Beta 80 Group integrated Waze traffic information into its CAD. This provides PSAPs with better real-time traffic information, including road works, alerts, jams and incidents.
Agencies may directly alert citizen of incidents and problem areas on the road. Waze is the world's largest community-based traffic and navigation app. In any given area, drivers share real-time traffic and road info, saving everyone time and gas money on their daily commute. It is supported by the largest number of users in the world; who share real-time traffic information and road conditions.
Beta 80 Group, with its Computer Aided Dispatch, has joined the Connected Citizen Program (CCP) a network of Waze partners who have additional sources of data not found within the Waze app. Through CCP Waze exchanges publicly available incident and road closure reports, enabling Public Safety and Government partners to respond more immediately to accidents and congestion on their roads. In turn, Waze aggregates the partners' data on the Waze App platform, resulting in succinct and thorough overviews of current road conditions.
The European Emergency Number Association (EENA) and Waze launched a pilot test program to evaluate the impacts of crowdsourcing traffic data for faster emergency response. Pilot sites worked with Waze and EENA throughout the project. The project results, including challenges, opportunities, and future recommendations, were shared after the completion of the project with all interested parties. The objective was to understand how the use of this data in emergency management can improve response operations and benefit response organizations and citizens.
Beta 80 Group supported AREU Lombardia, one of the EENA / Waze Pilot Project sites. How? Beta 80 Group integrated and tested Waze in its CAD; the same software solution currently used by the 112 PSAPs in Milan. Beta 80 supported AREU in adding the Waze integration in the 112 PSAPs and monitored and reported on the Waze activity.
As mentioned above, the Italian chapter of this pilot project is in Lombardy: when a Waze user in reports a real-time incident, this is automatically signaled in the 112 PSAP in Milan thanks to the integration with Beta 80 CAD
Reporting leads to early warnings and incident scenes. Waze optimizes the emergency vehicle route ensuring a safer navigation to the rescue location. Finally, for each incident reported by a 112 call, the 112 PSAP can automatically report to Waze users as a certified source.
Waze had already experimented similar partnerships through its “Connected Citizen Program” with awesome results.
Beta 80 is proud of being part of Waze’s CCP: we hope that Waze data will make the community safer and being a route for the introduction of social communication into the traditional world of PSAPs.