Volunteers show commuters new Waze through traffic
If you’ve ever had to stare down the double barrel that is the Lion’s Gate Bridge at rush hour or perform mental callisthenics to figure out if time saved on the 407 is worth the cash, you’ve probably used Waze.
Created in 2006 by an Israeli startup bent on making everyone’s commute a little bit better, Waze has grown into a global company with a presence on nearly every continent and an estimated 130 million active users. And 99 per cent of the people who help make the app function are volunteers.
It’s true. With 540 employees in 20 locations across the globe, Waze is certainly more than just a sideline player in the transportation sphere. Those employees are staff developing the app, maintaining and creating features, liaising with various outside stakeholders, and making sure the wheels roll smoothly — both literally and figuratively.
But it is the almost 60,000 active community members across the globe who are relied upon to develop maps, input toll pricing and feed the engine of information that makes the app useful.
The new subdivision across town whose roads appeared on Waze the day it opened? It was the time and effort of enthusiastic volunteers who inputted information into Waze servers to make sure those new streets appear in the app.
Ron Wiesengrun, who leads the Waze core product team at its home base in Tel Aviv, said one of the main pillars upon which they stand is the driving experience their users receive out on the road, knowing what turn to take and where hazards may appear. Even simply providing fun voice options are part of an important company pillar which decrees the app be fun and social.
New features roll out frequently, such as the recent inclusion of road tolls in the app. This newly added feature permits the estimation of a total dollar amount for which drivers will be on the hook should they select a certain route.
When the company added this functionality, Waze employees didn’t input any toll information, instead constructing the feature’s programming and giving the keys to their most trusted volunteers. It was those people who manually uploaded toll data into Waze servers.
Those people include senior Canadian map editors Phillipe Royal, Vinujan Aravinthan and Jason Mushaluk, three of the roughly 1,500 active map editors in Canada. They explained why they are part of the Waze volunteer community, and it’s easy to see how much effort they invest into making their (and their neighbours’) commute just a little more bearable.
Aravinthan was a Waze user prior to becoming a map editor. The push to edit maps stemmed from is experience with the app and its propensity to route him into one particular Toronto area that was full of construction delays. Learning how to edit the map solved that issue — for him and other drivers.
Mushaluk, from Manitoba, jumped right into both using and editing the map. His role in health care takes him on the road, and he figured using that time to edit Waze maps would be beneficial for him and his colleagues responding to emergencies, not to mention other road users who simply want to get to work on time.
Royal worked at a division of transportation in Quebec. Since he had access to information about upcoming new infrastructure and what roads might be closed for construction that week, he could get that detail into Waze with rapid-fire speed and accuracy.
This development speaks to why Waze has formed a division called Waze for Cities. Realizing that Waze is packed with information that is useful to city planners and vice-versa, the company is in the midst of leveraging those relationships in an effort to smooth out the evening (or morning, or afternoon) drive.
You may wonder if, since Waze is owned by Google, this represents an overlap. Google Maps can provide routing and some traffic detail. But one of Waze’s main differentiators — and strengths — is its enthusiastic volunteer community.