Crowdsourcing Summit-Closing Real-Time Data Gaps Project

Transportation agencies need a high degree of situation awareness to successfully manage traffic operations. Maintaining a high level of situational awareness throughout their network is extremely difficult, expensive, and otherwise unattainable with traditional methods. Therefore, the Coalition is exploring the use of crowdsourced data to determine if it is a cost-effective option for delivering information to agencies.

The purpose of this Crowdsourcing Summit held a summit on September 14, 2017, was to provide member agencies with the opportunity to discuss the benefits and limitations of this data source. The one-day summit brought together over 70 diverse representatives from throughout the Coalition with backgrounds in planning, operations, and traveler information to learn strategies and methods being utilized by member states with regard to crowdsourced data, in particular, WAZE. Six Coalition member agencies gave presentations on how their programs were using WAZE in Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMs) Data Integration, Traveler Information Outreach, Traffic Incident Management, and Data Analysis. Member agencies also discussed the issues that need to be addressed including data quality, verification, unfamiliar data formats, and negotiating agreements with the private sector.

This final report contains high-level briefs of each presentation covering what the agency is doing with respect to WAZE, planned next steps, and summit participant questions. The full presentations are also available below.