I’m interested in traffic. It is a great mystery to me. The description of current road conditions and– more importantly– how those conditions affect those who wish to travel at any given time– is a profoundly inexact science that seems to be way behind the curve when it comes to using available technology & techniques. I’m thinking of two things:
Proprietary Central Collection System
Traffic, more than
most daily phenomena, is based on widely disbursed data. But the main
providers of traffic info seem to be only interested in what they can
collect and observe about the traffic. Sure, they have their Jam Cams and helicopters and road sensors, but in the end, they are just one organization full of a finite set of humans and equipment.
Some radio stations seem to be interested in hearing from people on
the roads– people experiencing traffic, but I don’t know why traffic
information providers aren’t interested in hearing from the widest
possible audience.
Faulty Description Techniques
The second thing is the way the traffic is reported. Most often it is described in numbers relating to specific geographic points (“25 minutes from the Post Office to 294”).
This is effective because it uses shorthand that is special to the audience (only the people who travel a certain route know what “the Post Office” means).
But it is ineffective in that it requires most users (those who aren’t starting exactly at the Post Office and ending exactly at 294) to take the extra mental step of adding or decrementing time based on the actual distance and route that they are taking.
Idea: Relative, Decision-Making Traffic Reports
Start with the idea that most people interested in traffic are daily, veteran drivers. They understand that there is a minimum, best-case-scenario time in which they’ll be home and a worst case sceanrio time.
Generally, these “super consumers” of traffic reports are interested in two things: where this particular trip fits in the time continuum and whether they should take an alternate route to reduce the time it takes to get there.
So to be effective, traffic reports should speak about deviation from the baseline (“the Eisenhower is plus 10 minutes, but North Avenue is minus 5”). This caters to the largest possible audiences (daily drivers) in ways that are most useful to them (relative trip time and route decision making).
What do you think? How do you consume traffic reports? Which media outlet does them best?