Google Maps Tailgates Yahoo, Microsoft With Real-Time Traffic Info

Google Maps has caught up with Yahoo and Microsoft in adding live traffic reporting for the United States to their online mapping service.

Google Operating System spotted the change today (and Google now has the official word up here). To see the traffic yourself, just go to Google Maps and click on the new "Traffic" button that you’ll see in the upper right-hand corner of the map page, right before the "Map" and "Satellite" and "Hybrid" buttons.

Pushing that button will make traffic light icons show up, like this:

Everywhere you see an icon, that’s where you can get real-time traffic information.

Here is a screen capture of New York City traffic from Google Maps:

The green color symbolizes more than 50 miles per hour; the yellow color symbolizes 25-50 miles per hour; the red color symbolizes less than 25 miles per hour; and the gray color symbolizes that no data available.

Google is playing serious catch-up in adding this information to its mapping service. Yahoo began offering live traffic data for the United States on Yahoo Maps back on December 15, 2004, over two years ago.

To see traffic at Yahoo Map, zoom out to the US "country" level, then click on the "Live Traffic" button you’ll see at the top of the map. Places with traffic conditions being reported will appear. Unfortunately, Yahoo doesn’t appear to have more help information about getting real-time traffic that we can point you at.

Microsoft added live traffic on May 23, 2006. To see traffic at Microsoft Live Search Maps, zoom out to see the entire US, then click on the "Traffic" link above the map. Stoplight icons will appear where information is available.

Ask Maps now remains the only major search engine not to have life traffic data. But they do have walking directions, for those who find the traffic is too much!

How about live traffic on the move? Google has offered live traffic data on their mobile version of Google Maps since July 25, 2006, and Windows Live also has traffic on their mobile version. More on that in Danny’s recent post, Ironically, You Need A Map To Find Google & Microsoft’s Windows Mobile Map Apps. The latest version of Yahoo Go also appears to have live traffic info.

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz

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gary price

Barry:
Here’s a post I put together for ResourceShelf with some other tools. The post is here.
http://digbig.com/4rqte

Sometimes, it’s useful to actually see where you’ll be driving. Trafficland.com aggregates traffic cameras in many U.S. cities, Canada, Denmark, New Zealand, and the UK (London*).

Btw, SkylineGlobe (a digital globe service, free) let’s you embed live traffic cams (via TrafficLand) on top of the aerial imagery for many metro areas in the U.S. and London, UK.

California offers this page with full motion traffic video and real time access to the California Highway Patrol Traffic Incident database. The page even auto-refreshes every 60 seconds.

Mobile? Well, Trafficland offers a a mobile version for the metro D.C. area (fee-based) and the City of New York offers a mobile version of their traffic cam site.

Almost forgot, MSN Auto offers real-time traffic incident maps and very localized traffic text alerts via email or SMS. Like you noted, you can also find traffic info on MS Live Search.

Finally, Traffic.com. This service is feature packed and is free. Some of what they offer includes:
+ Personalized traffic info (you create a route(s)). Info delivered online, via RSS, SMS, email.
+ Metro area RSS feeds.
+ Incident alerts via email or SMS.
+ Mobile site.
+ Phone tools. In other words, dial a phone number (1-866 MY-TRAFC) and traffic info is read to you.
+ Traffic.com also offers cameras via TrafficLand.

* You can also access live traffic cameras for London, UK here as well as this London traffic incident map.
http://www.resourceshelf.com gary price

Incorrect info. TrafficLand.com does not aggregate Canadian traffic cameras. This service does.
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/features/camtraffic/index.htm

Traffic cams for Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa ARE part of the SkylineGlobe service.

More Canadian info:
+ Compilation of Traffic Cams for 10 Areas
+ Toronto Cams and Traffic Flow Maps
+ Quebec Traffic Cams
+ Vancouver Traffic Cams
+ Alberta and Calgary (Map)
+ For Other Provinces, Look in the Right Rail for “Provincial Road Reports”