Leaving work getting on the 401, and the overhead "Compass" signs say "401 blocked, take 427 N to 409 bypass". Great, that is part of my route home, so I settle in for a slow start to my commute. But low and behold, the traffic on to the 427 N is actually lighter than normal - right up to the 409 bypass...then it stops dead. So in other words, it appears that people actively avoided the recommended route for getting around the traffic.
MY TRAFFIC REPORT IDEA:
Screw the news guys every 10 minutes saying "slow between This and That, take the OtherWay", and the overhead signs that say "slow ahead, left lane blocked ahead - take collectors", and the MTO cameras that show you traffic in the direction that they happen to be pointed (which I have loaded in my cellphone browser by the way - very neat and handy).
HOW ABOUT just telling me the average speed of traffic ahead, preferably by lane?
If the express lanes show average speeds of 0, 10, 20 and the collectors show 60, 80 - then guess what - I don't care why, I'm taking the collectors. And if everyone starts moving over to the collectors, then the speeds of the collector lanes will start going down and the express lanes will start going up - until (at some magical time) everything is averaged at the maximum speed that can be handled by all of the working lanes.
Oversimplified, yes. But automatically updated information with just a number (ie. the speed) will be much more up-to-date and accurate and USEFUL than manually updated text that is only updated when someone bothers to call a special numbers somewhere to tell the typing guy to update the sign.
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