Reducing traffic congestion is now easier than ever

An effective way to reduce the likelihood of congestion is to inform drivers of potential blockages before they occur, giving them time to find a new route.

TomTom’s next-generation Road Event Reporter is a new, free service available to cities, road authorities, event organizers and others seeking to reduce congestion. It is designed to provide information on roadwork or stoppages to millions of digital map users.

With Road Event Reporter, it is easier than ever for these entities to report road closures, accidents, and other potential traffic disruptions. The web-based application has an easy-to-use interface that enables our trusted partners to identify potential issues by visualizing current traffic flow; quickly creating and editing road events on the screen; and viewing current, upcoming and past events to ensure their accuracy.

You can imagine the real-time benefits for drivers – and anyone in communities impacted by traffic disruptions. By quickly rerouting, or planning a new time to travel so potential stoppages can be avoided, drivers can reduce or improve three precious commodities: time, fuel and stress.

In the past, if several roads in a neighborhood were to be closed during a carnival or festival, the authority would have had to enter the information for each impacted road painstakingly. Now, the new Road Event Reporter has a simplified user interface, enabling the user to quickly and accurately draw lines encompassing the parameters of the areas to be closed. Thus, every roadway is included – in a fraction of the time.

Designed to be intuitive, the tool allows for accurate changes to be made in a manner of minutes. A simplified feedback loop lets users see if the data entered is correct, and when it will enter into effect. By logging back on, they can see if the data input has been accepted by TomTom’s system and will be published, or if it has been rejected because of an entry error that needs to be corrected.

Another important advantage of this approach is that only trusted partners and other authorities may access it to supply information that affects navigation routing. Other solutions offer the general public a forum to provide comments on local traffic. The focus of the Road Event Reporter is on getting reliable, mission-critical information to drivers as quickly and accurately as possible.

While many online forums are available to share opinions that might be helpful to many in the community, our focus is strictly limited to getting useful, factual information to the public quickly and through as many channels as possible. And that means we allow access to any government agency or other ‘trusted’ organizations, whether they are TomTom customers or not.

For any system that provides critical roadway information, accuracy is key. And any data submitted into the Road Event Reporter system is filtered through TomTom’s traffic fusion engine. That step – along with GPS observations from millions of connected devices through our moderation teams – ensures that each report is validated. Only then is the temporary disruption reported to users via in-dash systems, smartphones, navigation devices, and the internet.

Prior to launch, we have beta tested Road Event Reporter in a number of metropolitan areas and with a variety of user communities. Feedback has been positive and we are excited to now be offering this important service to partners throughout the world.

Every day, TomTom’s location technologies reach hundreds of millions of drivers in 81 countries. Road Event Reporter will further our mission of solving traffic congestion, improving roadway safety and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It’s a duty we share with road authorities, toll operators, engineering and construction firms, and others striving to make road travel easier and safer.

Mapping is at the core of what we do at TomTom. Our mapmaking technology allows us to rapidly detect changes and shorten the time for these updates to be reflected in our maps. With Road Event Reporter and other innovations, we are continuously pushing the boundaries of real-time maps.