Beat Traffic for Free with your BlackBerry

Traffic services are now very popular: they warn you about accidents, construction, and other delays which might impact your trip. There is no doubt these services are worth the cost if you live or often drive in congested areas. We looked at Traffic.com, a service that allows you to receive traffic information in a number of ways, via your BlackBerry, their website, or by receiving alerts via text message or via voice-mail. Traffic.com now features a mobile web version of their real-time traffic alert system located at mobi.traffic.com.

The system currently covers 49 US metros. You pick your city from a drop down list on your BlackBerry and then choose a highway or click “Hotspots” to see the 10 most congested roads in your metro. Traffic.com uses a nifty and intuitive thermometer graphic to show the relative congestion on each road. You can drill down into a particular highway and see average and slowest speed, delay in minutes and incident reports.

Local map with real time accident reports.

Traffic.com is the only really good free traffic site I’ve seen so far. Now to make the service even more efficient, you’ll have to register on their web site, free again. You can setup the routes you’re frequently using such as the one you take every morning to go to work. After a few alert setups, you will receive by email on your BlackBerry warning about traffic that could impact your route. The alert system is very well done: you select the highways you will be using every day and the approximate time so that alerts will be sent to you only if they are within your route and timeframe.

Create customized reports for your daily routes.

In summary, this is an excellent site to bookmark and which for sure will keep you in bed a few more hours in the morning when there is no point of taking the car to be stuck in traffic!

## This Article Was Originally Published by AllBlackBerry.com