Toronto to share traffic data with trendy navigation app Waze

The city of Toronto is joining the long list of major cities pairing up with makers of the Waze traffic sharing app to access real-time traffic data.

Waze is the world’s largest community-driven traffic and navigation app, which gives drivers turn-by-turn navigation thanks to user-submitted travel times and route details.

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In a press conference on Monday, Mayor John Tory introduced the partnership as part of his “Get Toronto Moving” initiative.

“It will give our traffic operations centre…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,” he said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "It will give our traffic operations centre…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," he said.

Free to use, the app was developed by an Israeli company in 2006 and later acquired by Google in 2013. The service boasts more than 50 million users worldwide.

With 560,000 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.

LISTEN: Mayor John Tory talks about data sharing between the MTO and Waze traffic app

Mike Wilson, a region manager with Waze, said the city will provide updated information on road closures, construction and traffic alerts, while Waze users (known as “Wazers”) will report accidents, traffic jams and other road anomalies through the mobile app.

That info is in turn sent anonymously to the company’s database, which aggregates the data and updates the services maps.

“Waze will be sharing anonymous traffic and driver insights with the city to give them better visibility in to traffic patterns and aid their planning decisions,” he said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "Waze will be sharing anonymous traffic and driver insights with the city to give them better visibility in to traffic patterns and aid their planning decisions," he said.

At present, Waze offers full-base maps for 13 countries including the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy.