If you’ve ever had to stare down the double barrel that is the Lion’s Gate Bridge at rush hour or perform mental calisthenics in order to figure out if time saved on the 407 is worth the cash, you’ve probably used Waze.

Created in 2006 by an Israeli startup bent on making everyone’s commute a little bit better, Waze has grown into a global company with a presence on nearly every continent and an estimated 130 million active users.

Oh yeah — did we mention that 99 per cent of the people who help make the app function are actually volunteers?

It’s true. With 540 employees in 20 locations across the globe, Waze is certainly more than just a sideline player in the transportation sphere. Those employees are staff developing the app, maintaining and creating features, liaising with various outside stakeholders, and making sure the wheels roll smoothly — both literally and figuratively.

But it is the nigh upon 60,000 active community members across the globe who are relied upon to develop maps, input toll pricing and feed the engine of information that actually makes the app useful to a frazzled commuter who just spilled their double-double and is late to drop the kids off at soccer practice.

The new subdivision across town whose roads appeared on Waze the day it opened? It wasn’t magic but instead the time and effort of enthusiastic volunteers who, often in the wee hours after their real-world shift work ended or their family retired to bed, dutifully inputted information into Waze servers to make sure those new streets appear in the app.

This is a dedicated bunch. At the 2020 North American Meetup held this February, a portion of those volunteers and a few Waze staff got together to share new ideas. Ron Wiesengrun, who leads the Waze core product team at its home base in Tel Aviv, told us one of the main pillars upon which they stand is the driving experience their users receive out on the road, knowing what turn to take and where hazards may appear. Even simply providing fun voice options are part of an important company pillar which decrees the app be fun and social.

New features roll out frequently, such as the recent inclusion of road tolls in the app. This newly added feature permits the estimation of a total dollar amount for which drivers will be on the hook should they select a certain route. When the company added this functionality, Waze employees didn’t input any toll information, instead constructing the feature’s programming and giving the keys to their most trusted volunteers. It was those people, after a day at their paying job or putting the kids to bed, who manually uploaded toll data into Waze servers.

People like senior Canadian map editors Phillipe Royal, Vinujan Aravinthan and Jason Mushaluk, three of the roughly 1,500 active map editors in Canada. Explaining with infectious enthusiasm why they are part of the Waze volunteer community, it’s easy to see how much effort they invest into making their (and their neighbour’s) commute just a little more bearable. Aravinthan mentioned he was a Waze user prior to becoming a map editor, with the push to edit maps stemming from is experience with the app and its propensity to route him into one particular Toronto area sodden with construction delays. Learning how to edit the map solved that issue — for him and other drivers.

Mushaluk, from Manitoba, jumped right into both using and editing the map. As his role in health care takes him on road, he rightly figured using that time to edit Waze maps would be beneficial for him and his colleagues responding to emergencies, not to mention other road users who simply want to get to work on time. Royal serendipitously worked at a division of transportation in Quebec transportation. Since he had access to information about upcoming new infrastructure and what roads might be closed for construction that week, he could get that detail into Waze with rapid-fire speed and accuracy.

This development speaks to why Waze has formed a division called Waze for Cities. Realizing that Waze is packed with information that is useful to city planners and vice-versa, the company is in the midst of leveraging those relationships in an effort to smooth out the evening (or morning, or afternoon) drive. Dani Simons heads that charge at Waze and told us there are now roughly 1,300 government partnerships around the world, thanks in large part to the team’s efforts in creating a new and approachable front door for cities to contact Waze and work with them.

These entities, which include port authorities and airports, can now go back and look at past traffic data. This is especially helpful if a city experienced a crazy-bananas traffic day for no discernible reason. Pairing the Waze data with their own tools such as traffic cams can uncover what the problem was so steps can be taken to mitigate future issues. It’s also possible to pair this data with past weather metrics to estimate if that storm scheduled to hit on Friday may cause traffic snarls. In one instance, a municipality reported an 18-per-cent month-over-month reduction in congestion at key intersections thanks to the partnership.

“But Matthew,” you cry, hurling packs of chewing gum and stale Vachon cakes in my general direction, “since Waze is owned by Google, doesn’t this represent an overlap?” On the surface, this may appear to be so, especially since Google Maps can provide routing and some traffic detail. One of Waze’s main differentiators – and massive strength, in this author’s opinion – is its enthusiastic volunteer community, one which will stay awake to the wee hours updating maps and seeking ways to improve the user experience.

This community feel was driven home – pun intended – by a presentation on Day 2 of the Meetup from an experienced map editor who spoke of ways to help new map editors and how to best mentor those newbies. Having met Waze volunteers earlier in the day who’ve been editing maps since 2009, it’s certain the well of knowledge from which these tutors can draw is deeper than the dish on the rims of that white Lambo you’re sitting next to in traffic.

Except you won’t be sitting idle in traffic, thanks to Waze and its 60,000-strong volunteers. Taming the Lion’s Gate bridge or getting the 311 on 407 tolls has never been easier.