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:
http://maps.yahoo.com/traffic.rss?csz=14607&mag=4&minsev=2
The parameters are:
- 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)
Location:
Radius:
Severity:
URL: http://maps.yahoo.com/traffic.rss?csz=14607&mag=3&minsev=1
mason (May 2, 2005 at 10:28 am)
woah John, clicked here from LifeHacker, congrats on the mention.
CSH is starting to rule the blogosphere. a few cshers showed up on boing boing last week (including me) and now your article on LifeHacker.
-mason from CSH
Patrick Haney (May 3, 2005 at 8:49 am)
In the words of those Guinness guys, "Brilliant!"
And a fellow CSHer? Excellent.
Now if only I could incorporate this into some sort of on-screen navigation in a vehicle that has WiFi and Google Maps....
hatch.org (May 3, 2005 at 6:20 pm)
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Greg Sadetsky (May 4, 2005 at 8:49 am)
Hello,
Since reading your excellent post, I've created a little Google Maps hack that integrates traffic information from the RSS feed you discovered into the Google Maps inteface.
http://supergreg.hopto.org/google-yahoo/
John Resig (May 4, 2005 at 9:22 am)
Awesome awesome awesome! This is exactly what I've been looking for. Thanks a million Greg, I really appreciate it!
CamWorld (May 4, 2005 at 1:15 pm)
Google Maps + Traffic Conditions
A few weeks ago I was completely blown away at this awesome combination of technology, Housing Maps. It takes RSS feeds from the Craigslist apartment rentals and overlayas it in real-time onto Google Maps using the Google API. it reminded...
Richard Law (May 4, 2005 at 2:10 pm)
This is sweet! Nice integration Greg! I'd like to get the Yahoo! traffic feed on my phone. ;.) Does anyone know if there are RSS readers for mobile phones?
The Sock Drawer (May 5, 2005 at 5:20 pm)
Getting Their Efficiently
From time to time I like to rant and rave about the possibility of a new generation of fuels. So, to get back on the horse after my move here's a quick collection of things I stuck away on recent strides to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
WindsOfChan...
Greg Sadetsky (May 7, 2005 at 3:10 am)
Well, that was fun while it lasted... Yahoo's RSS feeds have been declawed of latitude/longitude information...
Does anybody know of another site providing traffic information?
John Resig (May 7, 2005 at 7:52 am)
Greg: Ouch... that sucks - and no, I don't. This site is still, probably, your best shot.
Greg Sadetsky (May 7, 2005 at 11:38 am)
Ok, we're back... ;-) Now with Traffic.com data... let's see how long this will hold...
http://supergreg.hopto.org/google-traffic.com/
Thanks for your support
Marcy Ganow (May 17, 2005 at 11:22 am)
Greg & John,
Great job on the traffic maps. I notice you get the point data (lat long) data to shop up well... but wondered if either of you had put your mind to displaying the segment data showing roadway speeds - such as what shows on some of the State Agency websites in Washington and Phoenix, AZ
LUX.ET.UMBRA (May 17, 2005 at 11:15 pm)
Vehicular traffic conditions RSS
Either use the little URL generator or just use the directions below. LifeHacker: Now you can check the best route home from your RSS reader - Yahoo! offers traffic conditions data via RSS. The URL to add to your newsreader...
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Track FedEx with RSS (and other stuff)
Chris (August 9, 2005 at 7:57 pm)
What about a network link through google earth that provides real time data right through the application itself?
John Resig (August 9, 2005 at 8:18 pm)
Chris Sure, that's definitely an option now - but Google Earth wasn't out three months ago, heh. Thanks for the tip!
Tom (August 18, 2005 at 10:11 am)
I have seen the traffic.rss feed stop working as if the format of tokens has changed. If you post http://maps.yahoo.com/traffic.rss
it returns XML stateing not city entered.
if you pass the proper tokens such as
http://maps.yahoo.com/traffic.rss?csz=14607&mag=4&minsev=2
I get the following. What is going on here?
The XML page cannot be displayed
Cannot view XML input using XSL style sheet. Please correct the error and then click the Refresh button, or try again later.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A string literal was expected, but no opening quote character was found. Error processing resource 'http://maps.yahoo.com/t...
width="94%" cellpadding=4 cellspacing=0>
John Resig (August 18, 2005 at 10:21 am)
Tom I'm not sure what's happening - it looks like some HTML is sneaking through into your XML (which is bad). I clicked that same exact URL and it worked perfectly - maybe Yahoo!s servers were having trouble when you tried that? I recommend giving it another go.
Juxtaposition (August 20, 2005 at 12:06 am)
RSS feed for traffic conditions data and maps
The technical details of how to find your local traffic feed are at http://ejohn.org/blog/traffic-conditions-data/ It's pretty easy to set up...
Chappy (August 20, 2005 at 8:45 am)
Re: RSS not working on 8/18... I'm getting the same error. If you dig a little deeper you find that yahoo is returning a 404 error (not found) but and the content-type is set to text/xml.
The google/yahoo traffic page by Greg is working so maybe there is something that has changed?
Shawn Hogan (November 17, 2005 at 1:41 am)
I found an XML feed with roadway speeds (with longitude/latitude of sensor locations) from Yahoo's new beta maps... Might be useful for some people.
http://www.digitalpoint.com/~shawn/2005/11/freeway-traffic-in-google-local-maps.html
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Atschikura (January 28, 2007 at 12:05 pm)
RSS ile Yapabileceðiniz Þeyler
Temel olarak bir sunucudan araþtýrma ve bilgi alýmýný gerektiren herhangi bir iþi RSS ile gerçekleþtirebilirsiniz. Hem de otomatik ve aralýksýz olarak. Aþaðýdaki liste insanlarý bir RSS kaynak okuyucusu kullanmaya ikna etmek için de kullanýlabilir. ...