LEXINGTON, Ky. — The City of Lexington is aiming to keep pedestrians safer from drivers through smartphone technology.

Drivers using Waze in Lexington are now being alerted when they’re approaching a school zone or mid-block pedestrian crossing in the city. David Filiatreau, traffic engineer manager of the city said it’s a new feature that only one other city has been using.

“It’s just an alert, generally an audible alert if you’re hooked up to your sound system so it’s nothing you’ll have to do. It’ll come up automatically,” Filiatreau said.

According to a news release,mid-block Lexington has 51 school zones and 49 mid-block crossings throughout the city. A mid-block crossing is a crosswalk not near an intersection with a traffic signal but allows pedestrians to cross a road to get to a grocery store or other highly traveled landmark.

“It’s a beacon or pedestrian activated beacon, they can hit it whenever it’s needed and it’ll come on, alert the driver and they can cross,” Filiatreau said.

Alerts are enabled by the same technology the city currently uses to monitor and control devices which have a partnership with Waze. Filiatreau said this feature in the Waze app is an added layer of protection.

“There’s physical improvements that we try to make at different intersections, the beacons themselves are a layer of protection and of course if we can get to drivers specifically which it was Waze was designed for that’s just another layer that can hopefully prevent any sort of interaction between a pedestrian and a vehicle,” Filiatreau said.

For a traffic engineer, pedestrian safety is paramount.

“In an urban environment you’re going to see a lot more pedestrians, so they have just as much of a right to walk and move safely as bikes and vehicles,” Filiatreau said.

Right now, the feature is exclusive to Waze in Lexington and no other navigation apps. Waze is owned by Google, but Filiatreau said the city has no control over whether that service gets added to Google Maps.