The city of Toronto is partnering with navigation app Waze to share real-time traffic data to help drivers navigate around the city.
Google-owned Waze is the most popular navigation app, which gives drivers turn-by-turn navigation thanks to user-submitted travel times and route details. While making the announcement, Mayor of Toronto John Tory said, "It will give our traffic operations center…better visibility into traffic patterns and give users of the Waze application enhanced information so that they can plan…their commute ahead of time and adjust their commute as they go."
For the first time, the City is sharing its traffic data with @Waze and Waze users. This partnership will give our traffic operations centre better visibility into traffic patterns and provide Waze users enhanced information to plan and adjust their commute. #getTOmoving pic.twitter.com/Kbwh8XZv5S
— John Tory (@JohnTory) November 20, 2017
The new partnership means that Toronto will share its traffic data, including road closure, events, construction and other incidents with Waze whilst the app will share its community-generated traffic data with the city. The deal does not come with a cost to either the city or the company, both parties confirmed.
With 5,60,000 users already in Toronto, the city is the 19th Canadian municipality to come on board as a partner.
“We’re not the first and we should’ve been at this before now, but we’re now joining city like Montreal and Winnipeg who are already partnering with Waze and I’m glad we’re finally embracing this technology,” said Tory. At present, Waze offers full-base maps for 13 countries including the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Italy.