Waze App Announces New Connected Citizens Program
Carissa Rogers
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The cure for traffic congestion.
If you haven’t started using the Google owned Waze app and you live in a congested city, you need to!
As described earlier, Waze is an interactive GPS and traffic app. This app literally helps you circumnavigate the worst of traffic nightmares in your area. In turn, you help others around you have a better traffic day just by using the app.
News Update: Connected Citizens Program Announced
Waze has announced it will be connecting directly with municipal departments of transportation in order to better serve up-to-date road conditions, weather alerts and construction events.
“We exchange publicly available incidents and road closure reports, resulting in one of the most succinct, thorough overviews of current road conditions today.” —WAZE Blog
This means especially in the most congested cities around the globe you have a secret weapon in your pocket. Avoid not just day-to-day traffic issues, but ongoing updates about road closures and extreme conditions like a flash flood.
As reported on CBS News Wednesday October 30th, 2014:
Six years after the app’s initial launch, Waze’s head of the global partnerships Di-Ann Eisnor announced the new Connective Citizens Program.
“We’re taking for the first time all the information from those drivers and connecting it with information that’s been locked up inside your local departments of transportation around the world,” Eisnor said on “CBS This Morning.”
They’re working with cities all over the globe, from Los Angeles to London and Johannesburg to Jakarta.
Even though each country’s transportation department manages varying infrastructure, Waze has a way to aggregate it all.
“Everything they know about the construction, what’s going to be closed,” Eisnor said. “In some cases it’s about flooding or weather and that’s happening in real time, and they’re literally contacting us immediately.”—
Waze app gets an update!
Additionally Waze has just released a new update to the app, which includes a new functionality called “Places”.
“In this new version, Wazers will be able to add useful information about businesses, residential places and more which will greatly improve the accuracy and quality of Waze’s maps.” —WAZE Blog
Some of the new functionality includes uploading images of a business once you have navigated to it. And additional Waze points will be given when you interact with the “Places” options in the app. Now you can share your new favorite burger joint or even upload information about your own business to share with all the ‘Wazers’ out there.
Waze-on Dude!