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Is it just me, but over the years whenever I hear a traffic report about an
accident on one of the Indy stations AND I just happen to pass through that
intersection I have NEVER ever seen any signs of what was just on the radio.
Is it that the reports are so old that the police and EMTs have cleaned things
up? Whats the story?
Yeah, it happens a lot. I travel 465 daily from the eastside to the west, and there are the usual backups and fenderbenders, especially approaching I-65 as people are trying to merge over to the exits at the last minute. I hear about them on the radio, but once I arrive near the location, there is nothing. Do stations still get their traffic from Metro, or just by going online and grabbing what's there? I used to think WIBC and John Gillis were pretty good.
I'm not sure Big John is still in the air though. Many have been the times when I took an alternate route & got back on the interstate only to find that I wasted my time...no bottleneck. Then there's the opposite...traffic jam & no mention on the radio. Although I find this to be a bigger problem with WHAS than WIBC...There is MUCH room for improvement where traffic reports are concerned.
WHAS would be doing fine if they said:
"Westbound 64 is slowgo from the Waterson to the Kennedy Bridge, as well as Northbound 71 from the Snyder to Kennedy Bridge and Northbound 65 is very slow from Eastern Parkway to the River".
I can't tell you how much I hate driving in Louisville during rush hour.
My guess is that stations, mainly newstalk, who take pride in news, traffic, weather have live reports, even if most of the info comes from metro. My guess is that only WIBC does traffic on their own, but I wouldn't be suprised if they used metro reports. I don't think there is neccessarily anything wrong with just using Metro. A centralized traffic bureau in the city with all stations reporting back to it are probably more reliable then one guy in a room getting calls from joe schmo.
What radio stations have had traffic helipcopters. Did big john actually have a helicopter, or was that just a sound effect?
I believe that word got out the Big John was at home literally phoning in traffic reports while listening to a scanner. Ever since then, they have hired Reb Porter and do all of the reports from the studio.
Actually, Reb Porter and Kevin Cole are both employees of traffic.com. Big John does reports from the traffic center for AM drive and the noon news block. Reb does afternoon traffic.
I believe Mimi at WFMS did airborne trafic as well, think it was a plane rather than a chopper. I remember back in the 60's when Lt. Tom Harlow did airborne traffic for WIFE..very innovative for its' time.
So, to get back to the original theme.....is there any reason radio stations need
to do traffic reports if the reports are so old that the mess has been cleaned up
and that by reporting them, they cause further traffic disruption by falsely alerting
drivers to avoid an intersection that is just fine????
I believe Mimi at WFMS did airborne trafic as well, think it was a plane rather than a chopper. I remember back in the 60's when Lt. Tom Harlow did airborne traffic for WIFE..very innovative for its' time.
Metro uses a fixed wing airplane for it's traffic reports - weather permitting. Mimi does fly along at times.
Until recently Big John has been doing his reports either over the phone or with a two-way radio to make it sound like he was live in a plane or helicopter. Metro sometimes still uses the two-way to simulate the "in the air" sound of the reports.
Then there was Les Nessman who beat on his chest to make it sound like he was doing his reports live from a helicopter.
In a market this size, we just don't have the right information available to get timely (and sometimes correct) reports on the air. We have to use the info that the police give us and they're too busy with working the accident to gives us the correct details.
Tom Berg has produced at Metro - why not give us the scoop, Tommy?
Hopefully Tom won't place himself in that position.
Unless you have the WTHR reporter looking at all 26 traffic cams at the same time, and they happen to do the report LIVE and not TAPED you will not have accurate traffic reports.
13 has the facilities to do accurate traffic at the locations they have traffic cams but this doesn't translate to radio reports.
I think Metro is more a business to generate revenue rather than a strictly newsgathering organization. They pay stations in some cases to carry their reports.
Why did Emmis and Clear Channel insource traffic? NTR. and BIG Revenue/
How many people actually figure out that the reports are not as timely as us radio geeks?
Traffic is status. Everyone wants to have WLS Shadow Traffic followed by Larry Lujack. They used binocs and such in Chicago.
We don't have the facilities to do accurate traffic. Or do we? What does it take to cover the major intersections without using IMCPD? (A scanner)
I don't know that I could do traffic reports in Chicago, can you imagine the learning curve on that job? I wouldn't want to learn all the interstate names and such! Don Nelson, W-L-S Skyview traffic, was the man!
My one pet peeve about Indy radio traffic reports is when I hear a reporter talk about an accident on 465 and 70, but not mention which side of town! Same thing with 465 and 65.
I really enjoyed my time at Metro, working with some wonderful people who I still keep in touch with.
Back when he was at Metro, Paul Poteet has the unofficial record for number of feeds per hour, all live. It was some insane number like 14 or something.
As far as live or taped reports are concerned, I can't speak for now. When I was at Metro, all of my reports were live, and the information was as current as you can get. We have producers who call the cops all the time, we have scanners, and access to traffic cams.
There were times that a DJ would blind side me with something, "Hey Tom, a listener just called and reported an accident at washington and sherman, what do you know about it?" If it JUST happened, there's no way we'd know about it. We're fast, just not THAT fast.
Metro... most if not all are recorded now. They are really pushing stations
to go all recorded ... probably because of short staffed. I think they do the
best they can with what and who they have. Could stand some improvement.
Wanna try your hand at traffic reporting? Go to a pet shop and find a nice big tank filled with fish. In your mind, "report" where the highest congestion of fish are at that moment in time. Then turn your back to the tank, count to ten, and turn back around.
Welcome to traffic reporting. Unless there is a major wreck holding back traffic, you should expect what you hear to be the status quo, daily grind. In major metro areas, you can't have a staff big enough to "see" every delay. Sometimes wrecks take three hours to clear... sometimes 2 minutes.
I agree with the poster concerning eastside/westside identifiers. It might help if Indy did the Chicago thing, naming certain stretchs of interstate. (Lugar Expressway & the Bayh Freeway anyone?)
If you think you can do better, go for it. I'm sure CC, Metro or Traffic joke Com would love to have you on their staff.
Here in Cincinnati I did traffic gathering for all three Susquehanna/CMP stations. We have live cameras from the ARTIMIS traffic service run by the state. I can choose any of the 120 cameras at any time to see what's happening and keep an eye on any backup on the interstates. On one monitor, the cameras do a "tour" so that I can watch them all and something unusual will catch my eye. On the other monitor, we can manually flip or go to any camera we want. There are some blind spots, but for the most part I could see everything I needed to see. Side street problems were gathered from the scanner and listener tip line.
I don't know if Indy has as many traffic cameras, but they make it easy if you know what you're looking at.
All the traffic info you'd ever need for Cincinnati interstates, including the cameras, can be found at www.artimis.org.
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