Traffic Intelligence will be selling the real-time and historical traffic data to: Government, Mobile Telecoms, Automotive, Logistics and Media users. Each of these users require traffic data for different purposes, therefore market specific applications are required.

European Government application - CFVD™ Real-time Data

This service provides a comprehensive image of traffic conditions for a given region on a map and on schematic road ‘strip-maps’. The Government is keen to use CFVD™ traffic data to supplement the limited network of speed sensors in the area – particularly for travel time information through an extensive period of road works on the main ring road around the city. Over 1,025 centreline miles of roadway are covered in this project, across a broad spread of classes - 115 miles of Highways, 160 miles of Major roads, 240 miles of main roads, and 510 miles of other roads.

The traffic information is gathered by ITIS’s CFVD™ system that anonymously samples the position of cellular handsets in the area. Using sophisticated filtering and algorithms the CFVD™ application automatically identifies incidents, delays and clearances and displays these on the website.

The primary user interface is a website that provides Map views of the area that show roads in different colours to indicate congestion, and strip maps for the key roads that show the current vehicle speed over the road section between junctions and the delay compared to normal journey time over that road section. The threshold for congestion on a highway is higher than on the other monitored roads so the colour indicators on the map image are different across these different road classes.

Website screenshot showing CFVD deployment

In the above figure, the Webcam images from the Government website are inset over the ITIS web screen to illustrate how the actual situation on the road as shown in the cameras is supported by the condition reported by the ITIS technology – one lane congested and the opposite carriageway free-flow.

ITIS sample strip map showing delays

It is also possible to generate historic information on road traffic congestion which has many applications for network planning and performance measurement as well as potential applications for consumer products. The figure below shows the journey time on a particular stretch of road.

Example of historical data analysis of travel times used for road planning

Consumer Service – UK Commercial Telephone traffic services

These services are provided for multiple commercial clients on dedicated short-dial numbers. ITIS offer telephone traffic services on a commercial basis as a white-label product for a number of companies including AA RoadWatch and T-mobile Traffic and Travel Line, which account for over 10 million calls per year on short-dial premium rate services (rates~ 60ppm). In many cases these services are run entirely by ITIS, but data feeds to other services are also operated.

In most cases, the location of calls from users calling from their cellular handset is automatically identified by the service. In this way they are offered traffic information specific to their location – or they can use a menu structure to request information on specific highways etc anywhere in the country.

The short-dial services referred to above are only applicable to UK cellular handset subscribers (64644), but the UK AA RoadWatch service can be accessed from any phone internationally by dialling: +44 161 209 8000.

In the UK, the application invites the user to:

• For information of delays and incidents affecting the Motorways - Press ‘1’
• For information of delays and incidents affecting the A roads – Press ‘2’
• For Regional traffic information – Press ‘3’
• For Regional weather information – Press ‘4’
• For information about the London Underground – Press ‘5’

Concatenated speech messages then offer messages relative to the user – with an option to change the carriageway, rewind etc. Major incidents have the option for the user to listen to a dedicated recorded message with more information.

ITIS also operate a WAP data traffic information service that customers can access from their cellular handset (operated by ITIS for Vodafone Live and Orange).

Consumer Services – UK Commercial SMS

Mobile handsets with Short Message Service (SMS) capability can also receive messages about traffic information on specific regular journeys or one-off journeys by pre-programming on a user friendly internet page. Reversible bill SMS is used for content payment (rates ~50p per transaction).