Accurate and timely traffic information enables road users to make informed decisions to enable them to optimise their route choices by avoiding congestion. Such information is instrumental to transport management as bus and taxi operators can reschedule their fleets in response to prevailing traffic conditions to minimise the effects of traffic congestion on their services. The information can also be used by the traffic management control centres of transport and highway authorities to streamline the timing control of traffic signals and the broadcast of traffic advice via variable message signs. Real-time traffic information is gathered from point-based traffic surveillance and monitoring detectors, and the piecemeal data fitted to interpolate or model road conditions over a transport network. The process of gathering and transforming point-based traffic data to display an area view is computationally intensive and often fails to meet the instant requirements of a real-time traffic information system. The authors propose a real-time traffic multimedia Internet geographic information system that is capable of transmitting video images and modelling road conditions in real time. The prototype system is capable of calibrating data from traffic closed-circuit television images that are modelled over the entire road network for broadcasting to road users on the world-wide web with a time lapse of 3–4 minutes. The authors also suggest potential applications of the prototype system.
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