[greydarrah]

I have found their traffic data to be very accurate and wondered how the info was assimilated. A friend told me that he thought they collected location data from each phone running Google Maps, then compared that street location to the speed the phone travels and the actual streets speed limit. From there software could determine if the traffic flow was normal, slowed or stopped.

An easier alternative would be to get the traffic data from news stations. The only reason I don't think they do this is because whenever I'm on a driving trip, there will be accurate green, yellow and red marked sections of the freeway I'm on, even when I'm in the middle of nowhere. I don't think that new stations really track the traffic outside of their metropolitan area.

Anybody have any inside the Google cloud contacts?

[SConnick]

How Google Traffic Works: Where Traffic Data Comes From & How Google Maps are Updated with Traffic Views

[gmmech]

check out this article How Google Traffic Works: Where Traffic Data Comes From & How Google Maps are Updated with Traffic Views

they actually take the info from the DOT sensors in the roads and I'm willing to be they use the traffic cams in some area too

[gmmech]

OMG thats funny in the time I found the article it was posted already!

the power of the internet!

[greydarrah]

Thanks for the link, its exactly what I was looking for.

I should have done a better job of searching for it myself.