This website shows the wait times of Hamilton’s grocery stores during COVID-19

An open source tool created by Florence-based developer Miki Lombardi uses Google data to estimate how long you might have to wait to get into grocery stores in Hamilton and around the world.

The interactive map uses your smartphone location data to show what the wait time might be for the grocery stores in your area. 

Lombardi stated on GitHub that the project is intended to provide people the opportunity to avoid large or lingering gatherings of people during the COVID-19 pandemic. He also added that he doesn’t want the project to be for commercial use. 

PSA! Here's a cool open-source tool that tells you about grocery store wait times in your area: https://t.co/lPF7O0cPLz#coronavirus #groceryshopping

— Minister of Digital Snobbery (@missladyniobe) April 14, 2020

Data is available for most stores in Hamilton and are shown with colour coded pins on the map. The pins are coloured from red to green showing wait times anywhere between five minutes to one hour. 

The real time data comes from Google using similar data as the traffic function in Google Maps, according to Lombardi. Time spent inside the store and estimated wait times in check-out are also collected from the past week.

You can access the interactive map here. Lombardi is also encouraging public help in growing the map, so people interested in helping out can contact him via GitHub. 

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• coronavirus
• COVID-19
• groceries
• grocery store
• Hamilton
• HamOnt
• Health
• interactive
• map
• pandemic
• Public Health
• wait times