SmarttRoutes Traffic is slipping

[Lauire Goldstein]

Something's has changed with SmarttRoutes Traffic in Boston in the past few
months that I can not put my finger on. My office workers in Methuen and
Andover and I all agree that the *1 service they provide has slipped with
poor reporting, a bad attitude, callousness and careless disregard that has
worsened since Thanksgiving. Areas of my concern are:

reports are too fast and not updated too frequently
incomprehensible ( I can't understand the male voice announcer at all in the
afternoons, mumbles, distracted, etc for the reports route 93 through
Wilmington & Methuen)
in the morning, when I head down route 495 in Milford, the announcer sounds
so disinterested & does the same exact traffic report for over an hour. It
seems he doesn't what he talking about. He's one that sounds like he clears
his throat before every report. One word - sucrets! Maybe they've
subcontracted their work to another cheaper big dig group of the contract
all to make money from Romney's Mass Highway Department.
Mass Highway and WCVB Channel 5 boast their affiliation with SmarttRoutes,
but, I hope I know what they're doing. If you do call to complain, wait till
after your report when you call into their traffic computer system, after
you press 931*, press 4 and the * key. You'll be connected to Pete, who's
obstinate and will disagree, call you a liar, says he has no time to listen
to your crap and hang up. My friend called up and told me she asked if they
would bring back the time tamping feature of when traffic reports were
recorded. They said not sure and transferred to Jeff Larson their Boss, and
Cindy who was snippy the one time I talked to her. I don't know if it's the
same Cindy from Ch. 5 though but it would make sense. She does seem bitchy &
angry. There are a cast of characters there, including Scott, Bob
(Whalie<sp>? cute) and John

Any others from the NG has seen this as well. Or I am crazy :>{{}

[John F. Carr]

In article <RZudnRVzM-4...@comcast.com>,

Lauire Goldstein <l_gol...@andover.gillette.com> wrote:
>Something's has changed with SmarttRoutes Traffic in Boston in the past few
>months that I can not put my finger on.

Most of their publicly viewable cameras have failed over the last few
months. My page <http://www.mit.edu/~jfc/cameras.html> links to the
cameras I know about. Five are "temporarily unavailable". One is
showing a daytime image with a current nighttime timestamp. One has
a broken up picture. Five are functioning.

--
John Carr (j...@mit.edu)

[Garrett Wollman]

In article <RZudnRVzM-4...@comcast.com>,
Lauire Goldstein <l_gol...@andover.gillette.com> wrote:

>subcontracted their work to another cheaper big dig group of the contract
>all to make money from Romney's Mass Highway Department.
>Mass Highway and WCVB Channel 5 boast their affiliation with SmarttRoutes,

Metro Networks, Shadow Broadcast Systems, and SmartRoute Systems are
all one company, part of the Westwood One media empire (which means
that all of the staff actually work for Sumner Redstone, as WON is a
paper tiger).

There is another outfit doing traffic in the Boston area: Mobility
Technologies, which is owned by private equity firms. Their customers
in the Boston area appear to include Sunbeam (WHDH-TV), Radio One
(WBOT 97.7 Brockton and WILD 1090), and Greater Media (WBOS 92.9
Brookline, WTKK 96.9, WROR-FM 105.7 Framingham, WMJX 106.7). They
also operate the traffic.com Web site.

-GAWollman

--
Garrett A. Wollman | As the Constitution endures, persons in every
wol...@csail.mit.edu | generation can invoke its principles in their own
Opinions not those | search for greater freedom.
of MIT or CSAIL. | - A. Kennedy, Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. ___ (2003)

[JMello]

You're crazy, and you have way too much time on your hands.

-JMello

[Donal Waide]

I recently started working in Woburn, commuting from Somerville every
day. While we generally get a free flow of traffic I have noticed that
WBZ's traffic on the 3's NEVER mentions the 93 North to 95/128 split
which can get congested once a week.