Seattle Area Traffic Information Service

Manoli.net's Seattle Mobile Traffic Service provides real-time traffic information for the Seattle area. It was developed in 2001 as a demonstration project using the Microsoft .NET Framework Beta 1 and the Mobile Internet Toolkit Beta 1.

Congestion information is provided for the following highways:

I-5, from SR-526 (Everett) to S 185th St (Tukwila)
I-90, from 4th Ave W (Seattle) to Front St (Issaquah)
I-405, all the way
SR-520, all the way, except on the bridge

The service can be accessed from various mobile devices with Internet access (cell phones, PDAs, etc.) using the WAP or HTTP protocols. The box on the right simulates the display of a Pocket PC accessing the service.

To get the traffic information on your device, enter this URL: http://manoli.net/traffic/. WARNING: operating a cell phone or any other gadget while driving your car is dangerous. Please check the traffic before you leave...

Cell Phone Display
Seattle Traffic running on a cell phone

The "My Commute" menu option contains sample commute itineraries to demonstrate a personalized version of this service. Can you guess where I lived and worked while I was in Seattle? If enough people manifest interest in this feature, I might finish the implementation and allow entering and saving your own itineraries.

How does it work?

The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) provides the raw data for the Seattle Mobile Traffic service through an FTP server. The data is updated every minute on the WSDOT server, and it is cached for one minute by the service's data layer, so the traffic information is always less than two minutes old.

Application's Architecture
Seattle Traffic Service Architecture

The Traffic Analysis logic currently uses a very simple algorithm to calculate travel times. In the future, it could be enhanced to combine statistical data with the current traffic conditions to offer better predictions.

This service is using computer data originating from the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT). WSDOT provides free software for public and private use of this data. The software is available at http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/ via the Internet. WSDOT may, at any time, change data formats, location, update rates or other features or aspects of the data. WSDOT changes to the data will adversely affect this service. WSDOT is under no obligation to notify you or your software vendor of any changes to the data source.

Comments: webmaster@manoli.net