Transport for London (TfL) has signed up for Waze’s Connected Citizens Program as its first UK partner, and 100th global collaboration.
The Waze Connected Citizens Program is designed as a free, two-way data exchange that empowers municipalities to harness real-time driver insights to improve congestion, make better-informed planning decisions, and reduce emergency response times. The system is powered by the world’s largest community of drivers, who supply data through the free, real-time crowdsourced traffic and navigation app. The Connected Citizens Program’s mutually-beneficial data share has had a measurable impact since its inception two years ago. From facilitating infrastructure planning in Rio de Janeiro, to crisis response in Mexico, partners continue to develop new ways that Waze data can be used to best improve urban mobility. Notably, through reducing congestion in Boston, USA, the program has helped speed up emergency response times in the city by four minutes.
Now, in London, TfL will have access to, and use, the crowd-sourced data to help manage traffic for the millions of car drivers in the UK’s capital. TfL will provide its real-time government-reported construction, collision, and road closure data from its open API to Waze for the app to confidently and accurately provide information to drivers to enable them to plan their journeys. It is hoped that this will be the first of many UK collaborations. Launched in October 2014 with 10 city partners, the Connected Citizens Program now has 100 global partners including city, state, and country government agencies, non-profits and first responders. TfL joins other major partners that includes: the US Department of Transportation, Rio de Janeiro COR (Brazil), Rome Center for Mobility (Italy), and Transportation Management Center of New South Wales (Australia).
“Getting the latest traffic information direct to drivers when and where they want it, is key to enabling them to avoid delays,” said Phil Young, head of online at TfL. “We have a wealth of open data available and by working with Waze and joining the global Connected Citizens Program, we can not only ensure London’s road users have the information they need to plan their journeys, but we can also draw in more data to help us manage London’s busy road network.”
Paige Fitzgerald, head of new business development and data acquisition for Waze, commented, “Since 2008, Waze has evolved from a traffic app to the change agent in traffic and mobility innovation. Harnessing the insights of more than 65 million monthly active users, our Map Editor communities, and varied, data-driven enterprise partnerships, we continue to share our unprecedented knowledge base of traffic and driver insights to improve urban mobility across the world.
“It is critical that prospective partners show their dedication to citizen engagement and commit to use our data to improve city efficiency. Waze Partners are also expected to measure and share their findings with other municipal organizations, developing case studies that serve as keys to a global set of improvements which can be made for collective mobility.”
