STATE OF THE ART: TRACKING JAMS BEFORE THEY HAPPEN
Bill Gates was still in high school when he and Paul Allen started their first company, Traf-o-Data, based on the then-vanguard notion of using computers to collect and analyze traffic data. Traf-o-Data lapsed when its founders couldn’t find a buyer for it. But it planted a seed that sprouted five years ago, when Microsoft spun off its traffic technologies as an independent company, Inrix.
Tracking traffic used to depend on anecdotal nuggets such as accident and chopper reports. In the 1990s Washington and other states graduated to monitoring flow continuously with buried sensors. Fine, unless there are no sensors. And they only tell you how traffic is flowing now, not how it will in 15 minutes or an hour.
Inrix augments official sensor data with real-time GPS data from over a million mobile points: taxis, trucks, and delivery vans in 1,000 commercial fleets that contract with Inrix (and in return receive its information on traffic conditions). This, boasts CEO Bryan Mistele, lets Inrix monitor “not just the major freeways but arterials, side streets, and I-90 all the way across Snoqualmie Pass.” Its Smart Driver Network crunches this data with weather reports, school schedules, sports events, and even protest marches to delineate not only current but upcoming traffic conditions—a MapQuest that scopes out traffic as well as routes, and sees into the future.
So far Inrix has sold its tracking and forecasting services to businesses and agencies ranging from automakers (Ford and BMW) to state transportation departments—22 so far. Washington’s DOT isn’t among them: “We continue to have discussions,” says Mistele. Inrix recently launched a free iPhone app. The catch: Whenever you use Inrix Traffic!, it tracks your location and speed. You become another data point in the great traffic calculus.
Published: November 2009
One road-smart reader has already noted a glaring omission from our “smart biking” tips, especially from the gear list in Tip #2. It seemed so obvious we didn’t bother mentioning it. As Tom Vanderbilt notes in ‘Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do,’ it even makes actuarial sense to wear a helmet in a car (if you can stand the funny looks). But at least a motorists have airbag, seatbelt, and the car itself between their skulls and the pavement.
I love all the insider tips in this package, and thought the “Great Race” was especially enlightening. Being a bus commuter (and fair-weather bike commuter), I do have one pet peeve: If you go to a movie, coffeehouse, grocery store or concert, you would not even consider cutting in line in front of those patrons who were there first. So why is it that bus riders seem to think it’s perfectly fine to reach the bus stop right as the bus is pulling up and jump on right in front of those who have been waiting for 15 or 20 minutes? It’s too bad there’s not a “take a number” system that rewards those who have been waiting in the cold.
Mary makes a valid point. I’d like to ride the bus rather than use my car but I can’t stand the waiting, especially if it’s cold or raining. If I knew someone would wait for me with a cup of hot coco in the bus, perhaps the waiting wouldn’t be so bad.
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Lilia Gephardt | VPS hosting UK