Reference and FAQ
How should I configure crowd-sourced alerts server?
We don't provide a service for aggregating real-time crowd-sourced police and hazards alerts; instead, we give an application using existing services for getting data. This means that to use police and hazards alerts feature in this application, you need to input an address of a server providing the police location.
The server address can be entered in the settings menu under Crowd-sourced alerts → Server hostname field. Server address isn't needed if a SABRE plugin is installed (see question below).
NOTE: Despite entering waze.com as a server address will show real-time police alerts directly from Waze, it violates Waze ToS and might be illegal in your country.
What is SABRE plugin?
SABRE is an open protocol facilitating interaction between Highway Radar application and servers providing crowd-sourced alerts. SABRE plugins are created and published by independent developers. You may find some SABRE plugins published on RDForum.
SABRE plugin isn't required to make crowd-sourced alerts work; however, it enables additional features such as submitting new reports, and confirming existing reports. If no SABRE plugin is installed, then a server address (see question above) is required to make crowd-sourced alerts work.
What format of the cameras does the application support?
Highway Radar uses its own ExCam file format. The format is open, and described on its page.
Can I mute/unmute a specific alert?
Yes, just tap on this alert to mute or unmute it.
Can I mute all alerts at once?
Yes, just tap and hold the mute button.
What is the risk level and how predictions work?
Highway Radar uses an array of historical data for estimating a chance of meeting police at this location. The estimation is solely based on past user reports. This feature is experimental now and might not always be 100% precise.
The estimation is a number and a chance of having a police report here and now. For example if it is 2:17 pm now, and the app shows "40-70% in 3mi ±1h" then it means that based on historical data the chance of having at least one police report during the day in a circle around current location with a radius of 3 miles within 1 pm to 4 pm time frame is laying between 40% and 70%.
What is heat map?
Like the risk score, heat maps are computed based on historical police reports data. There two main differences between risk level and heat maps.
First is that heat map doesn't change during the day, while risk score is computed for every hour during the day (e.g. it is often lower during night time and higher during rush hours). The second difference is that risk score scale is uniform throughout the world. Heat maps show information normalized to police activity in the current area (the area changes depending on the map zoom level).
I see an aircraft in the sky but the application is silent.
Highway Radar uses various of techniques to filter out all non-patroling aircraft. For example, the application will check the aircraft model (you'll very unlikely see patrolling A380), check aircraft owner, speed, altitude, and many other parameters. This filtering works really well and filters out >99% of all uninterested aircraft.
You can make all aircraft above, including safe ones, displayed on the screen. You still won't get any alerts on safe planes (e.g., on passenger aircraft) but will see them on the screen among inactive (gray) alerts.