What is Clearway?
Clearway is an open-source, community-operated alternative to Google Maps traffic, Apple Maps, and Waze. Instead of a single company harvesting your movement data, Clearway is a federated network of nodes run by volunteers and local organisations, each serving their own region.
Traffic conditions are built from two sources: anonymous speed readings contributed by app users, and publicly available sensor data from highway agencies such as Houston TranStar. Neither source ties data to an individual.
The companion mobile app, Streets Ahead, lets you view live traffic and optionally contribute your own anonymous speed readings while driving.
How it works
On your phone
Streets Ahead samples your GPS speed. Your exact location is never sent — it is randomised by ±60 m before leaving the device.
Trip privacy
The first and last 500 m of every trip are silently dropped, so the server never sees where your journey started or ended.
Map-matching
The Clearway node matches anonymised speed readings to road segments using Valhalla and OSM data. No raw coordinates are stored.
Aggregation
Segment speeds from many contributors are aggregated into a congestion score (free / moderate / heavy / stopped) every 30 seconds.
Display
The coloured traffic overlay is served as GeoJSON and rendered in the app or the web viewer — no proprietary map SDK required.
Sensor fusion
On nodes where TranStar or other agency feeds are available, freeway detector data fills in coverage from day one.
Privacy by design
- No account, email, or login required
- GPS coordinates randomised ±60 m on-device before upload
- Trip start and end points suppressed on-device
- Session IDs rotate every 4–8 hours, never stored server-side
- Server never receives or logs real IP addresses
- No Google Play Services, Firebase, or Apple APIs in the app
- All source code published under free licences
- No third-party analytics or crash reporting
Live nodes
Want to run a node for your city? The Clearway server is self-contained Docker Compose stack. See the deployment guide in the repo.