Real-time traffic–accurate, up-to-the-minute information about how fast traffic is moving–is here. It’s seen and heard in cars, on radio, on your personal computer and in your mobile phone.
You can get some of it for free, or you can pay $49,470 for it.
For that 50 grand, you’ll get a 2005 Acura RL sedan, the first car that offers real-time traffic reports from a dashboard screen. Traffic information is beamed through the car’s XM Satellite Radio.
Those who can afford the RL can get free real-time traffic reports from Web sites before they head out to drive. Or, for about $10 a month, they can subscribe to a satellite radio service.
“We’re right before the point of growth really with real-time traffic,” said David Schrier, an analyst with ABI Research in New York.
Navteq, a Chicago company, is a leading digital mapmaker that decided to help push real-time traffic forward.
“But there’s a wide range of both formats and quality,” said John MacLeod, Navteq’s executive vice president of global marketing and strategy.
Others gather traffic information, so Navteq decided it needed to come up with a standardized data stream.
It now sells its information to both satellite radio systems–XM and Sirius–which sell it to automakers that ultimately sell it to customers.
The result, said MacLeod is a significant step up in how people are using their in-car navigation systems.
“When you’re driving in your own town, you tend to not use it. You pretty much know your route,” he said. “Now, all of a sudden, it brings in dynamic content. You want to see what’s happening with traffic.”
Schrier sees in-car use of real-time traffic reports growing to 2 million vehicles in North America by 2010.
