After buying Waze, Google adds realtime incident reports to mobile Maps apps

It’s been two months since Google bought out mapping competitor Waze, and today users will begin seeing the fruits of that acquisition. Google has announced that it’s adding realtime incident reports — sourced from the Waze community — to its mobile Google Maps apps on Android and iOS. Accidents, construction zones, road closures and other travel inconveniences will now show up in Maps in addition to the standalone Waze app. Users in the United States, UK, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Germany, Mexico, Panama, Peru, and Switzerland will have access to the realtime data at launch.

But the benefits go both ways, with Google also incorporating some of its own data within Waze. Google Search can now be used to find destinations during navigation, and Waze’s web-based map editor now includes Google Street View and overhead satellite imagery “to build out the map and make it easier to correct map errors reported by the community.”