Johns Creek turns to Waze to locate businesses

Johns Creek has expanded its partnership with the Waze crowd-sourced navigational app to make it easier for people to locate businesses in the city.

Since August 2015, the city has been sharing real-time road closure and construction information with Waze to help drivers improve their commutes. Now, the city will share business locations derived from license applications and renewals in a map-friendly format.

People with smart phones most likely search by name for places to shop or eat, said Nick O’Day, Johns Creek’s senior GIS manager and architect of the city’s Open Data Portal. “By sharing business information to Waze with the business name tied to a latitude and longitude, it makes the experience faster and easier,” he said.

Waze already had recorded about 500 business in Johns Creek, a database that was expanded over time by Waze users (called “Wazers”). The first import of city data added more than 1,000 additional city businesses. Businesses new to the city will be added to the Data Portal and the Waze database as they arrive.

Information: bit.ly/2ggw6aO