Waze simply added a brand new characteristic designed to make winter drives simpler

Waze has added a brand new characteristic for winter driving that ought to supply peace of thoughts should you ever end up commuting by way of snow-filled streets.

The navigation app will now supply snow stories on the state of close by roads all through the colder months of the 12 months. It means, for instance, that you just’ll have the ability to shortly see whether or not a highway has been plowed, permitting for extra environment friendly route planning.

Waze is a crowdsourced app, so the brand new characteristic means you’ll have the ability to add your personal stories of unplowed roads must you come throughout them when you’re out and about, thereby offering helpful info for different drivers within the neighborhood.

The brand new characteristic was inbuilt partnership with the Virginia Division of Transportation (VDOT). The division is a part of the Waze for Cities Knowledge program, which shares anonymized knowledge from the app with varied organizations to assist them of their work. On this case, VDOT can use the real-time knowledge to prepare their snowplow vans or ship out emergency response groups to take care of site visitors points brought on by wintry climate circumstances.

“One of many main causes we created the Waze for Cities Knowledge program was to supply public companies with knowledge and insights to cut back site visitors and enhance the protection of their roadways,” Waze’s Dani Simons stated in a launch. “Our work with VDOT on the event of the ‘unplowed highway’ characteristic completely exemplifies what will be completed once we collaborate with public sector companions to satisfy group wants.”

The brand new characteristic is offered now for Waze’s 130 million month-to-month customers globally, and will be discovered below Hazards > Climate > Unplowed Highway.

The snow hazard joins a bunch of different reportable points that embrace the whole lot from potholes and floods to lacking indicators and roadkill.

Waze is owned by Google, and lots of the site visitors app’s options have made their method over to Google Maps. So don’t be shocked to see this one seem sooner or later, although don’t count on it to land for this winter. In that case, you may want to try Waze should you don’t have already got it. Digital Developments has a wonderful information on learn how to use the app, which is offered for each Android and iOS.

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