A new locally-developed app helps Palestinian drivers in the occupied West Bank negotiate traffic at Israeli military checkpoints and uncover routes to towns mainstream providers often miss.
Launched in June and designed by Palestinians, Doroob Navigator crowd-sources road closures and traffic data from users. It aims to supplant apps like Google Maps and Waze, which rarely account for Israeli restrictions and struggle to navigate between Palestinian cities.
Doroob Navigator crowd-sources road closures and traffic data from users, helping Palestinians to navigate through Israeli military checkpointshttps://t.co/ndtvSSQvi9
— Haaretz.com (@haaretzcom) August 6, 2019
Israel illegally captured the West Bank in 1967. It has since place hundreds of checkpoints around the Palestinian area, some permanent others which appear overnight and which remain in situ for hours or days at a time. But the roadblocks limit Palestinian mobility and damage their economy, according to the World Bank.
"As with Waze and Google Maps, the app lets users report traffic trouble, but in Doroob’s case they include pop-up Israeli police and military checkpoints or road closures, creating a more precise picture of the traffic reality for Palestinian drivers." https://t.co/da0oUO6tQE
— Boston Partners for Peace (@BosPartnerPeace) August 5, 2019
In a July 2018 survey, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHAoPt) recorded that there are “705 permanent obstacles across the West Bank restricting or controlling Palestinian vehicular, and in some cases pedestrian, movement.”
(Middle East Monitor, PC, Social Media)
