Inrix Traffic Scorecard: Congestion up; Economy and Construction Effects
Inrix has released its annual study on the traffic congestion in America taking a fresh look at what's happening overall and where the worst congestion spots are across the country. The good news is that it appears that the economy is on the mend as traffic bottomed out in March/April of last year, the bad news is that congestion is up overall, especially in the non-rush hours where there was a 25% increase in congestion. The stimulus package and its associated construction efforts are changing patterns; worse congestion where construction projects have kicked off and relieved congestion where they have finished.
Overall, for those who commute, you probably already know that the best day to commute is Monday, and the worst on Thursday with people taking long weekends to relieve a little stress. The trouble is that the worst morning commute is Wednesday, while the worst evening commute is Friday - not too many people are staying late on Friday.
No surprise that Los Angeles tops the list for worst traffic; here's the top 10:
1. Los Angeles, Calif.
2. New York, N.Y.
3. Chicago, Ill.
4. Washington, D.C. (up from 6th in 2008)
5. Dallas, Texas
6. Houston, Texas (down from 4th in 2008)
7. San Francisco, Calif.
8. Boston, Mass.
9. Seattle, Wash.
10. Philadelphia, Pa. (up from 11th in 2008)
Inrix grabs their traffic from about 1.6 million GPS probes out on the roads that take the form of road sensors, GPS probes in fleet vehicles and more frequently users of applications like their Inrix Traffic! App on the iphone where the travel progress along the road is anonymously sent back for reporting on in-the-moment traffic conditions. If you want pure traffic reporting on the web, you can see their data on Mapquest, or on your iPhone with their Inrix Traffic! App (iTunes Link). They also power the traffic functions on most of the iPhone Apps, including Navigon (iTunes Link).
NAVTEQ, the leading global provider of digital map, traffic and location data for in-vehicle, portable, wireless and enterprise solutions, announced the launch of NAVTEQ Traffic™ in the United Kingdom, increasing its real-time traffic European coverage to nearly 400,000 kilometers of total coverage, across nearly 35 major cities in 13 European countries.
NAVTEQ Traffic in the United Kingdom includes data from Trafficmaster's network of 7,500 traffic sensors, covering 8,000 miles of U.K. motorways and 95 percent of its trunk or arterial roads. NAVTEQ is compiling road sensors and GPS vehicle probes, both consumer and commercial; later this year they expect to add mobile phone tracking for GPS Probe sources.
NAVTEQ Traffic enables a single-source, uninterrupted traffic service when crossing borders in Europe and is also available in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and The Netherlands.
At the recent MacWorld Expo, Inrix was named to a list of the best in show for their Inrix Traffic Pro iPhone App. If you've missed it, they are the #1 Navigation based App in iTunes.
The basic (free) program gives you insight into traffic flow around major metro areas with coverage not only on major highways but right down to the street level for many important commuting roadways. I have been really impressed with their coverage around Boston.
The "Pro" version - which is an in App upgrade ($10 a year of $25 lifetime), offers a few extra tools for those who want to check out some more details on their trips - like viewing traffic cameras, saving commuting routes, and a pretty cool feature that looks ahead and predicts when the best time to leave for your commute is.
The latest version (ver 2.3) offers fixes that dogged the last version. I saw the bugs last month, I don't see them anymore in this version.
TomTom Lifetime Traffic Service Announced - Future Models
TomTom announced that they plan to offer Lifetime Traffic updates in 2010 on their devices through a traffic receiver that is designed into the cord; nice to have it a part of the cord instead of a separate set of cables.
"Traffic is one of the most common inconveniences every driver experiences," said Jocelyn Vigreux, president of TomTom Inc. "Now, using Lifetime Traffic Updates, TomTom users can always travel confidently knowing they will be alerted to the most current traffic information."
"Users will receive traffic updates through a traffic receiver that is innovatively designed into the device's power cord. By simply connecting the TomTom device to the power cord, users will be automatically alerted to traffic situations en route, such as traffic jams or accident delays."
I would expect a new set of units to be announced as a part of CeBit in March, and this traffic feature will most likely an optional add-on for "T" models with Traffic; no I certainly don't expect this premium service to be free.
Inrix Improves Accuracy and Traffic Flow Coverage to over 260,000 miles
Inrix upped their game again as they continue to power the new Ford Sync platform with their improved traffic flow coverage and accuracy. The big news here is that the coverage now accurately hits secondary roads with flow data, giving you the coverage you need on alternate routes when the highways are clogged.
"While other companies treat arterials and city streets just like stretches of uninterrupted highway, we factor in the impact traffic lights, stop signs, curb cuts and other traffic control tools have on traffic speeds to provide a significantly more accurate snapshot of real-time traffic conditions and congestion on these roads," said Senior Director of Product Management Ken Kranseler.
The cool techno-nerdy news here is that they continue to expand their capabilities through realtime reporting via GPS probes; sure they have trucks and fleet vehicles that got it all started, but increasingly the use of their iPhone Based Inrix Traffic App turns your phone into an anonymous probe for the greater good of reporting more accurate road conditions. they are claiming over 1.5million GPS enabled vehicles and devices as their feed into their Smart Driver Network, which is up dramatically from the 625,000 Vehicles that they were claiming just a short 2+ years ago.
Inrix announced that they are powering the connected traffic systems on the new Ford Sync platform with an improved system of roadways and realtime traffic capabilities. Reported separately, the improvement adds over 100,000 miles of flow data to the available roadways; giving Inrix and Ford a powerhouse of over 260,000 miles of flow data - not just incident data. So that means that they can paint the roadways Red, Yellow, Green to indicate how fast the roadway is flowing. The higher degree of accuracy, and the broader coverage means that users of the Ford system will not only know how things are doing on the highways but also on more and more secondary roadways; yea, the ones you want to use when the highways are clogged.
Inrix Traffic Pro iPhone App - Predict Traffic and ETA's
Inrix announced a major iPhone App innovation today at CES, allowing users to see when the optimum time is to leave in order to arrive at their destination as expected and on time. The App brings together their knowhow and ability to predict traffic based on historical information, expected events today (i.e. sports game or concert, or bad weather), and your route options to predict in 15 minute increments what your drive time will be. By saving popular routes, you will have the opportunity to see expected road conditions with just a few taps. Got a favorite route? Drive it, record it and keep it in the Inrix Traffic Pro program for future use.
The application will be available for $9.99 as a single year subscription and $25 for a lifetime subscription to the services. If I am not mistaken, this is the first direct to consumer product for Inrix where there is a revenue stream for them.
Still plenty of time to prepare for what some are saying will be the worst car traffic jams in a long with this Thanksgiving, starting Wednesday and stretching into Thursday. The down economy is keeping pursestrings tight, and more people are traveling by car, creating a firestorm of potential accidents, traffic jams and lost time. There are plenty of GPS solutions to the problem, and some non-GPS solutions to the problem, here are a few ideas:
Travel in "Off Peak Times" - Traffic leader Inrix predicts that traveling either Wednesday morning or Thursday morning will be a good strategy to beat the traffic - no GPS needed for this one.
Use Websites to research -
While Google won't tell you how long the traffic jam will hurt you, it will help predict in the future what traffic will be like. Use Google Maps to search for your area, then click on Traffic and see the live conditions. Unfortunately it looks like Google Maps isn't yet incorporating the holiday week traffic into its prediction engine; net Thursday and Friday look like a regular rush hour drive; whoops!
Traffic.com - plug in your start and destination and you will get a custom set of directions, including the "Fastest Now" and the "Direct Drive" which may include some traffic delays that they will spell out for you. You can also access their free mobile site; http://mobi.traffic.com from the road.
Mobile Phone Solutions - You don't need an iPhone to get a mobile phone solution that has traffic; you do need a more advanced phone though:
Telenav Navigator - available for many Black Berry units, and others, the inexpensive navigation service offers you live traffic updates, and will help re-route you. For $9.99 a month, this is inexpensive. You like it keep it, you don't, cancel. More at Telenav on supported devices
Verizon's VZ Navigator - offers traffic also, same $9.99 a month. At Verizon
iPhone Solutions - Navigation Apps
Navigon App for North America- for an extra $15 you can get live traffic added to the App. So, the App is $20 off, and the traffic is $10 off right now through 11/30, which will bring you under $100 for that iPhone App you've been wanting anyway..... Their traffic is based on the Inrix data feed.
AT&T Navigation App - is free but the monthly service costs $9.99 - it's a Telenav product.
iPhone Traffic Solutions
Inrix Traffic! - Offers a point of view of what's happening now and a glimpse into the future with a traffic prediction. - Free
Traffic.com - Offers a view into traffic, with some functionality coming over from their website. - Free
I happen to like Inrix's App better, but take them both; they're free and don't take up that much space
A-ha - An interesting look at the traffic interface - no maps, just shout outs about traffic issues in your area. Worth bringing, but offers a disadvantage if you are not totally familiar with the area as you may have trouble understanding where a traffic jam is just from the audible alert. - Free
INRIX and ALK Technologies, announced that INRIX will power real-time traffic data in ALK Technologies popular CoPilot® Live™ v8 GPS navigation app for Apple iPhone, Google Android and Windows phones in North America. CoPilot is one of the Top Grossing Apps at the iTunes App store in the US at the pretty amazing price of $35.
This release also represents a milestone in that it will be powered by the in application purchase ability - allowing you to buy the App, then add-on the traffic option from within the application itself. The price for traffic service is $19.99 a year at the Co-Pilot site, and I would imagine that would also apply for in-app purchases. That's pretty cheap for some best in class traffic coverage and capabilities.
More on the news release below after the jump.
More info at ALK - Co-Pilot and Inrix
Inrix Launches Traffic Application for Android - Crowd Sourced Traffic
Inrix has launched their Inrix Traffic application for the Android platform following their iPhone launch earlier this year. The application takes advantage of a massive amount of road coverage (160,000 miles covered), and gives you detailed information about the situation on roads around you via color coded maps that you can pan, and zoom on. The Red, Yellow, green designations on roads allows you to quickly see the congestion levels, while incident reports offer insight into some of the causes of the congestion. The Inrix App also forecasts traffic conditions up to an hour into the future so you can see what life might be like if you leave later.
The Inrix traffic application gets its data from a network of road sensors, and traffic probes like Taxi's, delivery trucks, long haul trucks, and other Inrix Traffic users, yes that's right; you and me. On the Terms and Conditions for my iPhone App, they confirm that the application collects anonymous data, and processes it for the traffic reporting and collection. It reads in part: "By using this App, you agree to Inrix's collection, processing, storage transfer and ...use of your non-personally identifiable information (anonymous) as part of Inrix's comprehensive traffic products."
So, join the crew, see what the traffic is like in your area, and help out the rest of us at the same time.
I have to admit that I am a bit o a traffic junkie and am looking forward to the day when I can press a button and have the roads clear ahead of me as I drive to work. That will probably never happen, but short of that, I would settle for being overly informed about the status of the traffic, including accurate predictions of my arrival time, smart alternate routes and automatic re-routes when issues arise.
As connected GPS unit become more mainstream and their connections are made through higher and higher speed technologies, the potential to incorporate traffic cameras, becomes a reality. I am talking about the sometimes streaming camera shots of the traffic on major routes, not the red light cameras that try to catch people as they blow through red lights. The bandwidth needed is real, but the interface issues are easy to overcome. Imagine seeing red on your traffic route, then tap the Cam icon, and a window pops up with either a static image or a streaming image to give you a very good idea of the issue.
Some concerns: Driving off the road or into the back of another car as you look at the streaming traffic, the cost of the service would go up as downloaded content amount goes up, thus driving up the cost of the service beyond what people are interested in paying for, and clunky, unreliable serving of the webcam feeds - they aren't currently known for highly reliable shots of the roadway (glare, rain, mis-directed cameras pointing at the side of a building, etc.)
Despite all of that, I like the potential, and would like to see what a major could do with the idea.
Nokia/Navteq traffic to use Nokia GPS Smartphones as Data Probes
Last week, Nokia/NAVTEQ took a big step forward on the development of their traffic network globally. The basis is the Traffic.com acquisition by NAVTEQ with road sensors, GPS probes and now the very broad network of the Nokia GPS enabled phones. Last week I joked along with Rich over at GPSTracklog.com on my Twitter feed that this move would expand coverage by dozens of miles in the US, but that if course is a little limited. We may have been a little harsh in that assessment. The reality is that this move should have been well anticipated, and should provide the framework for them to start amping up the coverage and feeds of both North America and Europe.
If the aggregation of the datafeeds and subsequent timely reporting out of that information is done well, you can't underplay the importance of adding millions of smart phones as anonymous GPS probes in the understanding of traffic situations and how you can make better decisions about your drive. They clearly have a scale here to make a difference. Should be interesting to see how this comes to life.
Also, NAVTEQ Traffic delivers a single source solution enabling drivers uninterrupted traffic information when crossing borders in 11 countries including Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland. NAVTEQ Traffic will also be available in Luxembourg and The Netherlands by the end of 2009. This will certainly help Garmin (NAVTEQ Customer) to combat TomTom (Owns TeleAtlas and utilizes in-house data collection of connected GPS) on the Euro turf, and is also an acknowledgement of the advanced need for traffic reporting on the Euro continent.
"Nokia continues to expand its community and delivers technologies that improve the lives of users," said Michael Halbherr, Director of Social Rental Services division at Nokia. "Part of our commitment is to ensure respect for the privacy of users, while offering the best offer traffic information so drivers have the latest information timely. "
Yesterday on the Google blog, it was announced that Google is indeed tracking and analyzing the traffic patterns and movement info of the Google maps users when they opt to show their location to Google, and expanding it nationally to US highways and arterial roads when data is available. By analyzing thousands or millions of phones with map and posted speed limit data, they should be able to start to assemble a traffic picture that starts to build accuracy when overlaid on top of a base set of data (to fill in the gaps).
"When you choose to enable Google Maps with My Location, your phone sends anonymous bits of data back to Google describing how fast you're moving. When we combine your speed with the speed of other phones on the road, across thousands of phones moving around a city at any given time, we can get a pretty good picture of live traffic conditions. We continuously combine this data and send it back to you for free in the Google Maps traffic layers."
The crowdsource sharing capability is available on the MyTouch 3G and the PalmPre; not the iPhone which doesn't support the crowdsource feature. See the Google Blog post for more information and a way that you can opt out if the whole idea of being anonymously tracked by google freaks you out too much.
Lexus and Toyota get OnStar Like Services - Future GPS Probes?
ATX will provide new Lexus and Toyota cars with OnStar like services in the coming year, with Navigation Enabled cars getting some extra navigation assistance via the agent and an online portal. What caught my interest, and one of our readers Jim is the potential for these cars to act as GPS probes. With Toyota bumping up against GM as the leader car maker, a new source of GPS probes will be entering the market with full force. The future starts to get a lot brighter for vast amounts of GPS probe data:
Road sensors cover main interstates but with gaps in service
Delivery trucks act as GPS probes for major metro areas, covering hundreds of thousands of miles
GPS and cellular equipped cars like those with the ATX service and OnStar add millions of GPS probes all over the US
Smart Phones running navigation programs push back traffic data while you use them - Inrix Traffic, and potentially the forthcoming TomTom iPhone App
Connected GPS units also offer more data, and are the main consumer outlet for traffic information to the consumer
Now one just has to crunch all of that information, overlay it and get it back out to consumers quickly before the data is stale. Not hard is it?
Inrix Traffic Scorecard: Congestion up; Economy and Construction Effects
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At the recent 
INRIX and ALK Technologies, announced that INRIX will power real-time traffic data in ALK Technologies popular CoPilot® Live™ v8 GPS navigation app for Apple iPhone, Google Android and Windows phones in North America. CoPilot is one of the 
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