What does Route Scanner do?Enter your start and destination in the relevant boxes and press "Search". Traffic incidents will appear in a list on the right as well as on a map. The incidents are colour coded according to their severity. You can sort the list by severity (default) or by route order (i.e. in journey order from start to finish). You can also view the directions (by clicking "Show directions") Each map incident on the list has a "map" link - clicking on this will highlight the incident on the map. Route Scanner automatically updates to give you the latest traffic information. You can specify how often by selecting an option and clicking "Update" and can alter the route manually (if the the proposed one is not the route you plan to take).
How does it work?Briefly, it uses a number of different sources to work out where traffic information is located. Then it works out the route between your Start and Destination (using the excellent Google Maps) and displays any traffic information located on or near the route. It uses a number of RSS feeds until a nasty company pulled the plug on the most useful ones :-(
How does it make money?It doesn't unfortunately but hey, money isn't everything.
What are the latest features?In April 2010 Route Scanner underwent a facelift. New features include:
- Ability to manually alter the route (just drag the on the route)
- Use of Google Maps (version 3) - so it now loads faster
- Now works well on smartphones such as the iPhone
- Can automatically use your current location (e.g. via GPS in a smartphone) as the journey starting point
- W3C standards compliant
What browers does it work on?It should work on Internet Explorer 7+, Firefox 1+, Safari 3+, Google Chrome, Opera 8+ and recent versions of Mozilla.
What happened to the speed cameras?Not many people used this feature so in the name of simplicity it went (also it takes a fair amount of effort to the keep the camera locations up to date).
Any plans for the future?Route Scanner has been evolving ever since its birth in 2007. What I'd love is for Google to license the idea and integrate it directly into Google Maps (as part of the traffic overlay) - that would be very neat, and lots more people would benefit from this simple but effective (IMHO) application.
Please do get in touch if you have any feature requests or ideas!
About Route Scanner: Route Scanner uses live traffic information (e.g. accidents, roadworks and delays) combined with a route planner to calculate which incidents could affect that particular journey. It combines the power of Google Maps with real-time information provided by the Highways Agency using the TPEG standard. Route Scanner doesn't just look for traffic and travel updates on motorways and other major roads but throughout the road network. I wrote it because I found travel information websites clunky to use and liable to information overload - seeing every traffic incident over a whole region is generally not that helpful as you're bombarded by data with little or no relevance to your journey.