SWATARA TWP., Dauphin County -- Nearly a half-million drivers in Pennsylvania currently use the navigation phone app Waze, and now the Pa. Turnpike will be using it too.
This month, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission is rolling out plans to connect to their drivers using the popular phone program. Waze is currently used by 400,000 people in the state, the Pa. Turnpike Commission estimates, including many of their own employees. On Friday, they announced a no-cost partnership with Waze to start a two-way share of information, which they say will benefit their traffic center, and drivers as well.
"We're going to send information (gathered from drivers) back into Waze," Turnpike Traffic Operations Manager Bob Taylor said. "Construction activities, crashes, as we find out about it, we're going to share that with Wazers in the app."
Information typed into the app from turnpike drivers will be seen in the Pa. Turnpike's Traffic Operations building in Swatara Township. In turn, turnpike workers will be able to see real-time updates and, using one of their 50 cameras, will be able to share updated information with drivers.
"Any type of incident on the roadway we'll be able to pump that feed to Waze and we can post it on their app," Tim Scanlon, Pa. Turnpike Director of Traffic Engineering, said.