The first snowflakes have not yet fallen, but for several days, almost the entire Ile-de-France has been placed on yellow alert for the risk of snow and ice.
In Orsay, a town in the north-west of Essonne, we are ready.
The municipality is the first local authority in France to develop a “winter” partnership with the Waze application: in the event of roads closed because they are too snow-covered, refuge sites (such as gymnasiums) will be notified to motorists in real time.
“We have been using Waze for some time, to report construction work, road closures or street creations, especially on the Saclay plateau in full development, or even potholes.
In the event of a snow-related crisis, I will be able to notify motorists of repatriation locations via Waze if roads are closed or blocked, in real time, ”explains Frédéric Henriot, deputy mayor in particular in charge of mobility.
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Was the N 118 closed too early and cleared of snow too late?
In Orsay, it is the Jean-Charles-Blondin gymnasium, located at the exit of the N118, an axis on which hundreds of drivers have been stranded on several occasions, which normally serves as a refuge for the castaways.
Very few people welcomed in 2009 "because motorists did not have the information"
“In 2009, during a heavy snowfall, we opened it to accommodate stuck drivers and passengers,” recalls Frédéric Henriot.
But we had only had one or two people, because the motorists had not had the information.
Thanks to the partnership with Waze set up this year, everything is in place to best guide drivers trapped by snow.
It's a free, win-win partnership for everyone.
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The application, available in France since 2009, attracts more than 14 million monthly active users in France, including 3,600 map publishers in France and 500,000 worldwide, with an average of 53 million updates per month performed all over the world.
Since winter 2019, a new alert allows users of the application to report roads that have not yet been cleared of snow or closed.
They could already warn of the presence of ice or fog on the axes.
The application has added the “Snowy road” tab to the “Weather” section of the “Danger” section.
When possible, Waze offers alternative routes.
Always more partnerships with communities
"Our priority is as much to save people time as to make their driving safer", declared in 2019 Jérôme Marty, General Manager France of Waze.
To be ever more relevant in its route recommendations and to improve regional mobility, the application has created the free “Waze for cities” program, which supports communities.
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In France, around fifty partnerships have been developed: with the agglomeration of Versailles Grand Paris to optimize traffic flows, with the Vienne departmental fire and rescue service (Sdis 86) to enable firefighters to receive notifications accident or the deployment in 2019 of 400 bluetooth beacons in the La Défense tunnel, in conjunction with the Ile-de-France Regional Roads Department, to ensure the continuity of geolocated navigation in the tunnels .
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The police will be able to prohibit the location of traffic controls on Waze or Coyote
“The exchange of data with Waze is a step in the right direction for the communities, estimates David Ros, the mayor (PS) of Orsay.
We thus have the hand to avoid that load-shedding routes are proposed in residential areas.
And in the event of bad weather, it can help motorists in difficulty.
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Other communities in Essonne could follow this model, such as Chilly-Mazarin or the Paris-Saclay agglomeration.
