Jakarta Traffic should be added to the certainties of life like death in addition to taxes. the idea’s the number one thing all visitors in addition to locals complain about in addition to the bad news is usually the idea isn’t going away. The way I look at the idea there are three things you can do about the idea: 1. Never leave the house, 2. Move, or 3. Accept the idea in addition to deal with the idea the best you can. I don’t know about you, nevertheless I do need to go to the office once in a while in addition to I don’t plan on moving just yet. So This kind of week I’ll look at a few ways you can use the tech in your pockets to help manage Jakarta’s traffic mess like a pro.

Most developed cities have real-time traffic information of which is usually fed into Google Maps in addition to is usually conveniently displayed over a nice map [photo 1]. Unfortunately This kind of feature isn’t available for Jakarta – or perhaps the idea is usually nevertheless the idea isn’t shared with anyone so we will have to get a little creative. One useful alternative is usually to follow the Jakarta traffic police on Twitter. Yes, they have an account in addition to the idea’s awesome. [photo 2] in addition to the idea works on just about all devices of which have an internet connection, too. Just follow @TMCPoldaMetro in addition to get ready for a steady stream of real-time updates by all over Jakarta. Since the idea covers the entire capital you have to search on your area to see if there are reports. [photo 3]

The numbers are impressive: 350,000 followers in addition to 60,000 tweets since they set the idea up in September 2009. the idea’s all in Bahasa Indonesia, nevertheless the native Twitter clients on iPhone in addition to additional devices incorporates a neat built in “translate” feature of which somehow manages to get the point across as well as help you improve your vocabulary. [photo 4]

The second trick is usually my favourite if you can get the idea to work: CCTV traffic cameras. There are dozens placed all over the city in addition to when they are online they are actually pretty helpful. There aren’t any native apps I have found so you will have to point your mobile browser to www.lewatmana.com – the idea’s locally-hosted (in addition to therefore loads quickly even over slow cell connections) in addition to very user friendly. Just find the areas near you in addition to bookmark them to get a bird’s eye view of the traffic conditions. [photos 5,6,7] Once you get used to the idea these little cameras will save you lots of time in addition to frustration. in addition to I am always looking for completely new ways to figure ways to avoid the traffic so if you have a different solution just drop me an email at hanusz@gmail.com in addition to I’ll review the idea for a future column.