costa Rica have specific street, specific avenue and specific house's number, but usually Costa Rican mention some details (super markets, bars, trees, representatives buildings, churchs and schools, for example) for give you a direction of a place.
In Costa Rica WAZE is very popular; many people use WAZE go to a specific place. Although you can say the real direction for a place, it's more popular indicate the direction of the place for some event using WAZE.
Most of people use this application because is very efficient in our country.
It's incredible, but people who know the place to go they use WAZE; I think that it's because with WAZE you can know how the traffic is and WAZE give you the best option to go from a point A to a point B. In effect, you're part of WAZE because you can help other people using the differents options this app have.
Costa Rican don’t have the culture of buying application about mapping system and all kind of free funtional apps are used for “ticos”. This is another caracteristic of Costa Rican: they preffer don’t to pay for a functional app.
Homework #4:Article Why Waze is so incredibly popular in Costa Rica
I commute from Alajuela Cartago every day seventeen year ago. I have tried some app related navigation system like: Apple’s Maps, Google maps and other. But the problems were the same, they showed troubles with the routes selected. Most of cases Apple’s Maps don’t find it the route between two point, for example: route Alajuela-Cartago. Google maps is much better than Apple’s Maps, in general this find the route but it has problems in Costa Rica. When I was abroad, I had opportunity to use Google maps, the resulting was incredible, this because the system information about roads, buses and subway are very exact. I could choose the route between two places, but I went on bus. In this case, google maps tell you, where you should walk to take the bus and which bus’ number you had to take. But in Costa Ricas the systems information are very bad yet. Eight year ago, I download Waze to try its functionality, the result was great. The waze’s success was to adapt its interface and the content to our country. Waze knows every ways in the city, including their particular names. Also the users can send and receive all alerts during their journey. I use waze every morning when I left home and when I left job. Clearly, I know my route, but the journey is long and in this 50 km might occur a lot of thing like: heavy traffic, close routes, many accidents among others. With waze, I have learned new routes, the names of many roads and a ways to save journey time. But all is not good, some times waze orient us to dangerous residencial area or streets are closed, however waze is always the best option to driver in our streets.
For us in Costa Rica is very common give a address using cardinal points, meters and landmarks, which can exist in the present or in the past. For example the old Yaohan. Our costum doesn't include to use avenues and streets and nobdy known the name or number of these.This situation is a chaotic for the tourist and foreigners. One day I heard a conversation in the bus between a foreigner girl and her mother. She said " Doesn't worry the package will be arrive well,although the address is peculiar, they are located".
The previous situation, the traffic jam, gapped strets and roads with few lanes, among others make that the people think about news alternatives for the problems. In this point Waze became a partial solution, because the people can find and offer information about accidents, police in route and traffic jam. Also, I believe that the most important application is the best route for the trip and the duration. However users should take a precaution, when you don't know the place. Waze can give a dangerous route because this app doesn't distinguish marginal areas as Los cuadros de Guadalupe or another similar sites. Waze takes his information and gives the fastest and clearest route in your way. I have heard stories about bad experiences about it.
I commute every day from Alajuela to Cartago in bus and the trip takes about two hours, as I don't drive I don't have problem with it. Probably the day that I have got a car I will use this app to optimize my time and trip.
I really love wase, I knew this app few years ago, my daughter María Laura told me about it and I became one user of it. I drove since 1995, in that days there less vehicles on the streets and you could go from Santo Domingo to Pavas in twenty minutes and the traffic jam was only if there was a car accident. For me was a problem when I had to go to a place without name or number for the streets, and the people give you a direction like from the Fito´s bar three hundred meters down, I prefer that you say me to the north or west. But in Costa Rica, most of people give the direction of any places from the Fito´s bar or something like that. My worst experience was in 2002, the parents of my son´s partners invited me to a party, I paid the money for the party and I was so happy to know the others parents of my son´s class. The house was in Escazú and they gave me the following direction: after cross the Anonos´s bridge take on your left in the first street intersection, then when you are in front of the biggest mango´s tree take the right drive unto the first Greece Y then take left street, when you are in front of the second Greece Y take the right our house is the one in front of the house with green ceiling. I drove my car obediently, I was following the instructions, I was in front of the biggest mango´s tree, I take the right and I didn´t know where I was for the next hour and a half, was horrible!!!! I wanted to cry, at this time I didn´t have a mobile phone, in this place there were many big and elegant houses but all of them are closed without lights. When I almost decided to return me to home, I saw two men walked and I asked them about the direction and the place that I was looking for, they were so gentiles with me and call to the parents of my son´s partner and after two hours I arrived to the party. Do you understand now? I love wase because with it I don´t loss my time or my patience looking for a place or a city. I don´t need to ask people those give answer like go right to come up with about, then go to left two times and then right, that may me crazy. With wase I could stay in my home without wasting time in traffic jams. I never thougt when I was younger that it is possible to have a mobile phone,then I couldn´t imagine that something like wase, dropbox,internet, technology could exist. But I like to use the technology to much.
In my opinion, the popularity of Waze app in Costa Rica has many reasons that are in some our country's cultural characteristics.
The first one and the most evident, the “ticos” have a peculiar way for give directions. It is really often to use schools, supermarkets, bridges, houses with a specific colour, trees (yes, though you may not believe it) like landmarks and then an approximate distance to some cardinal point. For example, ‘go straight to the big tree with yellow flowers and then turn right, cross the bridge and walk as 500 meters’. The Costa Ricans use this way although the streets and avenues have numbers, at least in the capital city. They are sometimes purposely-included places that no longer exist as landmarks (an old supermarket, restaurant, hospital or jail).
The second place, the absolutely irritating traffic jams. In our country there are some hours when the traffic is impossible. Also, sometimes the traffic police close a main street and it causes really slow annoying traffic jams. The people use Waze for find another road or calculate how long will be their trip.
The ‘ticos’ usually come late almost every time. If you have an appointment with a Costa Rican, he will justifiably come late. This is the third characteristic. Added to come late the ‘ticos’ are really stressful while we are driving. Then, a technological tool that produces a reduction in the driving time is necessary.
And the last one but not least important, the ‘ticos’ prefer cheap things, in this case free apps. It really probable that if Waze isn’t free, it wouldn’t as popular as it is now.
“Ticos” give address in a particular way refering to places that couldn’t exists yet. That’s the reason that the most of foreigns whos visit Costa Rica and try to drive just using a map feel unconfortable because the most of streets in Costa Rica don’t have names neither number. For that reason waze is one of the most amazing invention not only for foreings but also for costarican people, because it help us saying where we have to turn and which streets take at each moment.
However, I dont like to use waze for two reasons, the first one it’s because sometimes it gives me address taking in count unsafe places but I think that now I could set it up to avoid that and the second one it’s because sometimes waze has a delay in places that I dont know then I had mistaken the road.
Besides that, I remember that at the end of the last year waze had a chaos because the most of possible roads to anywhere were full and it didn’t know which one was the shortest, then to drive a site one kilometer away from me waze recommended to take a road of five kilometers, approximately, becuase all possible ways were so congested. I that case, I think that waze could help us to decide which is the better option, to avoid issues like crashes or streets closed but we have to know about the place and road where we want to go.
Nevertheless, unbelievably waze is able to indicate the name or number of each street, data that the most of costarican people dont know and to know that all that work was for free is even more unbelievable. Definitively, the waze’s workers don’t work they are enjoying the life doing that they really like to do.
If you are a foreign in CR, you need WAZE! And if you are a Costa Rican people, you love WAZE!
In this country everybody give an address using landmarks, old sites or cardinal points. It´s common to hear that some place is "near the supermarket", or "from the church, drive for 2 kilometers and then you can ask someone about your final destiny".
In CR our streets doesn't have any number or name, and our vial net is organized for irregular blocks and they are identified for some shop or building. That makes very peculiar the way that we give some references or addresses.
That`s a reason why Waze is amazing! The app maps our particular streets and sites and bring us a way to find a better way to drive somewhere. Probably you don't listen it about the name of the street, you expect to watch in the screen some known building or shop.
Otherwise, ticos hate traffic jams and this is the most frequent state in our roads, trails or highways, and we have found an excellent help to avoid this situations.
I really think it is useful to prevent jams on the daily commute to leave children at school, or for example when I decide to take a trip to a place I haven't visited before.
And Costa Rican people loves free and confiable apps it seems that Waze could understand the complicated way that ticos drive, and if they understand us ... they got us!
Nowadays, the technology is an important tool that people used in many ways. I think, it can be good or bad , but it depends how people learn to use it.
The article mention that Ticos give address in a special way and we don´t use avenues and strees to tell someone how to arrive some place.
Traffic jam is one of the most serious problem in the country, people spend a lot of time trying to move around the city every day, so I think waze is a good option for drivers. I have never used it, but I know it is very efficient for tell drivers which route they can use. However, the problem is some people use it in a wrong way and give it another use.
Many people don´t drive without Waze because it represents a good oportunity to drive in less time and people are less stressful because they can choose the best route.
Its important that people use technology to solve problems because we can spend less time doing things.
Hello, partners:
ResponderBorrarWhen I read the comment about Waze app, one idea was interesting for me. This application was successful and Costa Rica was selected because it is one of the five countries in Latin American that most uses this app. That is incredible because Costa Rica is a small country compared with other, as Mexico, Brazil or Colombia.
I think that Waze is a useful tool for drivers for many reasons: our streets are small, there are a few highways for fast traffic and every year increases the cars' number. In this moment, there is not an option for fluid traffic in the Grand Area Metropolitan. I believe that application is very useful both in the capital and in rural areas.
Last year I traveled to different Sarapiqui and Guacimo’s areas. I had to go at 40 high schools, because I had to give the results of academic aptitude testing of TEC. The driver and I did not know this zone and the directions of high schools were confused, for example, 800 meters north of community build of village or the six land of Sarapiquí. Moreover, in these places, there are the same picture; everywhere there are a lot banana and pineapple’s plantation, therefore, for many kilometers is the same. In this reality, we used the waze app to find the high school. It was a great helpful. The main problem was the lost signal of mobile telephone.
I think that we must search for other options, as we chance some habits, for example, the people could travel by other transportation, as public or private bus, train or shared car. In addition, we need to changing the aptitude on the street: we should be more patient and tolerant with other drivers. In summary, the formula is: Waze + positive aptitude + better streets = least traffic jam.
Christian
ResponderBorrarPáez
Páez
This article shows the Costa Rican culture.
At first, they mention the most important caracteristic of "ticos": in Costa Rica, the people don't say directions mentioning street's numbers or avenue's numbers.
Some places in Costa Rica have specific street, specific avenue and specific house's number, but usually Costa Rican mention some details (super markets, bars, trees, representatives buildings, churchs and schools, for example) for give you a direction of a place.
In Costa Rica WAZE is very popular; many people use WAZE go to a specific place. Although you can say the real direction for a place, it's more popular indicate the direction of the place for some event using WAZE.
Most of people use this application because is very efficient in our country.
It's incredible, but people who know the place to go they use WAZE; I think that it's because with WAZE you can know how the traffic is and WAZE give you the best option to go from a point A to a point B. In effect, you're part of WAZE because you can help other people using the differents options this app have.
Costa Rican don’t have the culture of buying application about mapping system and all kind of free funtional apps are used for “ticos”. This is another caracteristic of Costa Rican: they preffer don’t to pay for a functional app.
Homework #4:Article
ResponderBorrarWhy Waze is so incredibly popular in Costa Rica
I commute from Alajuela Cartago every day seventeen year ago. I have tried some app related navigation system like: Apple’s Maps, Google maps and other. But the problems were the same, they showed troubles with the routes selected. Most of cases Apple’s Maps don’t find it the route between two point, for example: route Alajuela-Cartago. Google maps is much better than Apple’s Maps, in general this find the route but it has problems in Costa Rica. When I was abroad, I had opportunity to use Google maps, the resulting was incredible, this because the system information about roads, buses and subway are very exact. I could choose the route between two places, but I went on bus. In this case, google maps tell you, where you should walk to take the bus and which bus’ number you had to take. But in Costa Ricas the systems information are very bad yet.
Eight year ago, I download Waze to try its functionality, the result was great. The waze’s success was to adapt its interface and the content to our country. Waze knows every ways in the city, including their particular names. Also the users can send and receive all alerts during their journey. I use waze every morning when I left home and when I left job. Clearly, I know my route, but the journey is long and in this 50 km might occur a lot of thing like: heavy traffic, close routes, many accidents among others. With waze, I have learned new routes, the names of many roads and a ways to save journey time. But all is not good, some times waze orient us to dangerous residencial area or streets are closed, however waze is always the best option to driver in our streets.
Why Waze is so incredibly popular in Costa Rica
ResponderBorrarFor us in Costa Rica is very common give a address using cardinal points, meters and landmarks, which can exist in the present or in the past. For example the old Yaohan. Our costum doesn't include to use avenues and streets and nobdy known the name or number of these.This situation is a chaotic for the tourist and foreigners. One day I heard a conversation in the bus between a foreigner girl and her mother. She said " Doesn't worry the package will be arrive well,although the address is peculiar, they are located".
The previous situation, the traffic jam, gapped strets and roads with few lanes, among others make that the people think about news alternatives for the problems. In this point Waze became a partial solution, because the people can find and offer information about accidents, police in route and traffic jam. Also, I believe that the most important application is the best route for the trip and the duration.
However users should take a precaution, when you don't know the place. Waze can give a dangerous route because this app doesn't distinguish marginal areas as Los cuadros de Guadalupe or another similar sites. Waze takes his information and gives the fastest and clearest route in your way. I have heard stories about bad experiences about it.
I commute every day from Alajuela to Cartago in bus and the trip takes about two hours, as I don't drive I don't have problem with it. Probably the day that I have got a car I will use this app to optimize my time and trip.
I really love wase, I knew this app few years ago, my daughter María Laura told me about it and I became one user of it.
ResponderBorrarI drove since 1995, in that days there less vehicles on the streets and you could go from Santo Domingo to Pavas in twenty minutes and the traffic jam was only if there was a car accident.
For me was a problem when I had to go to a place without name or number for the streets, and the people give you a direction like from the Fito´s bar three hundred meters down, I prefer that you say me to the north or west.
But in Costa Rica, most of people give the direction of any places from the Fito´s bar or something like that.
My worst experience was in 2002, the parents of my son´s partners invited me to a party, I paid the money for the party and I was so happy to know the others parents of my son´s class.
The house was in Escazú and they gave me the following direction: after cross the Anonos´s bridge take on your left in the first street intersection, then when you are in front of the biggest mango´s tree take the right drive unto the first Greece Y then take left street, when you are in front of the second Greece Y take the right our house is the one in front of the house with green ceiling.
I drove my car obediently, I was following the instructions, I was in front of the biggest mango´s tree, I take the right and I didn´t know where I was for the next hour and a half, was horrible!!!! I wanted to cry, at this time I didn´t have a mobile phone, in this place there were many big and elegant houses but all of them are closed without lights.
When I almost decided to return me to home, I saw two men walked and I asked them about the direction and the place that I was looking for, they were so gentiles with me and call to the parents of my son´s partner and after two hours I arrived to the party.
Do you understand now? I love wase because with it I don´t loss my time or my patience looking for a place or a city. I don´t need to ask people those give answer like go right to come up with about, then go to left two times and then right, that may me crazy.
With wase I could stay in my home without wasting time in traffic jams.
I never thougt when I was younger that it is possible to have a mobile phone,then I couldn´t imagine that something like wase, dropbox,internet, technology could exist. But I like to use the technology to much.
The Tico Times.
ResponderBorrarWhy Waze is so incredibly popular in Costa Rica.
In my opinion, the popularity of Waze app in Costa Rica has many reasons that are in some our country's cultural characteristics.
The first one and the most evident, the “ticos” have a peculiar way for give directions. It is really often to use schools, supermarkets, bridges, houses with a specific colour, trees (yes, though you may not believe it) like landmarks and then an approximate distance to some cardinal point. For example, ‘go straight to the big tree with yellow flowers and then turn right, cross the bridge and walk as 500 meters’. The Costa Ricans use this way although the streets and avenues have numbers, at least in the capital city. They are sometimes purposely-included places that no longer exist as landmarks (an old supermarket, restaurant, hospital or jail).
The second place, the absolutely irritating traffic jams. In our country there are some hours when the traffic is impossible. Also, sometimes the traffic police close a main street and it causes really slow annoying traffic jams. The people use Waze for find another road or calculate how long will be their trip.
The ‘ticos’ usually come late almost every time. If you have an appointment with a Costa Rican, he will justifiably come late. This is the third characteristic. Added to come late the ‘ticos’ are really stressful while we are driving. Then, a technological tool that produces a reduction in the driving time is necessary.
And the last one but not least important, the ‘ticos’ prefer cheap things, in this case free apps. It really probable that if Waze isn’t free, it wouldn’t as popular as it is now.
Regards
Juan Pablo Prendas
“Ticos” give address in a particular way refering to places that couldn’t exists yet. That’s the reason that the most of foreigns whos visit Costa Rica and try to drive just using a map feel unconfortable because the most of streets in Costa Rica don’t have names neither number. For that reason waze is one of the most amazing invention not only for foreings but also for costarican people, because it help us saying where we have to turn and which streets take at each moment.
ResponderBorrarHowever, I dont like to use waze for two reasons, the first one it’s because sometimes it gives me address taking in count unsafe places but I think that now I could set it up to avoid that and the second one it’s because sometimes waze has a delay in places that I dont know then I had mistaken the road.
Besides that, I remember that at the end of the last year waze had a chaos because the most of possible roads to anywhere were full and it didn’t know which one was the shortest, then to drive a site one kilometer away from me waze recommended to take a road of five kilometers, approximately, becuase all possible ways were so congested. I that case, I think that waze could help us to decide which is the better option, to avoid issues like crashes or streets closed but we have to know about the place and road where we want to go.
Nevertheless, unbelievably waze is able to indicate the name or number of each street, data that the most of costarican people dont know and to know that all that work was for free is even more unbelievable. Definitively, the waze’s workers don’t work they are enjoying the life doing that they really like to do.
CCalderón
If you are a foreign in CR, you need WAZE! And if you are a Costa Rican people, you love WAZE!
ResponderBorrarIn this country everybody give an address using landmarks, old sites or cardinal points. It´s common to hear that some place is "near the supermarket", or "from the church, drive for 2 kilometers and then you can ask someone about your final destiny".
In CR our streets doesn't have any number or name, and our vial net is organized for irregular blocks and they are identified for some shop or building. That makes very peculiar the way that we give some references or addresses.
That`s a reason why Waze is amazing! The app maps our particular streets and sites and bring us a way to find a better way to drive somewhere. Probably you don't listen it about the name of the street, you expect to watch in the screen some known building or shop.
Otherwise, ticos hate traffic jams and this is the most frequent state in our roads, trails or highways, and we have found an excellent help to avoid this situations.
I really think it is useful to prevent jams on the daily commute to leave children at school, or for example when I decide to take a trip to a place I haven't visited before.
And Costa Rican people loves free and confiable apps it seems that Waze could understand the complicated way that ticos drive, and if they understand us ... they got us!
Nowadays, the technology is an important tool that people used in many ways. I think, it can be good or bad , but it depends how people learn to use it.
ResponderBorrarThe article mention that Ticos give address in a special way and we don´t use avenues and strees to tell someone how to arrive some place.
Traffic jam is one of the most serious problem in the country, people spend a lot of time trying to move around the city every day, so I think waze is a good option for drivers. I have never used it, but I know it is very efficient for tell drivers which route they can use. However, the problem is some people use it in a wrong way and give it another use.
Many people don´t drive without Waze because it represents a good oportunity to drive in less time and people are less stressful because they can choose the best route.
Its important that people use technology to solve problems because we can spend less time doing things.