Improving Traffic Safety By Using Waze User Reports

Abstract Road inspection regularity and existing types made by road maintenance crew have not been good enough to be aware what is really happening on the roads. Road users' contribution in road traffic safety is very important to ensure fast reaction on different road hazards. It is important to ensure not only the most common ways to report road hazards on state roads by phone, by email and on social media, but also expand data sources options in modern and user-friendly way. Waze navigation application already had functionality to report road hazards – to warn other application users, but no one acted to solve these road hazards until someone reported them through existing communication channels supported by Latvian State roads or Latvian road maintainer. To ensure better road traffic safety and faster reaction time on road hazards solving, Latvian road maintainer gained access to Waze report feed, and, in corporation with Riga Technical university, made a system for analysing and processing Waze data. As the result - Latvian roads maintainer can improve road safety by faster reaction to road hazards reported by Waze users. Today, up to 70 % from total reports processed by Latvian road maintainer are generated by Waze.