Abiding by the route directions provided through your in-car GPS system has certainly made road travel considerably less troublesome over the last few years -- in the main. However, while in-car GPS isn’t to be scoffed at, the added attraction of traffic avoidance is something that would take the experience up a notch.
Dash Navigation introduces traffic monitoring functionality to its Dash Express GPS system. Credit: Dash.
Beating the competition to the traffic punch, Dash Navigations has this week revealed its new Dash Express system, which provides drivers with real-time traffic information via the dashboard according to the parameters of their specific route.
“As a consumer who used to rely on the radio for my traffic information, I always hoped to hear something about my specific roads,” commented Dash Navigations director of product management Mark Williamson. “Our device actually gives you that personalized information -- not only on highways, but we can also tell you what traffic conditions are like along the arterials around you.”
Speaking in an ABCNews report, Williams outlined that the concept for Dash Express sprang from being stuck in a traffic jam lamenting on the utter ridiculousness of cars not being able to communicate their positioning to one another.
“That just seemed logical. If a car's stuck in traffic, why can't it share that data with all the other cars to help the other people?” he explained. “We do that with traffic. That is really what we're doing. We are having cars talk to each other about traffic data.”
The system works by transmitting speed and position information to waiting cell towers, which, in turn, relay speed alterations through satellites to other Dash systems in the cars of fellow road users. Drivers subsequently swallowed up by traffic would have their (unfortunate) information distributed to other drivers following similar routes, who are then able to reroute in order to dodge any upcoming gridlock.
Dash Navigations offers that its system is somewhat like a social network for drivers. The more users that join that network the more its overall levels of coverage and accuracy will increase. Williamson also reveals that the traffic levels of an entire U.S. metropolitan area could be thoroughly covered by as few as two or three hundred drivers equipped with Dash Express.
Other features of the Dash Express system include the ability to not only locate gas stations along defined routes, but also the specific prices-per-gallon too. It will also search out coffee shops and any other store or stop-off point the user chooses to highlight as a point of interest for their upcoming journey.
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