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June 21, 2018
Two-Way Data Share Hopes to Ease Congestion and Better Inform Infrastructure
Lake County, IL – The Lake County Division of Transportation
(LCDOT) is excited to launch a data-sharing partnership with Waze,
the free, crowdsourced traffic and navigation app powered by the world’s
largest community of drivers. Designed as a free, two-way data share of
publicly available traffic information, the Connected Citizens Program promotes
greater efficiency, deeper insights and safer roads for motorists in Lake
County along with more than 600 other partners around the world.
Partnering with the Waze
Connected Citizens Program gives LCDOT traffic engineers access to real-time
road activity as reported by Waze users. Using the data from motorist insights,
with information already generated through the Lake County PASSAGE system,
operators can make well informed decisions and act to reduce congestion and
help keep traffic moving. Established as a two-way data share, Waze
provides real-time, Waze-generated incident and slow-down information directly from drivers. In exchange, LCDOT provides
government-reported construction, crash and road closure data to Waze generating
a thorough overview of current road conditions and making it available to the
public.
“Connecting the Waze community of
drivers with the robust technological infrastructure of Lake County PASSAGE
will allow all of us to help each other get where we are going quicker,” Lake
County Board Chairman Aaron Lawlor said. “This is an exciting public-private
partnership that unlocks new opportunities for us to optimize our
transportation system based on the real-time feedback of Waze users.”
As technology continues to evolve, all road users are
generating traffic data and information. Making this data publicly available to
road users is not only transparent, but it can help people make travel
decisions in their everyday life. This technology can alert users to potential
delays to their commute, or major incidents that may require users to plan a
different route.
This information can also be useful in crisis response.
Shane Schneider, LCDOT Director explained, “Last year, we experienced record
county-wide flooding that had a major impact on local roads, disrupting traffic
for days. During emergency situations, the motoring public needs access to reliable
and up to date information about our roadways. Integrating Waze’s real-time
data into Lake County PASSAGE, and sharing PASSAGE data with Waze will hopefully
give users even more accurate information about roadway conditions.”
“We are thrilled to partner with LCDOT and help make data-driven
city planning decisions while gaining a deeper understanding of real-time
traffic conditions,” said Thais Blumenthal de Moraes, Global Business
Development Lead, Connected Citizens Program. “Waze is the only service in the
world to offer this type of real-time content, and we’re excited to work with LCDOT,
whether it’s helping to increase the efficiency of crisis response or improving
every day traffic conditions.”
As part of this
agreement with Waze, Lake County is committed to citizen engagement and using
this data to continuously improve the quality and quantity of information
available through Waze and Lake County PASSAGE. LCDOT is excited to begin
measuring the benefits and outcomes of this new partnership and sharing our
findings with other Waze partners to continually improve the user experience.
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To learn more about Connected Citizens visit http://waze.com/ccp.
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To download the free Waze app for iOS or Android, visit http://www.waze.com/get.
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To learn more about Lake County PASSAGE, visit https://www.lakecountypassage.com/
 About Waze
Waze is the social navigation pioneer, leveraging mobile technology and
a passionate global community to redefine expectations of today’s maps. Waze is
home to the world’s largest network of drivers who work together daily to
outsmart traffic and save time and money. The app consistently recommends the
fastest routes based on real-time driving and data from millions of users. From
traffic reroutes to low gas price alerts and relevant offers from favorite
brands, Waze is one of the most comprehensive driving companions in the
marketplace.
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