I'll admit that I didn't give the Yahoo Traffic RSS feed data that close of a look the first time around (I had just assumed that it was purely 'boring' textual data), but now that Greg has posted a link to his Google-Yahoo Traffic Maps mashup, I see that each of the traffic incidents include lat/long - making them easily placable on any map. This is too rich! Now, if only a method of getting driving directions and then attempting to figure out if any of the incidents will affect your travel. (hint! hint!)
So I was poking around the Dashboard Widget archive on the official Apple site and spotted a Yahoo Traffic Conditions widget. This is interesting because they are somehow getting the data from their web site in a easy-to-parse format. So, I peeked under the hood and, sure enough, there's an RSS feed for traffic conditions! A url will look something like this:
csz The location from which you want to do your search - as far as I know only cities are supported at the moment. You can provide both a zipcode, a city or an address - all seem to work.
mag The level of 'magnification'. 3 = 4 Miles, 4 = 10 Miles, 5 = 40 Miles
minsev The minimum severity of the traffic condition. 1 = Minor, 2 = Moderate, 4 = Major, 5 = Critical
This is definitely exciting, I can see lots of applications of it already. My friend, Darrin, is already working on a VXML Traffic app - so that you can call a number and get the current traffic conditions. So there's that, at least
Updated: Apparently pre tags don't care too much for links - the link has been fixed.
Update: Generate the above URL quickly and easily. (Requested by LifeHacker)
