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How dumb is XPN?

B

bierkenstock

Guest
From the Business Wire:
<blockquote>Traffic.com(R) Named Exclusive Traffic Source for WXPN-FM; Partnership Delivers Real-Time Traffic Solutions to Philadelphia Market

WAYNE, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 24, 2005--Traffic.com, Inc., the nation's leader in traffic data collection and reporting, announced today that it has been selected as the exclusive traffic provider for WXPN-FM.

Through this agreement, Traffic.com will provide real-time digital traffic information featuring travel speeds, travel times, traffic density, and congestion factors to WXPN listeners in the Greater Philadelphia area at 88.5 FM. </blockquote>
Full Text

"The nation's leader in traffic ... reporting?" Get real. XPN dropped the leader in traffic reporting - Shadow Traffic, which has been reporting traffic in this market for 30 years. Shadow/Metro is in more markets, with more clients. Their service even gets more web hits (through client station and newspaper websites).

If you tuned in late, these are the same people behind the new UPN57 so-called "WakeUpNews" (the show that was supposed to launch the first of the year and couldn't get on until June).

This outfit, according to a recent New York Times article, is a bunch of engineers who think they can replace flesh and blood traffic reporters with sensors and computers. This is an outfit, according to their own advertising, which wants to replace radio traffic reports with "instant alerts" on subscriber's cell phones, pagers and GPS'."

Shadow Traffic managers include the guy who ran KYW during its heyday. Traffic.com (even their name says web, not radio) is run by a guy from an infomercial company. Several of the people listed on their corporate website are military lifers. But the website suggests they see their main business as setting up road sensors for government agencies, so these lifers probably know how to work the system for government contracts.

WXPN replaced an experienced on-air traffic anchor (Randy Chapukin) with an out-of-work DJ who just happens to be married to somebody at the company.

Meanwhile, we can still get real traffic reports on "the one's" from Shadow via KYW. If you like AAA, SoJo (like most stations) still gets their traffic from Shadow.
 
> "The nation's leader in traffic ... reporting?" Get real.
> XPN dropped the leader in traffic reporting - Shadow
> Traffic, which has been reporting traffic in this market for
> 30 years. Shadow/Metro is in more markets, with more
> clients. Their service even gets more web hits (through
> client station and newspaper websites).

Based on what I hear on KYW (which uses Metro) and XM (which uses Traffic.com)I'd say Metro is still the best service. They seem to get word of jams more quickly. There's not a huge difference though, and I've heard large jams reported on XM that weren't on KYW.

> This outfit, according to a recent New York Times article,
> is a bunch of engineers who think they can replace flesh and
> blood traffic reporters with sensors and computers.

A much better system. The sensors give more useful information than a flesh and blood traffic reporter. Before sensors, I never heard estimates of speed and travel time on the radio. "There's a slowdown here, there's a slowdown there" just doesn't cut it anymore. There will always be a need for real traffic reporters, but the sensors are a great addition.

> This is
> an outfit, according to their own advertising, which wants
> to replace radio traffic reports with "instant alerts" on
> subscriber's cell phones, pagers and GPS'."

And this is a bad thing why? It's not as if radio traffic is going to become obsolete. They're just branching out a bit. The future of traffic reporting is more personalized information.

> WXPN replaced an experienced on-air traffic anchor (Randy
> Chapukin) with an out-of-work DJ who just happens to be
> married to somebody at the company.
>
> Meanwhile, we can still get real traffic reports on "the
> one's" from Shadow via KYW. If you like AAA, SoJo (like
> most stations) still gets their traffic from Shadow.

As if anyone listens to XPN for traffic anyway. Everyone I know already goes to KYW. Personally I go to XM for more immediate info and then KYW on the 2's.

If I were looking for a traffic system for a music station, I'd probably go with whatever competent service offered the better deal. I'm sure that was XPN's thinking as well. It's not worth it for a music station to try and outdo KYW here. A change in traffic services will have no impact on their ratings.
 
> > "The nation's leader in traffic ... reporting?" Get real.
>
> > XPN dropped the leader in traffic reporting - Shadow
> > Traffic, which has been reporting traffic in this market
> for
> > 30 years. Shadow/Metro is in more markets, with more
> > clients. Their service even gets more web hits (through
> > client station and newspaper websites).
>
> Based on what I hear on KYW (which uses Metro) and XM (which
> uses Traffic.com)I'd say Metro is still the best service.
> They seem to get word of jams more quickly. There's not a
> huge difference though, and I've heard large jams reported
> on XM that weren't on KYW.
>
> > This outfit, according to a recent New York Times article,
>
> > is a bunch of engineers who think they can replace flesh
> and
> > blood traffic reporters with sensors and computers.
>
> A much better system. The sensors give more useful
> information than a flesh and blood traffic reporter. Before
> sensors, I never heard estimates of speed and travel time on
> the radio. "There's a slowdown here, there's a slowdown
> there" just doesn't cut it anymore. There will always be a
> need for real traffic reporters, but the sensors are a great
> addition.
>
> > This is
> > an outfit, according to their own advertising, which wants
>
> > to replace radio traffic reports with "instant alerts" on
> > subscriber's cell phones, pagers and GPS'."
>
> And this is a bad thing why? It's not as if radio traffic
> is going to become obsolete. They're just branching out a
> bit. The future of traffic reporting is more personalized
> information.
>
> > WXPN replaced an experienced on-air traffic anchor (Randy
> > Chapukin) with an out-of-work DJ who just happens to be
> > married to somebody at the company.
> >
> > Meanwhile, we can still get real traffic reports on "the
> > one's" from Shadow via KYW. If you like AAA, SoJo (like
> > most stations) still gets their traffic from Shadow.
>
> As if anyone listens to XPN for traffic anyway. Everyone I
> know already goes to KYW. Personally I go to XM for more
> immediate info and then KYW on the 2's.
>
> If I were looking for a traffic system for a music station,
> I'd probably go with whatever competent service offered the
> better deal. I'm sure that was XPN's thinking as well.
> It's not worth it for a music station to try and outdo KYW
> here. A change in traffic services will have no impact on
> their ratings.
>

I've listened to both services in New York. Metro/Shadow is on WCBS Newsradio 88 and on 1010 WINS (plus some 30 other stations from what I've read). Traffic.com is on WLIB, Air America. You're right, both stations miss some traffic items, but traffic.com seems to have a real blind spot for Westchester County. They are spotty in some of the other suburban areas.

From looking at their website, Traffic.com has no sensors at all in New Jersey (including both North and South Jersey), so they must have to go back to old fashioned traffic reporting sometimes. Their website map shows they only have sensors on some main highways around the City, and that may be why they don't pick up on some problems north of the City or on Long Island. They seem to focus on the roads where they do have sensors and where they can give their travel time numbers (I guess they make that their big selling point), even if there are no problems there. Maybe they do have stuff they don't report because they emphasize the roads where they have sensors. From looking at their maps, if you listen to Traffic.com from Philly and you are driving in South Jersey, you are out of luck. No sensors there either.

Also, those sensors seem to have problems. Sometimes they stop giving numbers for some of the highways I use for days or weeks at time. Sometimes when they do give numbers, the numbers are wrong. They tell me the Deegan is going 15 mph and I'm doing 50. This happens a lot and I've learned not to trust their numbers at all.

I haven't heard the Philly station but in New York, their announcers do not sound like they know the area. Somebody posted on the New York board that their announcers are from Philly, so that may explain it. But one guy they have sometimes sounds like a guy who called himself "Famous Amos" as a DJ a while back. He's one of those old time top 40 DJ's (loud, fast and talks through his nose).

But maybe all these Traffic.com stations want to do is have just enough of a traffic report so people won't keep flipping over to the news stations (on the eights or whatever). That may not affect their ratings now with diaries, but with people meters coming, people flipping to another station for traffic can kill other stations' TSL. If Traffic.com is cheaper and keeps people from tuning around for a traffic report elsewhere, maybe they figure who cares?
 
>
> But maybe all these Traffic.com stations want to do is have
> just enough of a traffic report so people won't keep
> flipping over to the news stations (on the eights or
> whatever). That may not affect their ratings now with
> diaries, but with people meters coming, people flipping to
> another station for traffic can kill other stations' TSL.
> If Traffic.com is cheaper and keeps people from tuning
> around for a traffic report elsewhere, maybe they figure who
> cares?
>
This goes to something I've been saying for years, even about news stations: Traffic reports are usually more sizzle than steak. As another poster said in this thread, I too am tired of reporters telling us that "road x is slow." What does that mean, a minor delay or crawling, or sitting still? Based on my experience, any one of those. Web cams and even on-scene reporters only see so much. I was hoping the sensors would solve that issue, but they still aren't widespread across metro areas. I still think traffic.com is on to something -- we'll see what happens as they grow.
 
Re: Traffic.com

They are putting more sensers in daily. They'll expand over time.
John
>
As another poster said in this thread, I too am
> tired of reporters telling us that "road x is slow." What
> does that mean, a minor delay or crawling, or sitting still?
> Based on my experience, any one of those. Web cams and even
> on-scene reporters only see so much. I was hoping the
> sensors would solve that issue, but they still aren't
> widespread across metro areas. I still think traffic.com is
> on to something -- we'll see what happens as they grow.
>
<P ID="signature">______________
John
E-mail: [email protected]
AIM: RainAngelsRule
MSN: [email protected]</P>
 
Re: Traffic.com

> They are putting more sensers in daily. They'll expand over
> time.
> John

Not true. From their website, they put in sensors under contract to some (not all) departments of transportation. That appears to be their main business, not radio traffic reports. They do have a contract with PennDOT but apparently PennDOT decides when and where to put in sensors. Also, as a public agency, PennDOT makes the sensor data available to other users (like Metro/Shadow). They don't have sensors in New York but they do have access to data from NY State sensors on a limited number of highways (coverage is very incomplete). They also get limited coverage in the DC/Baltimore area from State of Maryland sensors (and so do other users). They don't have any sensors in New Jersey or access to sensor data from New Jersey, so if you're on the 42 Expressway, forget about it.

There are some concerns about the reliability of these state-operated sensor networks: Individual sensors go down. Sensors may be too few and too widely spaced to give accurate averages.

John, private companies don't just go around putting up sensors or other equipment on highway rights of way whenever they feel like it. This is the government they are dealing with.
 
Re: Traffic.com

How 'bout when metro (who provides the service to KYW) misses every "jam" known to man during the weekend? That's a treat when you hear nothing about the Blue Route and then your stuck for a half hour because of an accident.
 
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