Traffic Reporting Industry

A key component to the national highway transportation system is the traffic reporting industry. The traffic reporting industry helps motorists with their daily commute from work, school, the stadium and anywhere else they want to travel to. The traffic reporting industry has been around for decades, at least since the 1960s, and has grown with the growth of the United States population. Traffic reporting became popular in the 1960s with the continued growth of major cities across the country.

Traffic reporting began in the large cities like New York, Los Angeles and Miami to aid motorists during their commute. Traffic reports, by today's standards, include locations where accidents are, road closures, vehicle fires, construction zones and delays. Traffic reporting is somewhat of an art for media outlets today as they are used on television, radio and the internet.

Television traffic reports include graphics of local roads with special effects cars on the screen. The cars are one of three different colors; red for jammed, yellow for slow and green for normal speeds. Television traffic reports don't just rely on special effects graphics to tell potential drivers where the problem spots are on the roads. They also rely on live traffic camera shots from traffic reporting networks and local Department of Transportation offices.

Radio stations have a little more difficult of a time conveying information to listeners since they cannot visibly show motorists what is happening on the roadways. Radio traffic reporters need to have a certain gift for gab to be able to correctly relay accidents, construction zones, rollovers and other problems on the roads so motorists listening in their car understand what areas of the roads to avoid.

Internet traffic reporting is not the same as television and radio traffic reporting. There usually aren't any talent on the internet traffic sites. Talent is another word for television and radio hosts. Internet traffic reporting uses the special effects graphics used by television stations and other maps with graphics to describe where traffic problem spots are on the roads. The maps used are like the ones found on Yahoo or Google, with the roadways covered in either red, yellow or green colors explaining what the situation is for motorists.

As the traffic reporting industry grew, so did its coverage. Not before long small market radio stations began adding traffic reports into their daily schedule (called a format) from larger networks that they are affiliated with. As more and more stations began adding traffic reports to their schedule, the industry boomed to astronomical heights. The competition between major radio networks across the country that offered traffic reporting began to buy each other out to get rid of the competition. A couple of companies also merged with each other during the 1990s.

Aside from using cameras strategically placed all over the roads, traffic reporting companies still use spotters driving on the roads timing their commute, helicopters and small airplanes. The airplanes are perfect for flying to accident scenes and finding accidents that might not be in range of the cameras.