Google Maps wants to reduce accidents involving trains and cars
Tim Boyle/Getty Images
Using federal GIS data, Google will pinpoint every single one of the United States' roughly 275,000 railroad crossings.
The FRA has also reached out to other mapping companies, like Apple, MapQuest and Garmin, to do the same.
"We're happy to help the Federal Railroad Administration," said Google spokeswoman Mara Harris. "We're always looking for new ways to make maps useful to our users."
Last year alone, 270 people died in highway-rail collisions, the agency says. That was an increase from the previous year, one which the agency blames on "driver inattention and error."
"Working with these tech companies is part of the smarter engineering effort to help educate drivers," FRA spokesman Matthew Lehner said.
Acting Railroad Administrator Sarah Feinberg is no stranger to Silicon Valley. Prior to joining the Department of Transportation, she served as Facebook's Director of Corporate and Strategic Communications.
"While this is an old problem, with no easy solutions," she said in a thank you letter to Google. "It is not an impossible problem to solve."
- A centenarian who starts her day with gentle exercise and loves walks shares 5 longevity tips, including staying single
- A couple accidentally shipped their cat in an Amazon return package. It arrived safely 6 days later, hundreds of miles away.
- FSSAI in process of collecting pan-India samples of Nestle's Cerelac baby cereals: CEO
- Private Equity Investments
- Having an regional accent can be bad for your interviews, especially an Indian one: study
- Dirty laundry? Major clothing companies like Zara and H&M under scrutiny for allegedly fuelling deforestation in Brazil
- 5 Best places to visit near Darjeeling
- Climate change could become main driver of biodiversity decline by mid-century: Study