Each month a new map is presented to the Commission to help explain important trends in the Bay Area, across the nation and around the world. These custom-crafted maps are prepared by MTC’s Data & Visualization team.
Traffic Incident Management Along Bay Area Freeways
In December 2016, Waze and MTC entered into a data sharing agreement that provides the Freeway Service Patrol (FSP) program with real-time information that will help FSP tow drivers quickly detect incidents. Waze, in turn, will receive the FSP’s highway incident information – including crashes and stalls – to share with its users. Together, both will have more data and be better able to provide timely assistance to Bay Area drivers. The map in Attachment 4 represents a snapshot of the incidents reported by FSP and Waze users during peak congestion hours in the nine-county Bay Area. Traffic incidents and assists from the FSP program are shown in blue, while reported incidents from Waze are shown in yellow. Incidents have been aggregated along major corridors throughout the region in an attempt to compare the number of incidents reported by Waze users with the total number of assists handled by the FSP program. Alameda County (32%) has the largest share of the total number of incidents during the peak congestion hours, followed by Santa Clara (26%), Contra Costa (15%) and San Mateo (12%).