The Port Authority has teamed up with the popular crowd-sourced navigation app Waze to better alert customers to traffic in the New York and New Jersey metro area.
The launch has been two years in the making, and the partnership will help ease congestion on the 300 miles of roads, tunnels, bridges and other property the Port Authority manages, they say.
Traffic information is shared both ways between Port Authority and Waze. It's already been in practice for a month: for example, when the Port Authority closed the Bayonne Bridge earlier in the month because of high winds, Waze users saw that immediately. And last week, when it snowed and the speed limit changed, that popped up, too.
"We operate in a congested environment and any data that can give us faster, more reliable information to those on the roads helps us to help them," said Stephanie Dawson, chief operating officer at the Port Authority.
It doesn't mean Waze will share personal information, but the Port Authority will get something else.
"We share average speed so they can analyze congestion pattersn and make infrastructure decisions," said Waze employee Adam Fried.
The data-sharing program, called Waze Connected Citizens, won't cost the Port Authority or the public anything.
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Waze has the world's largest community of drivers for its type of app.
