I recently received an email from Peter Green the owner of the website www.frixo.com pointing out his website to me as it might be useful to some of the users. Given that most of my readers live in the UK I thought it would be a good idea.
While I suspect that there are many other websites reporting traffic incidents, the key concept to take away here is that communication is important. If people know what is happening on the roads they are likely to take routes that would make them go faster. This would help reduce the pressures on the road network and decrease the effects of bottlenecks. Knowledge is power and there could be a lot of money and time saved by simply knowing whether the queue you are stuck in is becuase someone had a burst tyre and is likely to get off the road soon, or because there was a major accident and you are better off abandoning your vehicle and walking home.
Even if you fail to find a route to evade whatever is causing the traffic problems, you might be able to make a phonecall to avoid other negative effects of not arriving on time. You should be able to do all that while sitting in your car, since most phones and service providers allow you to access the internet at low cost now. It is quite difficult to put a monetary value on the cost effectiveness of such information systems, especially when intangible things are involved. How much would you value avoiding the strain on your relationship that could have been caused by arriving late to your romantic dinner?
The end result is that people’s lives are made easier. So the next time you are using the roads, check the traffic reports first before you get yourself stuck without any clue why this is happening to you.
