NEW YORK /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Westwood One announced a multi-year strategic partnership with AirSage Inc. to combine traffic-speed and flow information derived from cell phone signals with Westwood One's leading traffic-incident reporting expertise. With the expanded depth of information-gathering provided by the partnership, Westwood One's Metro Traffic will improve the accuracy of traffic information available to commuters, offering significant advancements in the reporting of travel times, faster alerts, and better alternative route suggestions. Metro Traffic will begin to roll out the innovative reporting technology in September.
"Our partnership with AirSage merges Metro Traffic's market-leading experience with cutting-edge cellular technology to provide local traffic reports that are simply more accurate than what is currently available anywhere," said Jonathan Marshall, Westwood One EVP, Business Affairs and Strategic Development. "We've been searching for a technology that provides accurate speed and flow data to complement our strategy of providing premium content to our media partners."
As a leading provider of traffic information, Metro Traffic serves 129 markets, with incident-monitoring services covering more than 350,000 miles of roadway. AirSage, the "only U.S. supplier of traffic data from cell phone signaling systems," compiles and analyzes the anonymous real-time experiences of tens of millions of drivers to report up-to-the-minute traffic flows and speeds. The combined offering will vastly expand coverage of secondary roadways and provide best-choice alternatives to minimize the hassles of daily commuting.
AirSage CEO Cy Smith said, "We are excited to partner with Westwood One, the longtime leader in traffic reporting. Our combined technology and data sources will enable Westwood One to provide the most complete, accurate, and timely traffic information to media outlets and to commuters. With this service, drivers will find it easier to avoid congestion and navigate the roadways of America."
"Coupling AirSage's breakthrough technology with our 1000+ experienced traffic experts nationwide lifts traffic reporting accuracy to a new level," said John Frawley, EVP Broadcast, Metro Networks.
AirSage's proprietary software supplies speed, travel time, and traffic-flow information for over 150,000 miles of roadway, including primary and alternate travel routes. This is a notable improvement over systems based on fixed-traffic data sensors that monitor real-time traffic for only about 7000 miles of metropolitan interstates. By relying on the extensive presence of mobile communications technology, AirSage is also able to provide greater visibility into how the nations network of highways and arterials is performing and being used at different times of the day, month, and year.
About Westwood One
Westwood One is a platform-agnostic content company, providing over 150 news, sports, music, talk, entertainment programs, features, and live events to numerous media partners. Through its subsidiaries, Metro Networks/Shadow Broadcast Services, Westwood One provides local content to the radio and TV industries and to the Web. This content includes news, sports, weather, traffic, video news services and other information. SmartRoute Systems manages traffic information centers for state and local departments of transportation and markets traffic and travel content to wireless, Internet, in-vehicle navigation systems and voice portal customers. Westwood One serves more than 5000 radio stations.
About AirSage
AirSage Inc. is the leading provider of reliable and accurate real-time traffic information, providing partners and customers with the highest quality speed, travel-time, and traffic-flow information on more than 150,000 miles of the nation's highways, freeways, primary roadways, and arterial roads. The Atlanta-based company has developed innovative, patented software technology that aggregates anonymous signaling data from wireless mobile operators. AirSage is "currently the only company in the U.S. with a wireless carrier partner that is committed to a national deployment and is the only company with the capability to provide real-time traffic information using this ground-breaking technology."