Astro Radio partners Waze for traffic coverage

Astro Radio is partnering Waze, a crowd-sourced application, to enhance its traffic reports and improve the quality of the public’s daily experience on the road.This partnership with Waze is considered a first for Malaysia, said Astro Radio. The local radio station will use Waze to bridge traditional media with social networks and crowd-sourced content to augment radio traffic reporting.“Millions of Malaysians spend a significant amount of time on the roads battling peak hour traffic for their daily commute, not to mention the congestion issues we face on the highways during school holidays and festive ‘balik kampung’ period. Our partnership with Waze is a perfect example of using technology to help improve the lives of our listeners,” said Jake Abdullah, CEO of Astro Radio.“Astro Radio is geared towards leveraging technology to offer content to its listeners when they want it, and where they want it. This is part of our efforts to remain a relevant and integral part of listeners’ lives,” he added.Waze incorporates real-time GPS data from its base of more than 50 million users and delivers traffic and navigation information. Drivers select the fastest route with turn-by-turn directions and voice navigation in the local language, taking into account current road conditions to get drivers where they need to go. Passengers are encouraged to edit maps with details like, road construction and traffic accidents.Waze and Astro Radio launched daily traffic updates across all nine of Astro Radio operated radio stations, namely hitz fm, MIX fm, ERA, MY FM, Lite FM, SINAR, MELODY FM, THR Raga and THR Gegar FM in April.