T

he Jakarta administration will cooperate with smartphone application Waze, which is owned by tech giant Google Inc., to help commuters avoid accidents, traffic congestion and road closures.

Founded in 2008, Waze, which was bought by Google last year, is a community-based crowdsourcing traffic and navigation application with global positioning system (GPS) support with which traveling users can share and submit information on traffic with one another through a live map. Aside from traffic information, users can also share local events, street fairs and real-time fuel prices.

The cooperation with Jakarta is part of Waze'€™s Connected Cities program, whereby Waze cooperates with city administrations to help provide commuters with safer and faster travel.

Jakarta is one of the 10 participants of the Connected Cities program. Other participating cities are Boston, Los Angeles, New York, Florida, Barcelona, Tel Aviv and Rio de Janeiro.

Connected Cities program manager Paige Fitzgerald said that the program aimed to improve the commuting experiences of residents.

'€œWe want to help cities use Waze data to make smart traveling decisions and we want to improve the Waze experience in Jakarta,'€ Fitzgerald told The Jakarta Post after a meeting with acting Jakarta governor Basuki '€œAhok'€ Tjahaja Purnama at City Hall on Tuesday. She said that Waze and the city administration previously inked a cooperation deal on data exchange early September.

Fitzgerald said that there were more than a million Indonesians using Waze each month. She went on to say that Waze and the city administration would cooperate in exchanging data and information on traffic in Jakarta.

'€œFor example, Waze gets information on traffic congestion from its users. If there is any traffic congestion, the city administration would be informed and it could handle it right away. The city administration also has information that is valuable to the users, such as ongoing projects that might disrupt their travel,'€ she said.

Waze previously tested the program in Rio de Janeiro in late 2013 after the city'€™s mayor asked Waze to help monitor traffic during Pope Francis'€™ visit. Since then, Rio de Janeiro'€™s traffic management office has embedded the Waze system into its traffic control system to give real-time and accurate information to travelers.

Meanwhile, Waze vice president of operations Fej Shmuelevitz said that users could access the information provided by the city administration through Waze.

'€œThe idea is to combine the information that we get from the [city administration] '€” such as about construction and road hazards '€” and give it to [users] so they can spread the information even to non-users. So people can use the application for their travel and the city administration can also use the application to manage traffic,'€ he said.

Shmuelevitz added that Waze and the city administration would also cooperate with the Jakarta Police'€™s traffic management center.

Meanwhile, Transportation Agency head Muhammad Akbar said that the city administration and Waze would exchange data this week and provide the information to commuters through the application.

'€œFor example, we will update Waze on the average traveling speed in a certain street at a certain time so commuters can predict their time of travel and so on,'€ said Akbar, who was also present during the meeting.