Traffic, Not Basketball, Most Likely To Drive Fans Mad This March
Written by Tele Atlas
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Data from GPS users show that of all host cities in this year’s basketball tournament, Houston tops the field with the longest persistent traffic jam, averaging 8.5 miles every day on Texas 6
Concord, MA – March 16, 2010 –
Sports fans associate March with college basketball, but this year a
new kind of madness may emerge. TomTom, the world’s leading provider of
location and navigation solutions, has revealed which of the college
basketball tournament’s host cities has the longest persistent traffic
jam. At the center of the bracket? It’s not Indianapolis, host city of
the final games in the competition, but Houston, with a daily average
8.5 mile long backup on Texas 6. Texas 6 connects Houston and Waco. The
most congested area of the road is between Northwest Freeway and
Westpark Tollway.
The results were calculated using data from
Speed Profiles™, the historical speed database from TomTom’s licensing
business unit Tele Atlas that helps personal and professional fleet
drivers find the best routes. Speed Profiles aggregates, anonymously,
the actual speeds that millions of GPS-enabled drivers have traveled
over the last two years to provide the most accurate view of average
speeds on both primary and secondary roads. It is incorporated on
TomTom GPS devices as IQ Routes™ to guide drivers away from congestion,
not only on major highways but on all routes in the road network.
A backup was considered a traffic jam if
drivers could travel at only 70% or less of the posted speed limit,
meaning on average an hour long trip included 20 minutes or more of
significant delays. Data in the study were organized to show congestion
seven days a week on non-highway roads to provide a truer, more
detailed picture of the overall traffic situation in the host cities.
The study found that:
• Houston’s
traffic congestion is particularly bad. Beyond Texas 6, Westeimer Road,
the West Loop, the Northwest Freeway, the Southwest Freeway and San
Felipe Street all have long daily average backups that extend between
3.1 miles and 7.3 miles in length.
• The
top host cities after Houston with the longest traffic jams are: Salt
Lake City (6.9 miles average daily backup on UT 154, especially between
UT 201 and W 7800 S); Jacksonville (4.5 miles average daily backup on
Atlantic Boulevard between Southside Boulevard and the Atlantic Ocean);
San Jose (4.1 miles average daily backup on North 1st Street
between CA 237 and Interstate 280); and Spokane (3.2 miles average
daily backup on North Division Street between N Newport Highway and the
split at N Ruby Street).
• Indianapolis ranked nearly last with just 1.6 miles of average daily backup on North Meridian Street.
To see a new kind of championship bracket
showing the host cities’ positions based on longest traffic jams, or
for more information, go to www.teleatlaspresskit.com.
Fans attending the tournament can steer clear
of these traffic jams with TomTom, the premier car navigation solution
that also features the latest, most up to date map, so users can go
confidently with the knowledge that the directions they receive are
both accurate and efficient.
About TomTom N.V.
TomTom N.V. (AEX: TOM2) is the world’s leading provider of location and
navigation solutions. Headquartered in the Netherlands it has over
3,000 employees worldwide. More than 40 million people use its
solutions every day, in the form of dedicated portable navigation
devices (PNDs), in-dash car systems or tracking and tracing solutions
for fleet management. In addition, hundreds of millions of people use
TomTom’s digital maps on the internet or mobile phones.
In 2009, TomTom reported €1.5 billion in
revenues and a €340 million net cash flow from operating activities.
More information about TomTom can be found at www.TomTom.com.
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