INTERNATIONAL VIEW Traveller information A moving story
Despite sensors in roads and vehicles improving the traffic monitoring capabilities of agencies and traffic providers around the world, motorists themselves still want an ability to see what’s ahead of them. Yet with jpegs only telling half the story and streaming difficult, clunky and expensive, is there a way of satisfying that demand? Paul Hutton thinks a couple from Southern California may well have found the answer
I
t wasn’t so long ago that the most popular way people got their travel information was from the radio.
Frequent reports would focus on the main roads, but not necessarily the road you were on, and so avoiding the jams could be a bit of a lottery. Also, radio traffic bulletins did leave
a lot to be desired, largely because the source information was limited. Radio has improved as the data that underpins it has improved too, and that data has itself fuelled much better information
to travellers directly, through websites, smart phone apps and direct to in-vehi- cle sat nav units. But there’s a snag; drivers themselves
still trust their own judgement as much as the information they’re receiving. Green, yellow and red lines on maps are all very well, but give nothing more than a vague overview, and have you ever seen a strange route be suggested on your connected sat nav unit to only choose to ignore it because you know a “better way”?
Then there’s the common complaint
that VMS warnings on motorways of “queue ahead” don’t tell the full story.
SEE FOR YOURSELF In truth, drivers like to see for them- selves what the problem is. When it comes to traffic information (to steal a phrase from elsewhere in this maga- zine), “seeing is believing”. But seeing is also difficult. Most traffic control centres monitor traffic through CCTV cameras. Most
The Tijuana - San Diego border is the world’s busiest land crossing
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Vol 2 No 1 smartHIGHWAYS
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