Navigation apps may worsen urban traffic, study finds

A joint study by the CNR-Isti, the University of Pisa, and the Scuola Normale Superiore, published in Nature Communications, reveals that widespread use of satellite navigation services can negatively impact urban traffic patterns.

Using computer simulations and GPS data from cities including Florence, Milan, and Rome, researchers analyzed the effects of services such as Google Maps, TomTom, Bing Maps, and Mapbox. The findings indicate that high adoption rates of these tools reduce route diversity by concentrating traffic onto a smaller number of roads.

The study highlights that once the adoption rate of navigation services reaches a threshold between 60% and 80%, the expected environmental benefits, such as CO2 emission reductions, may diminish or even disappear entirely due to these concentrated traffic flows.