The Highways Agency is working with Google to make traffic data
available for use within the Google Maps traffic feature.
The traffic feature creates a colour-coded layer of the average
speeds on England's motorways and major A road network onto the
existing Google Map facility with different colours indicating the
current speed of traffic.
The Highways Agency provides its traffic information to Google
in a Datex II format, which is
a European standard developed specifically for road data
information exchange. The Datex organisation provides tools to
convert the data model into an XML schema.
The system provides real-time traffic information and
predictions based on past conditions, helping motorists to plan
their journeys ahead to avoid congestion.
Denise Plumpton, director of information at the Highways Agency,
says providing the data for the mash-up is a key part of the
agency's information strategy designed to get traffic information
out to motorists where and when they need it.
"We work regularly with third-party organisations to get our
information to as wide an audience as possible," she says.
By publishing data to a wide audience, in a format in which they
can use it, the Highways Agency is fulfilling its remit to help
people avoid hold-ups, which in turn helps reduce congestion.
As well as reaching the Google mapping service, traffic data,
provided by the agency's National Traffic Control Centre in
Birmingham, is used to populate the
Agency's own Traffic
England website.
Highways Agency spokesman Anthony Aston says the agency would
provide the same raw data to businesses wishing to integrate it
with their applications as is available to Google, subject to
discussion.
However, large businesses requiring detailed traffic data to
integrate with internal applications can use the text-based Atlas
Professional system direct from the agency.
Atlas Professional allows businesses to view only data from the
areas which concerns them. This feature also enables you to create
a customised RSS traffic information feed, thus providing headlines
alerts for specific roads defined in "My Areas".
Meanwhile, City Timegrid is a high-level overview of the current
state of the road network shown as current travel times between
major destinations. In the coming months, new destinations will be
added to the 14 existing choices in the City Timegrid.
The agency is gathering feedback from users before deciding
which cities, event venues or transport interchanges will be
included on this feature of Atlas Pro.
The agency is considering a number of future projects to build
application from a variety of sources of traffic data, Aston says.
There is the potential to bring in traffic data from organisation
who run large fleets of vehicles, such as National Express.
Satellite navigation systems could also provide a rich source of
data.
"Obviously if TomTom has got 500 sat-navs on a section of the
M1, there is a lot of useful information on traffic flow there,"
says Aston.
Data could be combined with the Highways Agency's own and
republished for the benefit of businesses and all road users, Aston
says.