A television station in Sacramento is going to begin broadcasting five-day TRAFFIC forecasts today, according to this story on NewScientist.com.
Here's a snippet:
A traffic forecasting system capable of predicting traffic conditions seven days in advance will go live to the public in California on Wednesday.
Alongside the weather forecast, viewers of KXTV News 10 in Sacramento can now get 3D animations of their local road network, showing not only where the gridlock is but also where it is likely to be.
The system, called Beat-the-Traffic, is the first public traffic forecasting system that combines real-time traffic density and speed with historical trends on major routes.
It looks as though the system is from a company called BeatTheTraffic.com, who combines traffic sensor data (from the DOT) with their own predictive systems, based on season, previous traffic issues, sports events, etc.
This is totally cool. What I am waiting for is the convergence of this info on in-car screens. With so many cars now having GPS screens (as well as DVD monitors), how hard is it to display traffic info? I know the Acura RL has a traffic system on-screen in it's new car, can we expect to see this provided by others?
-aB
2 comments:
Hi Adam, was doing research on Beatthetraffic and came across your blog. Have you tried the system yet? I'm using it in L.A. right now, and the hardest thing is to remember to check the traffic on the site because I tend to be always running late. But it's pretty good otherwise.
Emmanuelle,
Thanks for the comment.
I haven't tried the system yet. I recently moved from Atlanta to Pittsburgh. Atlanta has the BeattheTraffic.com system in place, but Pittsburgh doesn't.
I did notice on an Acura RL ad I saw a few days ago that their on-dash traffic system is available here in Pittsburgh, so they must be getting their data from another company.
Really interesting stuff. My guess is that it's 3-4 years away from being standard in most mid to premium priced cars. Kinda like Sirius or XM satellite radio (or DVD players) are now.
-aB
Post a Comment