PITTSBURGH, PA (July 14, 2020) The City of Pittsburgh Department of Innovation and Performance is set to join two data-sharing agreements, at no cost to the City, that will improve planning and analysis related to mobility, transportation and public works.
One resolution is with the app Waze, which will provide anonymized traffic data to City employees to manage congestion surrounding construction projects. Another is with the I-95 Corridor Coalition Traffic Flow Data Program, a regional alliance of transportation agencies, toll collection agencies, and related organizations.
The City takes the privacy of residents seriously; accordingly, the agreements do not entail accessing or sharing personal data. The information instead represents aggregated traffic volumes, and incident data is not linked to any of the drivers involved nor those who report it.
Both agreements are being introduced to Pittsburgh City Council today.
The Waze data comes via the company's Connected Citizens Program, through which hundreds of cities and public agencies are granted access in real time to reports from Waze users on things like accidents, potholes, and traffic slowdowns. The Waze data can also be used to visualize traffic patterns and estimate travel time, helping the City identify roadways that are consistently congested or accident-prone and address such issues more quickly.
In the case of the I-95 Coalition data, the City will be given access to a feed with real time and historical information on PennDOT road incidents, traffic congestion on highways, travel time estimates, lane closures, and weather alerts. This will allow the City to better understand regional mobility issues and place local data in that context.
