Waze, a public mapping application recently acquired by Google is launching a government partnership initiative aimed at providing more government data through its platform. The “Connected Citizens” program is aimed at creating a near real-time traffic information exchange between residents and the governing in order to improve public safety outcomes.
Waze will act as the information exchange for traffic data, offering crowdsourced information in exchange for government planning information on issues like road closures or construction.
10 cities will act as the beta group for the technology. Those cities include –
–Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
–Barcelona, Spain and the Government of Catalonia
–Jakarta, Indonesia
–Tel Aviv, Israel
–San Jose, Costa Rica
–Boston, USA
–State of Florida, USA
–State of Utah, USA
–Los Angeles County
–The New York Police Department (NYPD)
The New York Police Department has already started releasing real-time crash data as part of the vision zero initiative. Other public safety datasets are also available on the city’s data portal, the Waze initiative will act as an additional layer for that information.
Waze announced the initiative at its W10 event last night. The program will require that city governments share meaningful data in exchange for the data they receive from citizens. No data on the program will be sold.
Several municipal organizations not included in the W10 class will enroll in Connected Citizens in the coming weeks. Currently more than 80 cities and municipal groups have applied for Connected Citizens consideration, a significant demand given that the pilot program with Rio was not publicized.
