…is coming sooner than we think

I know Clear Channel just bought Metro Traffic so this news cannot be welcomed in San Antonio.

IBM is testing personalized commuter forecasts that analyze the traffic on thousands of individual routes, warns drivers of accidents and backups, and suggests alternate routes.

The personalized traffic report is almost here.

Here’s how it will work…

You’ll download an IBM app to your smart phone that is a continuous GPS locator, tracking your daily routes to and from work and home.

Before you even leave your house in the morning, your phone will warn you if your normal route is packed with traffic, and suggest you cut over to that mass transit parking lot and take the train or bus to work instead.

It will even be able to calculate if you have time to make the next train at parking lot A, or if you should cut over to parking lot B instead.

The system is being tested right now in the Bay area, and doesn’t need any new technology to work. It makes use of the tens of thousands of road sensors installed in almost every major American city.

IBM’s created a program that uses analytics to build a historical database of how traffic behaves, and also make virtually instant real-time predictions based on those sensors and all the other smart phones using the system.

Voila! Customized, personalized, constantly updated traffic reports.

And we won’t have to put up with any more of those ever-expanding 10-second live spots that GMs never seem to count when they calculate spot loads or clutter.

Here…check it out…