Waze signs data-sharing deal with AI-based traffic management startup Waycare

Waze has struck a data-sharing agreement with Waycare, an artificial intelligence-based traffic management startup, the two companies announced today. The deal will allow them to combine anonymized navigation information crowdsourced from the 100 million drivers who use Waze with Waycare’s proprietary traffic analytics.

The collaboration is now active in Nevada, Florida, California and Nevada, with plans to expand over the next year. It is part of Waze’s Connected Citizens Program, which gives cities around the world access to anonymized driver data to help them manage traffic and road infrastructure.

A representative told TechCrunch that data supplied by Waycare to Waze will be incorporated into the app’s usual interface, while data from Waze will be added to Waycare’s platform alongside its other data sets.

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Founded in 2016, Waycare is a cloud-based platform that enables municipalities to gather data from many sources, including on-board devices, navigation apps, sensors and road camera feeds, and analyze them using proprietary deep learning algorithms to figure out how to improve traffic and road conditions. The new partnership means cities that use Waycare will be able to send urgent alerts to drivers through Waze, while giving Waycare a new trove of data.

Like Waze, which was acquired by Google in 2013, Waycare is based in Tel Aviv with operations in the U.S. The startup has raised $2.3 million so far, according to Crunchbase, and currently has projects in Nevada, Florida, Delaware and California.