Mapopolis ClearRoute Public Trial

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.mapopolis.com/cooltraffic.jsp' target='_blank'>http://www.mapopolis.com/cooltraffic.jsp</a><br /><br /></div>"Mapopolis.Com, Inc. announced today the availability for public trial of its new Mapopolis Clear Route traffic optimized routing package. The new software, combined with a PDA and Global Positioning System device provides users real-time routing that avoids traffic slow-downs and accidents. The new system, which will be available for purchase nation-wide later this month, automatically routes you around traffic. For driver convenience and safety it provides both spoken and visual prompts to alert the driver to each upcoming turn. For users with a internet-connected PDA such as a Pocket PC Phone, the data is updated dynamically throughout the trip, and the user re-routed based upon current road conditions.<br /><br />“It’s really a breakthrough,” said Mapopolis Vice President Jeremy Straub, “It helps you get there faster – without having to listen for traffic updates on the radio and then try to figure out how to get around them.<br /><br />The software uses the actual road speeds to adjust your route, so if a road is just going slightly below the posted speed, the route may not need to be adjusted. If it is going significantly below the normal speed or an accident has caused a dead-stop, then the route would be automatically re-calculated. Either way, Mapopolis chooses the quickest way to get you there."

[Wuss912]

shure now they come out with this now that i no longer have my wireless internet connection..

[Fitch]

Love the direct install of the CAB file! These Mapopolis folks must be real, actual, Pocket PC users. But then the 10MB Map file is struggling like mad to download. I'm gonna run out of battery before this works. Anybody get this going, yet?
I live in LA, the capitol of random traffic patterns, and I really wonder what traffic will be like one day, when everyone has such a system-- as soon as an accident happens, everyone will be re-routed through surface streets, then the surface streets will clog up, and then the freeway will be clear. Viscious cycle!

[spaceman]

This can use up your GPRS allocation quickly. I d/l'ed the program and the LA map. I connected to the Internet on my ipaq via BT to my T68i. Created a route. I can see the driving directions listed which took expected route which stayed mostly on the freeways.

I let Mapopolis d/l the latest traffic info. Program re-routed the navigation based on traffic which is definitely cool! The data downloaded for traffic update was 469kb! So I can't imagine doing letting Mapopolis automatically update traffic data every 20 minutes like this.

[Jason Dunn]

Well, it might chew up bandwidth, but remember the biggest problem with wireless data services is that no one is using them. :-) It's a vicious cycle - we won't get true 3G speeds until the carriers see the profit in it, and there's no profit for them until people start using the service, and there are few killer apps that make the service worthwhile...my hope is that with flat-rate GPRS we'll see people start to use applications that will drive the carriers to offer more speed.

The process needs to start somewhere, and this seems like a good place. :-)