Re: [backstage] Traffic Info
Jason Cartwright wrote: For instance, both those sites tell me that there is an incident up the road on the A40, and they do that with a load of ambiguous (borderline meaningless) gumpf like a Might End time and Severity plus a swath of text to read. I'm not really interested, and whilst I appreciate the technical-aspects of the mashups, its all a bit rubbish. Hmm, I might not agree with the fact that it doesn't tell you anything but I do think that there is room for some better visualisations of the data other than points on a map which is old hat now. For instance, on www.gtraffic.info, you can tell at a glance what is going on in a region by clicking on the timeline tab when you drill down into a region. It is limited to about 40 events as the timeline area can't scroll the info bubble up and down. The blue line represent 'now'. I just want to know the effect its going to have on my journey time. Google's does this with a ridiciously-easy-to-visually-parse colour coding of the traffic speed. This boils down all the one lane closed due to barrier repairs crap into something far more usable. The UK has had this for ages at: www.realtime-traffic.info (not occasionally isn't working) Not suggesting that Google are copying the HA or anything. I had a look at the Google effort and I do think there speed coding of the road is well done but what they lack is the (borderline meaningless) gumf like _details_. Having said that, you could be right about boiling the information down to whether you're going to get stuck in a traffic jam or not. It's only saddos like me that are interested in 'underground works' and 'temporary traffic lights' ;) I have created a GWT wrapper for JSViz at: http://code.google.com/p/gwt-jsviz/ I was toying with the idea of creating a net which represented the traffic incidents. I haven't got this worked out quite how but it was something along the lines of a sequence of 'rings'. - the central rings represents incidents closest to now - connected to each node in 'now' is any incidents on the same road which are older moving back in time. You would get a kind of octopus looking thing. I dunno you get the idea. How about a visualisation competition backstage? Must be based on the backstage API feeds obviously. Al. ___ Yahoo! Messenger - with free PC-PC calling and photo sharing. http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Traffic Info
On 01/03/07, Jason Cartwright [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://www.vecosys.com/2007/03/01/google-adds-traffic-flow-reports-but-there-is-a-better-way/ Google Maps adds a traffic info layer. Looks rather good, but it's US only at the moment. Example: http://maps.google.com/maps?layer=tz=10ll=41.883876,-87.632446 J Here's an unofficial UK version: http://www.gtraffic.info/ that does something similar Vijay
RE: [backstage] Traffic Info
Also the vecosys post also refers to this UK start up that is using UK traffic data and Microsoft's Virtual Earth. http://www.dotnetsolutions.ltd.uk/evidence/web20/trafficeye/ A Microsoft Live! Local Web 2.0 Mash-up that combines real time traffic information with a rich, interactive map allowing a helicopter view of all serious traffic incidents in the UK. Jem From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of vijay chopra Sent: 01 March 2007 11:39 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] Traffic Info On 01/03/07, Jason Cartwright [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://www.vecosys.com/2007/03/01/google-adds-traffic-flow-reports-but-t here-is-a-better-way/ Google Maps adds a traffic info layer. Looks rather good, but it's US only at the moment. Example: http://maps.google.com/maps?layer=tz=10ll=41.883876,-87.632446 J Here's an unofficial UK version: http://www.gtraffic.info/ that does something similar Vijay
RE: [backstage] Traffic Info
It's certainly interesting as a concept, although I'm cautious on the fact that it doesn't really take into account the speed limits on different roads. Although I've actually no idea how you could take that into account! From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jason Cartwright Sent: 01 March 2007 11:14 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: [backstage] Traffic Info http://www.vecosys.com/2007/03/01/google-adds-traffic-flow-reports-but-t here-is-a-better-way/ Google Maps adds a traffic info layer. Looks rather good, but it's US only at the moment. Example: http://maps.google.com/maps?layer=tz=10ll=41.883876,-87.632446 J Jason Cartwright Client Side Developer - CBBC Interactive [EMAIL PROTECTED] blocked::mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Desk: (0208 22) 59487 Mobile: 07976500729 I hate people with quotes in their email signatures - DH
Re: [backstage] Traffic Info
Jason Cartwright wrote: I just want to know the effect its going to have on my journey time. Google's does this with a ridiciously-easy-to-visually-parse colour coding of the traffic speed. This boils down all the one lane closed due to barrier repairs crap into something far more usable. This is, of course, what TrafficMaster have done for years. Someone should surely be able to do the same?! -- Kirk - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
RE: [backstage] Traffic Info
That however was my problem with it - the colour coding is easy but simplistic. A motorway going at 30 mph for me, says bad and wrong, but under Google's colour coding, that's a yellow. Meanwhile, (say) an road A-road [1] in a suburban area with a 30mph would be classed as yellow even though it's running normally. Like you, I don't have a car. Which is why my favourite traffic disruption map is this one :) http://journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk/im/RD-T.html [1] if this was in the UK of course From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jason Cartwright Sent: 01 March 2007 12:40 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: RE: [backstage] Traffic Info Warning: contain no talk of DRM, licence fees, or copyright. All the other links are good, but Google appear to have the visualisation down to a fine art. For instance, both those sites tell me that there is an incident up the road on the A40, and they do that with a load of ambiguous (borderline meaningless) gumpf like a Might End time and Severity plus a swath of text to read. I'm not really interested, and whilst I appreciate the technical-aspects of the mashups, its all a bit rubbish. I just want to know the effect its going to have on my journey time. Google's does this with a ridiciously-easy-to-visually-parse colour coding of the traffic speed. This boils down all the one lane closed due to barrier repairs crap into something far more usable. Of course, all this is just my opinion... and I don't even drive :-) J From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jeremy Stone Sent: 01 March 2007 11:47 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: RE: [backstage] Traffic Info Also the vecosys post also refers to this UK start up that is using UK traffic data and Microsoft's Virtual Earth. http://www.dotnetsolutions.ltd.uk/evidence/web20/trafficeye/ A Microsoft Live! Local Web 2.0 Mash-up that combines real time traffic information with a rich, interactive map allowing a helicopter view of all serious traffic incidents in the UK. Jem From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of vijay chopra Sent: 01 March 2007 11:39 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] Traffic Info On 01/03/07, Jason Cartwright [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://www.vecosys.com/2007/03/01/google-adds-traffic-flow-reports-but-t here-is-a-better-way/ Google Maps adds a traffic info layer. Looks rather good, but it's US only at the moment. Example: http://maps.google.com/maps?layer=tz=10ll=41.883876,-87.632446 J Here's an unofficial UK version: http://www.gtraffic.info/ that does something similar Vijay
Re: [backstage] Traffic Info
Andrew Bowden wrote: It's certainly interesting as a concept, although I'm cautious on the fact that it doesn't really take into account the speed limits on different roads. Although I've actually no idea how you could take that into account! ** Perhaps a GIS, with a database of what road sections have what speeds, and then you match current road speed against what the GIS says the road speed should be. Easy ;-) Scot
RE: [backstage] Traffic Info
I'd do that kind of thing around Birmingham if my GPS receiver worked amongst all those multi-storey buildings - I've tried before, dismal failure. That said, my phone (Hermes) apparently has a dormant, disconnected GPS chip in which can be activated with a firmware flash, so that's something to try... -Original Message- From: Kirk Northrop [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 01 March 2007 14:00 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] Traffic Info Barry Hunter wrote: ... in fact it's something hope is been recorded over at openstreetmap.org... This is really interesting! I wanted to go out and walk more, but didn't really have a reason to do so. Now I do! Expect South Manchester to become nicely tracked soon... -- Kirk - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Traffic Info
Hi, I've still yet to do anything towards this, but you might find http://upcoming.org/event/153405/ The State of the Map ( Open Source Streetmap Conference) and http://upcoming.org/event/155807/ (Sheffield Mapping Party) of interest. Cheers Ian I'll create the database, if you drive every road to record the speed limit ;-) ... in fact it's something hope is been recorded over at openstreetmap.org http://openstreetmap.org ... What a cool site. Looking at http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Map_Features it's certainly possible to tag segments with a maxspeed value, so I hope people are doing it. I think I'll sign up - I might actually get some use out of my handheld GPS. Thinking about it, it should be a fairly straight forward process finding road speeds in the UK, with most roads either being 30, 60 or 70 - it's just finding exceptions to the general rule thats the problem. Scot - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/