Nebraska Department of Roads joins Waze Connected Citizens Program

The Nebraska Department of Roads today announced a data-sharing partnership with Waze (waze.com), the free, real-time crowdsourced 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 citizens of Nebraska along with more than 55 other partners around the world.

The Waze Connected Citizens Program gives NDOR an unprecedented look at real-time road activity, empowering decisions that achieve concrete community impact. Established as a two-way data share, Waze provides partners with real-time, anonymous, Waze-generated incident and slow-down information directly from the source: drivers themselves. In exchange, the Department of Roads provides real-time government-reported construction, crash and road closure data to Waze to return one of the most succinct, thorough overviews of current road conditions today.

“We are excited to partner with Waze to share information across platforms,” said Director Kyle Schneweis, of the Department of Roads. “Sharing of this real time information will be of great benefit to our customers, the motorists on our roadways. We look forward to continuing this partnership in the future.”

The Waze map evolves with every driver and data point it receives, promoting safer roads and sharing more knowledge with Wazers about potential delays to their commutes. The Connected Citizens Program yields even more data, giving local citizens a greater ability to circumvent road closures and traffic jams within the app. The Department of Roads can also provide Wazers with advanced notice of major traffic events such as parades and dignitary visits that will affect their daily routes.

“Waze is only as strong as the information it receives from its users,” said Paige Fitzgerald, Connected Citizens Program Manager at Waze. “The Connected Citizens Program is a natural evolution for Waze as we already enable and empower drivers and are now bringing entire cities that same level of connectivity. The immense data the Department of Roads can contribute to the Waze app makes them a valued partner moving forward.”

Deep technical knowledge is not required to be selected as a partner of the Connected Citizens Program. It is critical that prospective partners prove their dedication to citizen engagement and commit to use Waze data to improve city 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 which can be made for collective mobility.

To find out more about Connected Citizens, visit waze.com/ccp. To download the free Waze app for iOS or Android, visit waze.com.