Road app

The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) in the US has joined forces with the real-time crowdsourced navigation app Waze.

The app is powered by the communities of drivers through the Waze Connected Citizens programme.

Said to promote efficiency, deeper insights and safer roads in the state, the programme has been designed as a two-way datashare of publicly available traffic information.

Waze Connected Citizens aims at helping Wazers, ODOT and citizens collaborate to improve their community in addition to promoting better traffic monitoring by sharing crowdsourced incident reports from Waze drivers.

The app collects inputs from ODOT’s TripCheck Traveller Information Portal, which is updated every two minutes and includes everything from construction and incident data to weather data and road reports.

"We can now enhance the local map quality of Waze with data from ODOT."

Travellers will get the publicly available information on the Waze mobile app and can use Oregon’s transportation system safely.

Waze Connected Citizens programme manager Paige Fitzgerald said: "Oregon already has a strong Waze community with major cities like Portland.

"We can now enhance the local map quality of Waze with data from ODOT like road closures and severe weather alerts, even in rural areas."

As part of the agreement, Waze shares information pertaining to user-reported incidents, construction, congestion and weather with ODOT.

The department is in the process of evaluating the method to filter the data to make it useful and eventually use it to improve the display on TripCheck.

ODOT Intelligent Transportation systems manager Galen McGill said: "Waze users travel in places where we can’t have roadway sensors or cameras so it greatly enhances our ability to provide up to the minute and accurate traffic data to the public."

Image: The Waze Connected Citizens programme been designed as a two-way datashare of publicly available traffic information. Photo: courtesy of dan via FreeDigitalPhotos.net.