Waze will tweet out warnings of local traffic snarls

The social traffic company Waze (owned by Google) said in a blog post today that it will begin tweeting out alerts about traffic snarls in major cities.

The tweets are part of a new program called Unusual Traffic that Waze is taking into beta testing.

The company says it has set up 50 new Twitter accounts, each one dedicated to reporting traffic problems in a given city.

Such problems could include bad weather, accidents, or road closures. Commuters can follow their city’s Unusual Traffic account on Twitter.

The tweets will include:

• The location and cause (if available) of the unusual traffic
• The extra time added by the unusual traffic
• Pictures from Waze users’ real-time road reports
• Whether the traffic jam is building up or clearing up
• A link to a page containing the optimal alternate route to bypass the traffic

“Traffic and broadcasting personalities should feel free to use any of the information found in our Twitter feeds,” Waze adds in the blog.

You can find a list of available city accounts here.