Two more state Departments of Transportation (DOTs) partners have joined Waze’s Connected Citizens Program, which allows mutual data-sharing to benefit the motoring public.
The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) has announced a data-sharing partnership with Waze, the free, real-time crowdsourced navigation app powered by the world’s largest community of drivers. Designed as a free, two-way data share of publicly available traffic information, the Connected Citizens Program will promote greater efficiency, deeper insights, and safer roads for citizens across the state, as it does for nearly 80 partners around the world. The partnership provides real-time, anonymous, Waze-generated incident and congestion information to GDOT directly from the source: drivers themselves. In exchange, GDOT provides real-time construction, crash and road closure data to Waze, which will result in a succinct, thorough overview of current road conditions. The data sharing partnership is seen as significant for both GDOT’s NaviGAtor travel information service and Waze platforms.
“We are excited about this great data-sharing partnership with Waze that will provide a valuable supplement to the NaviGAtor 511 system,” said GDOT commissioner Russell McMurry. “Georgia motorists will now have real-time traffic information, not only on our interstates and state routes, but also on arterial routes – [this is] information that is coming directly from the traveling public.”
Paige Fitzgerald, the Waze Connected Citizens Program manager, said, “We welcome Georgia DOT, our fourth Georgia partner, to the Waze Connected Citizens Program. No one knows more about what is happening on the roads than Wazers. Georgia DOT can use these anonymous insights to further promote safer roads. More than that, Georgia DOT is providing critical construction and road closure data to us, helping Wazers better circumvent major traffic events and real-time traffic blocks statewide. This exchange empowers our users, Georgia DOT, and the broader community, to work together to improve urban mobility within the state.”
The Oregon DOT is expanding the capabilities of its TripCheck traffic information tool to include Waze data. Real-time reports generated by the Wazer community will show up on ODOT’s TripCheck platform, allowing travelers around Oregon to view information such as traffic jams and incidents. Conversely, data from TripCheck will be made available to Waze app users to create the free, two-way data share of publicly available traffic information.
“We want to take advantage of new ideas and innovative technology that improve safety and reliability for everyone traveling around the state,” said ODOT’s director, Matt Garrett. “TripCheck.com has been a valuable resource for Oregonians for more than a decade, and adding Waze user-generated reports allows us to bypass the process of building and maintaining our own app for crowd-sourced data collection.”
Paige Fitzgerald, added, “We are thrilled to see how ODOT continues to evolve its traffic management through our Connected Citizens Program. By harnessing the power of our crowdsourced traffic information, ODOT is enhancing TripCheck and further optimizing the local driving experience.”
