INRIX Pioneers Another Traffic Industry First - Launching Real-Time Traffic Alerts...

INRIX Pioneers Another Traffic Industry First - Launching Real-Time Traffic
Alerts Across the Entire U.S. Interstate Highway System
MapQuest and other customers plan to alert commuters and truckers of unusual
traffic congestion on more than 100,000 miles of freeway

KIRKLAND, Wash., April 10 /PRNewswire/ -- INRIX(R) today introduced
Nationwide Traffic Alerts on more than 100,000 miles of major arterials,
freeways and highways, including the entire U.S. Interstate Highway System,
with never-before availability of real-time traffic alerts highlighting
abnormal traffic congestion across the nation. MapQuest and other INRIX
customers intend to deliver INRIX Nationwide Traffic Alerts for major urban,
interurban and rural roadways, highlighting unusual congestion wherever it may
occur across the country from a myriad of sources.
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INRIX uniquely can provide this traffic information, based upon its
sophisticated data fusion of real-time speed data from its exclusive Smart
Dust Network of over 800,000 GPS-enabled vehicles, data collected anonymously
from mobile phone devices, and traditional road sensors covering more than
9,000 miles of road. INRIX's technology platform processes billions of data
points per month and uses intelligent analytics to identify patterns of
movement that help detect traffic abnormalities on roads where coverage was
either limited or simply didn't exist before.
Unlike areas with fairly comprehensive road-sensor networks such as the
I-10 freeway in Los Angeles or the I-5 corridor in Seattle where traffic
information is readily available, INRIX Nationwide Traffic Alerts allows the
long-haul truck driver traveling on I-26 in South Carolina to receive alerts
of traffic delays caused by extreme weather at the I-95 junction and choose an
alternate route to avoid the congestion, greatly improving the chances of
making his delivery to Columbia on time. Similarly, the leisure traveler
heading to Lake Tahoe from San Francisco for Spring break can now be alerted
ahead of time when a jack-knifed 18-wheeler brings traffic to a 3-hour
standstill along Highway 50.
INRIX Nationwide Traffic Alerts represents a radical improvement in
traffic information available to the two hundred million drivers in the U.S.
Websites, government agencies, automobile manufacturers, fleet management
service providers, and portable navigation device makers are among the many
who can benefit from INRIX's powerful new tool.
"More and more MapQuest users are planning trips online and Nationwide
Traffic Alerts will make destination planning even more convenient. MapQuest
users will be able to get information about unusual traffic congestion as it
happens, as well as highway construction and planned traffic impeding events
while online or have alerts sent directly to their mobile devices," said
Christian Dwyer, Senior Vice President and General Manager of MapQuest.
"INRIX continues to innovate and is committed to providing the most
comprehensive set of traffic data in the U.S."
INRIX's Nationwide Traffic Alerts is different than anything else on the
market today. Traffic data is generated by INRIX's award-winning Smart Dust
Network, which fuses together the most comprehensive amount of traffic
information available anywhere -- collecting data anonymously every minute or
two from vehicles across the country which automatically send their position
and speed back to the INRIX Operations Center. The INRIX Fusion Engine then
blends this information together with real-time data from dozens of other
sources such as real-time incident data, construction data and events and then
delivers real-time information regarding current road speeds to INRIX
customers. That way, INRIX customers always have the best, most up-to-date
traffic available. The result is real-time traffic speed and flow information
on more than 55,000 miles in 106 metropolitan areas today, plus more than 2500
alerts per day on the additional 45,000 roadway miles in urban and interurban
areas which have limited or non-existent traditional road sensors. Alerts are
automatically created as individual incident messages alerting drivers to
roads that are experiencing abnormal traffic congestion at that time of day.
"The majority of traffic information available today is only for a limited
set of roads in major urban areas," said Bryan Mistele, president and CEO of
INRIX. "This is the first time that consumers and businesses have access to
traffic congestion data across our country's interstates. INRIX uniquely is
able to deliver this solution by leveraging our exclusive strategic
relationships with national and regional fleets, relationships that provide us
mobile-phone based data, and smartly applying our technology to solve complex
problems."
About INRIX
INRIX(R) is the leading provider of accurate real time, historical and
predictive traffic information nationwide, providing over 50 industry partners
and customers including Clear Channel Radio's Total Traffic Network, TomTom,
deCarta, I-95 Corridor Coalition, MapQuest, Microsoft, Mio, TCS, Tele Atlas,
TeleNav, Telmap and others with the highest quality data and broadest coverage
available for personal navigation, mapping, and other location-based service
applications in the car, online and on mobile devices.
INRIX Traffic Services leverage sophisticated statistical analysis
techniques, originally developed by Microsoft Research, to aggregate and
enhance traffic-related information from hundreds of public and private
sources, going well beyond the limitations of static road sensor networks,
historical-based models and cellular data aggregators, to offer customers the
most sophisticated understanding of the unique system-wide traffic patterns in
each metropolitan area. Additionally, INRIX offers real-time flow data for 117
markets in the U.S. and the U.K. and incident data for 114 markets across the
country through its partnership with Clear Channel Radio's Total Traffic
Network. To experience the traffic technology revolution behind the next
generation of navigation and location-based service applications, visit
http://www.inrix.com.
INRIX is a registered trademark of INRIX, Inc. in the United States and/or
other countries.
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the
trademarks of their respective owners.
SOURCE INRIX

K. Michele Large of INRIX, +1-425-284-3854, Michele@inrix.com