Hopefully of interest to some on here....

I've just launched http://www.Jamspy.co.uk - which is a website that
takes traffic information and displays it on a map of the UK. I'm
also
measuring and plotting traffic trends and doing some analysis to
allow
me to try and predict traffic patterns across the week.


I'd be interested to hear any useful feedback or comments on the
sites' useability and features.


thanks


http://www.jamspy.co.uk

In message
, at
06:42:58 on Thu, 27 Mar 2008, MrTraffic
remarked:
I'd be interested to hear any useful feedback or comments on the
sites' useability and features.

A couple of quick things:

The traffic jams don't differentiate between direction on the road. Jams
are often uni-directional, especially on motorways.

"ROADWORKS CAUSE: unknown" could just as well be omitted.

The site seems to mix up Jams and Roadworks. Several of the "Jams" are
not real-time incidents, but long-term temporary traffic lights,
diversions etc.

This may be a problem with the feed you are getting (I was looking at
doing a similar project about 12 years ago as was a bit frustrated that
the AA's (I think it was) so-called traffic "news" was full of things
like "The M1 has roadworks at Junction 10 until September 2009".
--
Roland Perry

On Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:31:18 +0000, Roland Perry
wrote this gibberish:

In message
, at
06:42:58 on Thu, 27 Mar 2008, MrTraffic
remarked:
I'd be interested to hear any useful feedback or comments on the
sites' useability and features.

A couple of quick things:

The traffic jams don't differentiate between direction on the road. Jams
are often uni-directional, especially on motorways.

"ROADWORKS CAUSE: unknown" could just as well be omitted.

The site seems to mix up Jams and Roadworks. Several of the "Jams" are
not real-time incidents, but long-term temporary traffic lights,
diversions etc.

This may be a problem with the feed you are getting (I was looking at
doing a similar project about 12 years ago as was a bit frustrated that
the AA's (I think it was) so-called traffic "news" was full of things
like "The M1 has roadworks at Junction 10 until September 2009".

They were saying that 12 years ago? crikey thats a long set of
roadworks!


--
Mark.
www.MarkVarleyPhoto.co.uk
www.TwistedPhotography.co.uk
www.TwistedArts.co.uk
www.BeautifulBondage.net

On Mar 27, 3:31*pm, Roland Perry wrote:
In message
, at
06:42:58 on Thu, 27 Mar 2008, MrTraffic
remarked:

I'd be interested to hear any useful feedback or comments on the
sites' useability and features.

A couple of quick things:

The traffic jams don't differentiate between direction on the road. Jams
are often uni-directional, especially on motorways.

"ROADWORKS CAUSE: unknown" could just as well be omitted.

The site seems to mix up Jams and Roadworks. Several of the "Jams" are
not real-time incidents, but long-term temporary traffic lights,
diversions etc.

This may be a problem with the feed you are getting (I was looking at
doing a similar project about 12 years ago as was a bit frustrated that
the AA's (I think it was) so-called traffic "news" was full of things
like "The M1 has roadworks at Junction 10 until September 2009".
--
Roland Perry

All good points. I'll take those on board and see if I can improve
things a bit. The raw data is from the BBC so it's usually quite up to
date but I'm not sure I get consistant 'direction' information. I'll
have a look.

Fair point on the roadworks Vs jams. I need to filter that better
perhaps.

Thanks for replying.

In message
, at
10:31:12 on Thu, 27 Mar 2008, MrTraffic
remarked:
Fair point on the roadworks Vs jams. I need to filter that better
perhaps.

If you look at the "start" and "finish" times on the reports, and
classify anything with a "finish" time of 'tomorrow or later' as
"roadworks" that would probably have the desired result.
--
Roland Perry

On 27 Mar, 20:46, Roland Perry wrote:

If you look at the "start" and "finish" times on the reports, and
classify anything with a "finish" time of 'tomorrow or later' as
"roadworks" that would probably have the desired result.
--
Roland Perry

Done as you suggested. Thanks

In message
, at
16:57:10 on Fri, 28 Mar 2008, MrTraffic
remarked:
If you look at the "start" and "finish" times on the reports, and
classify anything with a "finish" time of 'tomorrow or later' as
"roadworks" that would probably have the desired result.

Done as you suggested. Thanks

There are some funny "end" times coming through. This one for example:

Traffic Jam

M25 Hertfordshire - Traffic returned to normal anticlockwise between
J20, Kings Langley and J19, Watford in Greater London.

Last Updated: 1 hr ago
Estimated End: 2008-03-14 08:50:16

Has that been stuck like that for a fortnight, or is the end date wrong?
If the former, perhaps you need to remove jams where the end is "longer
ago than last midnight" too ....
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry (Roland Perry ) gurgled happily, sounding
much like they were saying:

Last Updated: 1 hr ago
Estimated End: 2008-03-14 08:50:16

Has that been stuck like that for a fortnight, or is the end date wrong?

To be fair, it does say "Last Updated: 1hr ago"

In message , at 09:38:13 on Sat,
29 Mar 2008, Adrian remarked:
Last Updated: 1 hr ago
Estimated End: 2008-03-14 08:50:16

Has that been stuck like that for a fortnight, or is the end date wrong?

To be fair, it does say "Last Updated: 1hr ago"

My bad. I read that as 1hr ago.

So perhaps it's "stuck". Seems to me that reports like that should be
filtered out. Why are the BBC still feeding them through, though.
--
Roland Perry