Traffic Reporting - Monitoring Methods

Monitoring Methods

At radio stations where news radio programming is the primary content, roadway conditions are tracked by monitoring police radio frequencies. Some radio stations also have agreements with states' highway patrol that permit a direct connection with a law enforcement computer. This enables real-time information gathering of the latest accident reports to states' highway patrol divisions. However, more and more, state departments of transportation have agreements with various technology providers to deliver automated traffic tracking data which is resold and redistributed.

For mobile and automotive applications, the use of anonymous GPS datapoints are used to create the realtime traffic reports.

Many medium and large metropolitan areas have helicopters to overfly accident scenes and other areas of high traffic volume. This data collect method helps each radio or TV station to provide up-to-the-minute, live reports or traffic conditions. Stations in larger markets may have their own helicopter, or share resources with a local television station to help spread the costs. In many markets, a local or regional traffic reporting service may have contracts with several radio and television stations. This helps stations avoid the expense of purchasing or leasing their own helicopter, hiring a pilot, and setting a maintenance schedule.

In many large cities, state transportation departments and other agencies have installed series of traffic cameras along the Interstate highway system and other roads to monitor traffic conditions. Systems of this type can be easily seen along the I-95 corridor in the eastern section of the United States.