Real time traffic info + big data: meet Lebanon's latest traffic app

Early this year, Lebanese entrepreneur and iOS developer, Ramy Khawandi launched Tari2ak (‘your route’ in Arabic) a mobile application, to help Beirut drivers stay informed about traffic conditions while they’re out and about.

At this point, any conversation about an app related to traffic in the region might sound very familiar. We’ve witnessed in the past couple years a slew of applications trying to solve this problem faced by millions daily. Some have opted for carpooling, like CairoRollers and Buspooling in Egypt and Waselny in Amman, in addition to a few like Wasalny and Bey2ollak, which compile community-based traffic information that help users navigate roads in Cairo and Alexandria.

As colleague Stephanie d’Arc Taylor wrote early last year, Google itself has enabled live road traffic updates within Google Maps, throughout the UAE, as well as in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait City.

In Lebanon, software developer Mohammed Taha built Happin (formerly Ma2too3a), a mobile app that focuses on crowdsourcing information related to roadblocks, demonstrations, and traffic accidents. Since launching last year, he has managed to expand regionally and perhaps soon, globally.

“I’ve been a software hobbyist since my early teens,” says Tari2ak’s Khawandi, who created his first application, an MSN Messenger plugin called Mess Patch, in 2004 when he was just 17. “It was downloaded 10 million times by 2008, but I discontinued it after receiving a cease and desist letter from Microsoft,” he says.

After two-and-a-half years of studying computer science at the American University of Beirut (AUB), Khawandi dropped out to start working at a UK-based software company. Three years later, he decided to finish his degree at the American University of Science and Technology (AUST). There, his senior project – and early version of Tari2ak – won the university’s prize for best senior project.

Original article by Maya Rahal

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Real time traffic info + big data: meet Lebanon’s latest traffic app