Show Me the Traffic Cam (and Turn on the Radio)

Everybody complains about traffic, but nobody does anything about it.

Having ventured out of my home office in recent weeks and run smack into local neighborhood gridlock, traffic is suddenly top of my mind. It is also top of my mind because it is the single most important telematics application. If you don't have accurate traffic information, you won't know when or whether you will arrive at your destination - this is an especially acute problem for electric vehicles.

The two greatest challenges for interpreting traffic conditions are getting an accurate measure of real-time conditions and predicting what conditions will be along the route. There are two key points of accurate real-time measurement - traffic flow (speed) and journalistic data (incidents).

To vastly simplify this discussion it is worth noting that BMW, almost alone in the auto industry, applies the QKZ method of measuring traffic information accuracy (Analysis and explanation care of TomTom: https://tinyurl.com/krqw3y5). But leadership in accuracy and quality is often changing and can vary with one supplier having the most accurate real-time traffic information and another having better predictive models.

For consumers of traffic information it boils down to a confusing mess which manifests as regional preferences for Google's traffic feed or Waze or HERE or INRIX or TomTom or Sirius XM or any of a range of navigation app providers: Scout, NavnGo, MotionX, Navmii, etc. In fact, it is the strength of these personal preferences that has preserved a diverse navigation supplier community in spite of navigation being offered free by multiple players.

When in doubt, drivers turn to the most reliable source of local traffic information, the local broadcast radio stations. The best suppliers of local traffic information employ their own traffic spotters and encourage listeners to report incidents. It's an old school way of doing things, but it still works and contributes to the enduring strength of broadcast radio as a drive-time advertising medium.

But, in the end, with all the confusion, sometimes you just want to see for yourself. For those traffic information consumers for whom seeing is believing there is no substitute for traffic cameras. And, not surprisingly, traffic camera feeds are available for most traffic trouble spots. (Which is why even the radio station traffic announcers are glued to the traffic cam feeds.)

While the traffic industry continues to work to refine its modeling and flow and incident data acquisition and interpretation, it's nice to know that there are companies working to bring live traffic camera images to cars. Most prominent among these suppliers is TrafficLand, based close to my home in Northern Virginia. No doubt their traffic camera images will be coming to your car soon - if you live in the U.S. - even if only via smartphone app.

Another leader in the traffic information space is local Washington, DC radio broadcaster WTOP. WTOP is a rare breed in that the station sells its traffic advertising inventory directly rather than through a partnership with a third party - and the company maintains a team of traffic spotters. It's an old school approach, but WTOP clearly shares the philosophy that seeing is believing. (It also helps that the radio traffic reports are normally delivered by a commentator with a savvy knowledge of local traffic patterns.)

I will be doing a drive around DC later today with WTOP's head of traffic, Jim Battagliese, to see what we can learn about traffic ground truth. Watch this space for my report - and wherever you are in the world, find your local source of traffic camera feeds because seeing IS believing. You just might save yourself some time.

But if you don't have access to camera feeds in your market - then the radio will help you get where you're going.