[aprssig] Traffic Objects (new subject)

[Chris Kantarjiev]

> publicly-available traffic info ... is basically useless ...
> In my experience, ...  the time delays in collecting the
> traffic data .. and distributing it ... renders it stale 

Speaking as a (former, thank goodness) traffic data professional :-)
I agree. One of the most difficult things to get across to potential
customers was just this fact. There are efforts in the market
to improve this lag (DASH is a promising concept, though I'm
not sure they'll pull it off), but it's incredibly hard.

(We - LandSonar - were trying to build predicitive models of
traffic data that could be used for planning purposes. We had
some success, but explaining it, selling it and integrating it
were harder than we expected. I'm glad to be out of that market.)

"Real-time" traffic speed data is, largely, entertainment at this
point.  In my commute, I find the traffic data on Google Maps to
be interesting in that I can tell where bad congestion due to a
*long-lived* incident is likely to end, and if it's worth trying to
get off the freeway and route around it.

(BTW, I'm not moving forward with the traffic-to-ARPS project on
my own because I'm convinced that the non-compete I signed
covers it. If someone wants to try to build such a system, I'll
be happy to give you some ideas about gathering the data.)

73 de chris K6DBG