DOT partners with traffic app Waze
Information about roads to be shared
Motorists traveling in Wisconsin can now get more up-to-date information through a partnership with the popular crowd-sourced traffic app Waze, officials announced Tuesday.
While information about accidents, road closures and hazards has been available for several years on the Wisconsin Department of Transportation’s website —
— now all of that information will be available on the Waze app.
Users of the free Waze app input information about things they see while traveling including congestion, potholes, fog and debris on the road. WisDOT has a system of 423 video cameras positioned around the state and 145 stationary electronic signs alerting motorists to traffic backups and accidents as well as law enforcement officers who notify transportation officials when they see something.
Now Waze and WisDOT will share their information.
“If we can get those alerts in real time it allows us to use our signs, alert law enforcement, fill potholes — that kind of thing,” Paul Keltner, traffic management supervisor, said Tuesday morning at the state’s Traffic Operations Center in the Milwaukee Intermodal Station.
Instead of a couple hundred law enforcement officers patrolling roads and reporting on hazards, tens of thousands of motorists, in effect, monitor traffic conditions and roads.
Waze users can input data and also tap a button to confirm something already on the app. For instance, if a car is broken down on the side of the road and a Waze user notes that, subsequent drivers passing by the location can communicate that the car is still there or has been moved.
WisDOT is supplying information that Waze users don’t know about in advance, including construction lane closures or reopenings, major traffic events such as holiday fireworks or Packers and Brewers games, and major incidents. For example, a Waze user stuck in traffic can tell the app that roads are congested but not know the cause of the backup while WisDOT knows the backup is because of a jackknifed semitrailer.
“Our goal is to make the experience for drivers safer and better,” Keltner said.
Information from Waze users will be added to WisDOT’s 511 website this spring. Information coming in through the Waze app will be verified, whenever possible, by traffic cameras and law enforcement before it’s on the 511 website.
Officials from Waze did not respond to requests for comment.
Acquired by Google
Waze was started in 2006 as FreeMap Israel, offering a digital map of the country in Hebrew. The company changed its name to Waze in 2009 and was bought for $1.1 billion by Google in 2013.
WisDOT officials learned of Waze’s Connected Citizens Program shortly after the company began joining states, municipalities and law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and world in 2014, WisDOT freeway operations engineer Elizabeth Schneider said. WisDOT officials approached Waze about becoming a partner and finalized an agreement in October.
Schneider has been a freeway engineer for two decades and marvels at how technology has made the experience of driving from Point A to Point B so much easier and quicker with fewer hassles. When she began her career, the only way motorists knew what was happening on the roads was by listening to the radio.
“Getting information out has always been a challenge,” said Schneider, a Waze user since 2013. “We’re definitely in the middle of a period of change. Now with traffic cameras and crowdsourcing information with GPS, it’s definitely a game-changer.”
Both Schneider and Keltner stressed that while Waze is a good app for travelers, it should not be used by drivers when they’re behind the wheel. To keep drivers focused on the road, the Waze app should be used by passengers in vehicles or by drivers after they have pulled over and stopped.