Waze is already capable of displaying road hazard alerts on all platforms where it’s available, but it’s all powered by community-driven reports.
In other words, once a user marks the location of a particular road hazard on the map and others upvote it to confirm it’s there, Waze provides warnings to drivers in advance as they’re getting closer to this point.
In the near future, however, Waze will also use another source for road hazard alerts: Volvo cars. Thanks to a partnership between Waycare Technologies and Volvo, transportation municipalities and Waze will be provided with data collected by vehicles equipped with the Hazard Light Alert and Slippery Road Alert, thus sending warnings to nearby drivers.
First and foremost, the collaboration is supposed to allow authorities to act accordingly and inform drivers through public channels, including traffic information telephone hotlines, that they may experience dangerous conditions on specific roads.
“Through the Waycare partnership, Volvo Cars is able to share anonymous connected safety data for integration with other data sources, including city infrastructure, telematics and weather forecasts. Waycare then uses artificial intelligence (AI) technology to synthesize the data and provide operational insights and decision support to local U.S. transportation agencies,” Volvo explains in a press release (read it in full below).
The Hazard Light Alert and Slippery Road Alert debuted on the 2016 90 Series and, starting with 2021 model year Volvo cars, they are both offered as standard equipment in the United States. Drivers can activate and disable the systems from the head unit.
At this point, it’s still not known when Waze will begin showing these new warnings, but it shouldn’t take too long before Volvo cars start uploading information to Waycare’s servers. All the data that is shared by Volvo is completely anonymous, which means it doesn’t include any identifiable information as the purpose is to share road hazard locations while also protecting drivers’ privacy.
In the near future, however, Waze will also use another source for road hazard alerts: Volvo cars. Thanks to a partnership between Waycare Technologies and Volvo, transportation municipalities and Waze will be provided with data collected by vehicles equipped with the Hazard Light Alert and Slippery Road Alert, thus sending warnings to nearby drivers.
First and foremost, the collaboration is supposed to allow authorities to act accordingly and inform drivers through public channels, including traffic information telephone hotlines, that they may experience dangerous conditions on specific roads.
“Through the Waycare partnership, Volvo Cars is able to share anonymous connected safety data for integration with other data sources, including city infrastructure, telematics and weather forecasts. Waycare then uses artificial intelligence (AI) technology to synthesize the data and provide operational insights and decision support to local U.S. transportation agencies,” Volvo explains in a press release (read it in full below).
The Hazard Light Alert and Slippery Road Alert debuted on the 2016 90 Series and, starting with 2021 model year Volvo cars, they are both offered as standard equipment in the United States. Drivers can activate and disable the systems from the head unit.
At this point, it’s still not known when Waze will begin showing these new warnings, but it shouldn’t take too long before Volvo cars start uploading information to Waycare’s servers. All the data that is shared by Volvo is completely anonymous, which means it doesn’t include any identifiable information as the purpose is to share road hazard locations while also protecting drivers’ privacy.