Tuesday, January 26. 2010

Podcast: Is the 511 National Traffic Phone Number Worth $1.2B?

A Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) ruling expected in February will force states to implement a “511″ traffic information hotline. The cost? Some $1.2 billion - and states are not pleased. Those in balmy areas wonder why they need detailed weather information; those with rarely used rural roads are equally frustrated. Do we, in 2010, need a "dial in" traffic number?

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Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Google, Yahoo, LBS, Traffic, Directions on the News Podcast, Infrastructure, Data at 01:00 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Monday, January 25. 2010

Waze Partners in Latin America

Waze has entered its first partnership in a series of international partnerships with Location World, an LBS company in Latin America, which will introduce crowdsourced maps to that geography.

In the partnership, waze will use location world's maps and in return waze will provide location world with real-time crowdsourced map updates and real-time traffic information.

- press release

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Traffic at 07:19 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Wednesday, December 2. 2009

Another Field Losing Practioners: Eyes in the Sky

It turns out many radio stations are grounding their helicopter traffic reporters. Now many report from in front of multiple monitors tracking feeds and video cameras. Some do reports for multiple stations under multiple names, often for far less pay than when they were in the air.

Traffic information (if not the causes of backups) provided on GPS or phone-based apps are part of the reason traffic is less of importance. Another reason: music stations find they do better (that is have more listeners) when the don't interrupt with traffic reports.

- AP

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Traffic at 06:00 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Wednesday, November 25. 2009

My Black Friday Shopping Map

Yesterday, I took a look at the Walmart maps being offered to shoppers for Black Friday by the Massachusetts store cited in our APB post today. Looking like every other Walmart floor plan that the retailer stamps into the landscape around the country, I got to thinking about how I'd want my "shopping map" to look like. If I were to be lured to the 4:00 a.m. low, low prices, obsequious to the will of the mega-retailers on that fateful day after Thanksgiving, this is how I would want to start my hunt for the ultimate door-busting bargains.

First, I'd want my car navigation system (let's go with a Garmin...I'm partial to their PNDs) equipped with the locations of every retailer and their hours of operation on BF (yes, Black Friday).

Next, I'd map out the route to each store allowing just enough time to scarf-up the best sale items at each.

However, this is predicated by having a map of each floor plan for each retailer loaded onto my Blackberry (sorry, I'm a business guy...don't do iPhone schtick). Perhaps we could get the good folks at uLocate to work on this for the Where application.

Next, the retailers would have to allow the floor plans to be tagged with the location of the best sale items. This might be similar to what the rather crude Walmart map provides, but please, we are a bit more sophisticated in our geospatial awareness these days, so let's have better precision, right? I'm thinking that there should be some RFID device for each item and a shopping cart that synch's via Bluetooth to my Blackberry to navigate around the store. Whenever the cart passes along the isle with the most sought-after gadgets, my Blackberry provides the alert and I'm directed appropriately.

Having snagged the item from the shelf, I'm then provided with a traffic map of the store floor, whisking my buggy to route around the bulging crowds to the nearest cash register with the fewest in line. This is micro-geography at its finest.

My items are scanned as I zoom past the counter, swipe my credit card, and I'm out the door...on to the next BF adventure.

I'm headed to the parking lot where I'm met with a swarm of hungry, sleep-deprived shoppers, goodness knows where I parked my car. But in the perfect geospatial world, I am directly by voice commands by my PND to the location of my space and my car is automatically unlocked as I approach with a cart-load of gifts, recognizing of course that my bio sensor-equipped vehicle knows my proximal location.

Safely inside, I rev the engine and I'm off to the next store, real-time traffic and weather guiding my every move. And because I've integrated my PND with geo-located Twitter feeds, I'm getting updates on new bargains in the vicinity. I'm re-routed as necessary...my Christmas shopping list consulted and advised.

In a perfect world...Have a great Thanksgiving.

Posted by Joe Francica in RFID, Tracking, LBS, Sensors, Real-Time/Dynamic Data, Traffic, Satellite Navigation, Routing, Tracking, Logistics at 09:03 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0) |

Tuesday, October 13. 2009

Podcast: Google Maps Changes US Base Data, Adds Parcels and Crowdsourcing

This past week Google prompted a flurry of discussion by announcing some changes to its data and functionality in Google Maps. There’s new data and new feedback tools and some anxiety in the geospatial world. Our editors separate fact from fiction and offer our take on the implications of these changes.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Google, Open Source, Databases, Traffic, Directions on the News Podcast, Geospatial Business, Tele Atlas, NAVTEQ at 01:00 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Tuesday, September 15. 2009

How few cell phones are needed to track traffic?

"Results suggest that a 2-3% penetration of cell phones in the driver population is enough to provide accurate measurements of
the velocity of the traffic flow."

That's just one conclusion of a study titled Evaluation of Traffic Data Obtained via GPS-enabled Mobile Phones: the Mobile Century field experiment (pdf) from UC Berkeley's Institute for Transportation Studies.

- via Docuticker

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Traffic at 06:16 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0) |