Leonardtown, MD – St. Mary’s County Government has announced a data-sharing partnership with Waze (http://www.waze.com), the real-time crowdsourced navigation app powered by the world’s largest community of drivers. As part of the Waze Connected Citizens Program, the two-way data share of publicly available traffic information will promote greater efficiency, deeper insights and safer roads for St. Mary’s County citizens.
St. Mary’s County is the first emergency services partner to join the Waze Connected Citizens Program, now with over 30 global partners. As part of the agreement, the county will receive a real-time feed of publicly available reports of accidents, traffic and road hazards contributed by the Waze app driver community.
“The partnership with Waze allows us to gain more real-time information on road conditions,” said Commissioner President Randy Guy. “This data will help drivers maneuver around any bottlenecks and delays which may occur.”
With the addition of county data, Wazers in the region will be even safer on the roads. Users of the Android & iOS app will receive added information delivered in real-time about planned construction, severe weather or anything else that can cause delays or unsafe driving conditions. For rural communities like St. Mary’s, real-time information from drivers is essential.
“Ensuring the safety of citizens is a primary goal for the program,“ said Paige Fitzgerald, Waze Connected Citizens Program Manager. “Thanks to the data St. Mary’s County is providing us, Waze users in the area are receiving the most reliable and up-to-date information about what’s happening on the roads.”
The mission of Waze Connected Citizens is to help Wazers, cities and citizens collaborate to improve their community and answer the question “What’s happening on our roads right now, and where?” The program promotes more efficient traffic monitoring by sharing crowdsourced incident reports from Waze drivers. Established as a two-way data share, Waze receives partner input such as feeds from road sensors, adds publicly available incident and road closure reports from the Waze traffic platform and returns one of the most succinct, thorough overviews of current road conditions today.
“The partnership allows 911 dispatchers and the Emergency Operations Center to improve situational awareness,” said Bob Kelly, St. Mary’s County Director of Emergency Services and Technology. “This will allow for better response to events that occur within St. Mary’s County.”
Deep technical knowledge is not required to join the Connected Citizens Program. It is critical that prospective partners prove their dedication to citizen engagement and commit to use Waze data to improve efficiency. Partners are also expected to measure and share their findings with other municipal organizations, developing case studies that serve as keys to a global set of improvements that can be made for collective progress.
To learn more about the Connected Citizens Program visit www.waze.com/ccp. To download the free Waze app for iOS or Android, visit www.waze.com
