Urban Platform Data Philanthropy in Action: Strava Metro and Waze CCP

Platforms were paying attention to this conversation and soon began leveraging their data externally as a source of charity through which they might provide public benefit or at least curry political favor while advancing public relations objectives. Whatever the motive, before cities were demanding data via regulations, urban platforms began to flex their newfound data-derived power and influence by sharing data voluntarily, on their terms. This gave local governments a first taste of the civic potential of platform data, serving as an important precursor to data sharing mandates.

Figure 4. Waze launched its “Connected Citizens Program (Waze CCP)” to provide “Data for Cities” in October of 2014. It has since rebranded to “Waze for Cities (W4C)”. Screenshot from “Waze for Cities” website.

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Social fitness app, Strava, and crowdsourced navigation app Waze both launched voluntary data sharing programs in 2014., “Strava Metro” and “Waze Connected Citizens Program (CCP)”, respectively, that together illustrate the data philanthropy trend within platform urbanism.

Strava first began publishing open data in 2013 as an experiment via its “global heat map” visualization39. City transportation officials soon took notice, expressing interest in using the heatmap’s bike and pedestrian commuting patterns for planning purposes such as justifying new bike lanes along popular routes or evaluating impacts of multimodal street

38 “Driving Directions, Traffic Reports & Carpool Rideshares by Waze,” accessed May 17, 2022, https://www. waze.com/wazeforcities/.

39 Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan, “How Strava, The App For Athletes, Became An App For Cities,” Fast Company, November 1, 2017, https://www.fastcompany.com/90149130/strava-the-app-for-athletes-isbecoming-an-app-for-cities.

interventions. However, to realize those objectives, officials needed more granular access and began asking Strava for a deeper dive into the data behind the map.40 As a result of this interest Strava launched its “Strava Metro” program in May of 2014 and began selling licenses to its data as a subscription service, working with 30 local government agencies within the first year and with over 125 agencies in the next three.41

Figure 5. Screenshot of Strava Global Heatmap42

Similarly, Waze launched its Connected Citizens Program (CCP) in October 2014, offering its crowdsourced incident and traffic data to help with agency objectives like improving traffic accident response times and better managing street congestion43. Unlike Strava Metro, Waze CCP was free for agencies, but administered via a selective application process. In an interesting early example of public-private data exchange, agencies were also required to share construction and street closure data with the Waze app. The program launched with 10 local government partners across the globe, including Rio de Janeiro, Barcelona, Jakarta, Tel Aviv, and Boston, and within the first few years, dozens more public agencies would participate with public sector demand, soon exceeding Waze’s ability to provide support to every interested city44.

40 Campbell-Dollaghan.

41 Campbell-Dollaghan.

42 “Strava Global Heatmap,” Strava, accessed May 17, 2022, https://www.strava.com/heatmap. 43 “Waze for Cities - Wazeopedia,” accessed April 7, 2022, https://wazeopedia.waze.com/wiki/USA/Waze_for_ Cities.

44 Weiss, Mitchell, and Alissa Davies. “Waze Connected Citizens Program.” Harvard Business School Case 817-035, June 2017.

Figure 6. Screenshot of an overview of the platform data available to cities via the “Waze for cities” program, (formerly Waze CCP)45

These programs illustrate various approaches to corporate data sharing, including open data (the Strava Global Heatmap), data sharing with select local governments (Waze CCP), and data access offered as a subscription product targeted at government (Strava Metro). All three models make power dynamics clear. City officials, in some cases still using manual tools for instance to conduct traffic counts or otherwise “flying blind” without data, lined up showing the extent of public sector desperation for data and lack of leverage in how they might get it. In the context of this imbalanced negotiation, platforms determined the conditions of agency access, positioning granular data firmly as a private commodity for which agencies must apply, barter, or pay.

45 “Waze for Cities - Wazeopedia.”