These are Waze’s traffic predictions for the upcoming holidays

Most of us are looking forward to the long weekend, with next Monday declared a public holiday for Hari Raya Haji. But with schools to enjoy an end-of-term break over next week as well, those that are thinking of travelling will also have to deal with the inevitable surge of cars on roads and freeways.

With that in mind, Waze has made several traffic predictions based on data from past traffic patterns:

Prediction 1 – There will be More Malaysians on the Road: Waze predicts that there will be an increase of 39% of drivers on the road as compared to a normal week.

Prediction 2 – More navigations to petrol stations: With many Malaysians expected to take road trips with their families in tow, Waze expects 38% more users that will navigate to petrol stations on Hari Raya Haji.

Prediction 3 – A huge increase in food-related trips: As expected, there will be a huge increase in food-related trips—95%, in fact. Last year’s data also showed that most of these trips were to fast-food joints, along with a 25% increase in navigations to shopping malls. Perhaps it’s time for Malaysians to spend less of their holidays eating and shopping, but no judgement here.

As such, Waze has 3 fairly obvious tips for drivers navigating through the traffic this year. Firstly, of course, leave your Waze app on. This will help you receive real-time traffic updates, so that you can gauge travel times more accurately. Secondly, choose your routes wisely; you can choose routes that will give you toll-free roads, or quicker routes. And lastly, if all else fails, play some music while you’re at it. This will reduce traffic-induced stress… hopefully.