[Routing] Journey time prediction/traffic flow

[camaj]

Hi guys, I've been searching the web for a while in
search for a map or something that gives an accurate
journey time between 2 points by car. Google maps has
this feature but it only gives you one result,
presumably an average or just a guess based on the
distance.

As we know, the journey time from A to B often changes
dramatically in a given 24 hour period, a two hour
journey in rush hour can often be a 10 minute one at
4am

My first question is, are there any websites or
programs that already have this feature? If not it
would be a huge selling point for OSM. I believe more
people would visit for accurate journey times than any
current reason.

I've spent a while looking through FAQ's and this
lists archive. The closest I've come is a thread from
a german student proposing a similar thing.

Based on those replies my assumptions are:
1) This is for motor vehicles only. Cyclists and
pedestrians are usually limited by their own speed
which is usually dependent on distance.

2) The driver is looking for the fastest route and is
driving a "fast" car. Most cars are faster than the
speed limit or traffic allows. Other options are of
low priority.

There are a few approaches to implementing this from
fairly simplistic to comprehensive.All solutions
would, obviously, require a upgrade to the OSM with a
route planner. Each section of road would have to be
tagged 24 times (I think hourly segments would be
sufficient) with either the typical speed for that
hour or typical journey time.

The real problem is how to get this data. The simplist
solution is to just change the tags and have users
manually. The advantage is a GPS device isn't needed
to contribute however there will be a slightly lower
level of accuracy and, if speed rather than time is
the measurement, there could be confusion between km/h
and mph. This might be an acceptable compromise if it
meant a lot more people could participate.

Other solutions would require software to analyse gpx
files and extract the required data. I'm not familiar
with GPS or the OSM software but for the right people
it'd be fairly easy. 

I looked at 2 different GPX files and it's clear that
not all are created equal. One contained almost no
data, and the second had many data fields. I noticed
that it recorded the speed but clearly the speed could
be calculated by analytical software using the
timestamp and co-ordinates.

Clearly this solution would exclude some GPS devices
and would require multiple trips to record the data.
However, since it's automated, the driver could just
leave the GPS device running day to day rather than
make specific trips.

Of course, it may be possible to have an automated
system sublimented by the manual system, which cover
most bases. For a large majority of roads, the typical
speed/journey time would be the same for most of the
day. Supplying this data would be an easy, if
labourious, task for someone who knows the layout of
the road (i.e. traffic light positions, etc)

What do you all think? Is this a good idea? Who would
be able to take this idea forward? I'd do it myself if
I had the requisite talent and access

Camaj


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