Inaccurate traffic reports

Kashkai

Am I the only one fed up with the stupid inane "AA Roadwatch" traffic reports that are repeated ad nauseum by all the Dublin Radio Stations and that bear little or no resemblance to actual traffic conditions?

These stupid wastes of airtime are usually so out of date that the "fifty car pile up on the M50" will still be reported on when the wrecks have been removed, the victims sent off to hospital, recouperated, and have settled their 5 year long legal cases in the High Court.:rolleyes:

I started to listen to DCAL as they broadcast from the Dublin City Council traffic control centre where they have real time access to the traffic cameras around the city. However, yesterday, while coming in to work on the M4 I heard them report that the Lucan road was backed up from the M50 to the Spa Hotel. However, when I got to the Spa, the road was empty so I continued in towards the M50 and only met traffic a hundred metres from the notorious car park we all know and hate, i.e. M50.

If these people can't get it right, even though they have one of their traffic cameras on the junction of the N4/M50, then why do they bloody bother:mad:

bazzer

Probably Homer Simpson with one of his pastimes - calling the radio station with fake traffic tips!

mike65

I can show you a classic example of AA Roadwatch, at 8.35 this morning they declared that the Ferrybank Dual-carraigway was tailed back with traffic, two mins later I was on said road.



Miike.

mysterious

No you parked your car in the middle of the road Sideways and blocked traffic while you took a PICTURE..... Basically to show that no cars in front of you, so it would appear that the road is empty hense causing huge tailbacks behind you!

AAroadwatch shortly spreaded the news of terrible tailbacks at Ferrybank at the exact time you were there. :rolleyes:

cyclopath2001

Prosperous Dave wrote:

Am I the only one fed up with the stupid inane "AA Roadwatch" traffic reports that are repeated ad nauseum by all the Dublin Radio Stations and that bear little or no resemblance to actual traffic conditions?

It's just a device of the motor industry to keep their agenda in the public view.

Wishbone Ash

What annoys me about AA Roadwatch is that they presume that everyone is travelling to or from Dublin;

e.g. "very heavy on the Swords road inbound". One would naturally assume that there is heavy traffic going to Swords but no, it's the opposite direction. (There are also two other Swords Roads that I know of, but we are all supposed to know which one they are referring to).

e.g. "very heavy on the approach road to Slane". WTF? Slane is on a crossroads. It has 4 approach roads but we're supposed to know that it is the N2 northbound i.e. coming from Dublin.

I prefer the Garda Traffic Channel, much more up to date.

Idleater

The other thing that I think is stupid are the new signs on the m50 saying "for traffic info tune to blah de blah".

Why not put the info on the bloody sign instead of having people taking their eyes off the road switching radio stations?

Of course this is a moot point for me because I cant get the radio on the bike and traffic jams are no issue to me anyway, but hey, I still think the signs are stupid and not informative.

L.

dmeehan

or what about "very heavy on the kinsale rd roundabout inbound"

how is there INBOUND on a roundabout???

Traffic

Livedrive depends on listeners texting in re. the spa hotel as they dont have a camera out that far.

Theres a limited amount of information that can be given out on the VMS more acurate info regarding accidents and diversions to take can be given on the radio

seamus

The problem with AA and to a lesset extent DCAL is that they rely heavily on people's texts. With DCAL, someone will text in, and it could be twenty minutes before the text is read out, which makes it well out of date. It's only when they actually look at the cameras that the accurate info comes out.

AA is a complete shambles, with "updates" every 15 minutes at best, so you'd be lucky to get information that's in date.

or what about "very heavy on the kinsale rd roundabout inbound"

how is there INBOUND on a roundabout???

"Inbound" and "Outbound" usualy refers to your direction of travel relative to the nearest city.

mike65

The thing about the Ferrybank DC is that in August its empty unless there's a bridge lift. One could have some fun texting in bogus traffic reports (but I did'nt mention that alright?).

Mike.

probe

Switzerland has the best traffic information system. There are a number of services available.

Example 1: A web based map published by the city authorities in Zurich which takes real-time data from the detectors used by the traffic light system. The system can show the current traffic position (Aktuell) and if you click on 30 or 60 minuten you can see a forecast of traffic density on each street and urban motorway colour coded into green for free flowing, yellow (slow moving) and red (totally saturated).

Click on various parts of the tiny inset map to navigate around the city map. The actual or forecast number of cars per hour is also shown for both directions of travel on each street.

Before you leave for a journey, you can review the current and forecast positions to decide the best route or whether to delay your trip or use public transport instead.

The map is here:

http://www.zueritraffic.ch/10_6_0.html

Most urban traffic signal systems in Ireland have these data from their traffic control computers (ie Dublin [SCATS], Cork [SCOOT], Limerick [SCOOT]. One wonders why they don’t publish it on the web? Widespread availability of this information in a map format might get some people to delay their journey – helping to reduce overall congestion levels.


Example 2: All of Switzerland is covered by RDS TMC which sends traffic information in structured text message format to your car radio / GPS unit. When you get into your car you can call up all the traffic alerts for the area or route you are interested in and they will be displayed on a screen. As you drive along, new relevant alerts are read to you [in your language of choice (English, French, German, or Italian)] by a text to voice conversion mechanism in the device. It automatically turns down any radio station or CD music during the traffic announcement.

All traffic events go into a central database which is used to produce this free service. It can also update your GPS system if you have selected the dynamic routing option, so the computed route produced by your car’s GPS takes into account traffic delays on the various route options.

Many European countries carry real-time traffic on the national radio networks in RDS TMC format.

Disorganised Ireland does not of course!
Hence the continuous spamming of the motorist with irrelevant, out of date, rubbish information by this British plc who basically seems to be trading this rubbish information service for advertising slots to sell insurance policies!

probe

markpb

probe wrote:

Example 1: A web based map published by the city authorities in Zurich which takes real-time data from the detectors used by the traffic light system. The system can show the current traffic position (Aktuell) and if you click on 30 or 60 minuten you can see a forecast of traffic density on each street and urban motorway colour coded into green for free flowing, yellow (slow moving) and red (totally saturated).

There is a page like this on the DCC website that shows the current level of traffic at a junction based on the data from the Scats system. Unforuntately I can't find the link at the moment. It's not quite as advanced as the one you linked to, there's no future prediction for example.

I don't think the Scats system is very widely deployed in Dublin, quite a few DCC junctions use it, a few FCC and hardly any of the other two councils use it. That could be out of date by now though.

Traffic

the link to the dcc traffic info is http://www.dublincity.ie/living_in_the_city/getting_around/by_car/parking/parking_map.asp click on the parking map

Seth Brundle

mike65 wrote:

I can show you a classic example of AA Roadwatch, at 8.35 this morning they declared that the Ferrybank Dual-carraigway was tailed back with traffic, two mins later I was on said road.

Its heavy traffic with very very safe distances between cars.

nereid wrote:

The other thing that I think is stupid are the new signs on the m50 saying "for traffic info tune to blah de blah".

I tuned in the other day for the first time. Some woman was talking a load of crap that wasn't traffic related that I just flicked back to a CD.

mysterious

The other thing that baffles me... Is Redcow outbound busy... It's a five arm interchange including Monastery road light..

I used to travel regulary to Limerick, and AAroadwatch never broadcast the bottleneck on the N7? Once there was a tailback 2 miles on October weekend, and on the radio on the bus Abbeyleix and Moate were only mentioned on the main routes moving for the holdays... AAroadwatch really just throws random guesses on the likely traffic blackspots around the country to fill the gap news, even despite the Dublin bulletins aren't always that accurate...

Ennis get massive delays on fridays, barely ever mentioned?

Our man in Havana

Sure AA roadwatch have to spend the big bucks to keep those galmour models reading the reports, leaving nothing for actual traffic reports.

Kashkai

A mate of mine swears by the AA Roadwatch info because if they say there's a traffic snarl up in Cork street, he'll head straight for it because everyone else would have been scared away and thus he'll get a clear run through.

Never thought of it that way:p

probe

Traffic wrote:

the link to the dcc traffic info is http://www.dublincity.ie/living_in_the_city/getting_around/by_car/parking/parking_map.asp click on the parking map

Presumably the location of this map is covered by some antiquated Official Secrets Act?


Or perhaps whoever is in charge of designing Irish road signs got the job of coming up with the URL?


Who’d have thought to go to:
http://www.dublincity.ie/living_in_the_city/getting_around/by_car/parking/parking_map.asp

to find a traffic status map for the city? (Not to mind trying to enter it via the keyboard of a PDA or mobile phone).

And on being presented with:
“Find out which car parks have free spaces

Click here to find out where to park”
(by which they really mean “click here for a partial Dublin area traffic map”)

Are URLs such as dublintrafficmap.ie too much to expect? – perhaps with a short URL such as dtm.ie for the pda/mobile phone user?

The road numbers would also be nice (eg on the mouseover). This is also a problem with AA roadwatch. e.g. You may know you are on the N4, but if they call it "Con Colbert Road", the information is useless unless you are very familiar with all the street names along a given route.

The date and time of the last update would also be helpful so one can be sure that the picture presented is not a month old.

probe

delly

I find DCAL to be on the ball most of the time, but is more useful is you listen continuesly rather than flicking to it for a quick update. By listening in the morning and evening I actually make my decesion on weather or not to take the M50.

scargill

does anyone react to these reports and change their route to suit ? If they say the M50 is backed up at the toll bridge for miles - what difference does it make ? Its backed up every single day !?

The same congested roads being mentioned every single day doesn't serve any purpose. The only useful info maybe when there is a sporting event/concert on somewhere and you might want to let people know to avoid a particular area altogether. But if you are from the area you will be used to this ? and if you are going to the event..... the traffic report is meaningless ??

The people who travel a particular route everyday will know where their route is heavy and will use rat runs if available. So the traffic reports are no good for them.

People who aren't used to the route will just have to stick it out as they don't know their way around the tailback/accident, etc. So the reports are no good to them either ?

So who are the reports for ? Completely pointless as far as I can see.

delly

scargill wrote:

So who are the reports for ? Completely pointless as far as I can see.

Well in my case I go from Raheny to Ballymount on a regular basis, by hearing how far the M50 is backed up I can tell how long it will take to get there, likewise by listening how to busy the Clontarf Road and Amiens Street is I can tell if its a better option.

Earlier this week it took me 40 minutes to get to Ballymount via town whereas it took a workmate 50 minutes on the M50 alone. On good days the M50 can take 25 minutes, so to me it counts to listen.

Traffic

Just for you probe:

www.dublintraffic.com i think it might be working there

Victor

Can I ask why you changed the font and text size? Repeatedly?

Also press the buttons at the top of that page which gives you details of the system.

probe wrote:

Presumably the location of this map is covered by some antiquated Official Secrets Act?

The site has been rebuilt, not everything is where it should be.

Who’d have thought to go to: http://www.dublincity.ie/living_in_the_city/getting_around/by_car/parking/parking_map.asp to find a traffic status map for the city? (Not to mind trying to enter it via the keyboard of a PDA or mobile phone).

It is also a parking map.

The date and time of the last update would also be helpful so one can be sure that the picture presented is not a month old.

Its realtime (edit: updated every 60 seconds), you can see it change every few seconds, although the photos are a little behind (not sure if this is just an erroroneous timestamp).

The road numbers would also be nice (eg on the mouseover). This is also a problem with AA roadwatch. e.g. You may know you are on the N4, but if they call it "Con Colbert Road", the information is useless unless you are very familiar with all the street names along a given route.

They have the National Route numbers around the perimeter. I think you are finding problems that aren't there.

Traffic

Well said Victor

probe

Can I ask why you changed the font and text size? Repeatedly?

I’ve better things to be doing than playing with fonts on boards! – it is a by-product of copying from the http://www.dublincity.ie/living_in_the_city/getting_around/by_car/parking/parking_map.asp easy to find website page and pasting into the content to be posted here.

Also press the buttons at the top of that page which gives you details of the system.

I presume you mean the “About the map” icon? – yes I read the contents of this box when I first saw the object.

Its realtime (edit: updated every 60 seconds), you can see it change every few seconds, although the photos are a little behind (not sure if this is just an erroroneous timestamp).

I’m aware of this – however a time/date stamp on the map image is the norm. If you look at the thread in general one of the key failings of existing radio bulletin based “traffic news” services is they are not timely. A time stamp gives a good indication of timeliness.

You will find traffic map time stamping everywhere!

IT: http://www.autostrade.it/autostrade/traffico.do (zoom in on area and click on webcam for live streaming time-stamped images of Italian motorway traffic cams). PS: The click to zoom in functionality does a good job of removing clutter while presenting a good overview of the traffic situation across the network.

FI: http://alk.tiehallinto.fi/alk/english/frames/liikenne-frame.html (This site has a basic map where one can click on objects for a detailed graph of traffic flow trends and average traffic speeds. All they are missing is French style “previsions” enabling someone planning a journey to see forecast traffic conditions for dates into the future http://www.asf.fr/control/index.aspx?pageid=InternetV3.9912 – select date required and click on any segment of motorway on the map to see the times of day that peaks occur – or use the animation function to cycle through a 24 hour period to pick the best time to travel)

FR: (current position) http://www.asf.fr/control/index.aspx?pageid=InternetV3.9909

CH: http://www.zueritraffic.ch/

AD: http://www.mobilitat.ad/transit.asp

ES-B/GI: http://www.autopistas.com/ing/trafico/index.htm
Quote:

The road numbers would also be nice (eg on the mouseover). This is also a problem with AA roadwatch. e.g. You may know you are on the N4, but if they call it "Con Colbert Road", the information is useless unless you are very familiar with all the street names along a given route.

They have the National Route numbers around the perimeter. I think you are finding problems that aren't there.

I can see they have national route numbers at the extreme end of the map. This is little help if one is trying to figure out the level of congestion on the N4 route (example) closer to the city centre. When you click and drag to zoom in the city centre, you can’t see the N4 icon which goes off screen. All I suggested is that the road numbers (including R routes) be included in the text info supplied when one mouses over a node.

The map would be useful if it was published with its own URL and would be even more helpful if it was displayed on flat screen TV displays in high traffic public areas (eg near parking payment machines at Dublin airport, in shopping malls, larger office building foyers, hotel lobbies, and similar). A substantial improvement on the "fancymap.jpg" one saw some time back!

probe

probe

Traffic wrote:

Just for you probe:

www.dublintraffic.com i think it might be working there

Wonderful! (I'll say nothing about the .com suffix).

probe

probe

nereid wrote:

The other thing that I think is stupid are the new signs on the m50 saying "for traffic info tune to blah de blah".

Why not put the info on the bloody sign instead of having people taking their eyes off the road switching radio stations?

They should be using fixed signs (or patches on advance direction signs) with a simple message “Traffic 103.3FM”

The VM traffic signs should have journey times and other critical traffic messages e.g.

On M1 Southbound VM signs:

[FONT=&quot]M1: M50 > N4 22 min[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]M50: N4 > N7 6 min[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]M50: N7 > M11 11 min[/FONT]

probe

Idleater

probe wrote:

They should be using fixed signs (or patches on advance direction signs) with a simple message “Traffic 103.3FM”

The VM traffic signs should have journey times and other critical traffic messages e.g.

On M1 Southbound VM signs:

[FONT=&quot]M1: M50 > N4 22 min[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]M50: N4 > N7 6 min[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]M50: N7 > M11 11 min[/FONT]

probe

Now that is an excellent idea!


I have seen those type signs for whatever is the "local" station when driving through europe.

L.