DETROIT – May 23, 2006 – Industry-leading traffic information company Inrix Inc. today unveiled the Inrix Dust Network, the first nationwide traffic service to go beyond the limitations of road sensors and provide accurate real-time and predictive traffic speed and flow information for major freeways, highways, arterials and side streets in every major metropolitan area in the U.S.
The Inrix Dust Network represents a traffic technology breakthrough that dramatically improves the accuracy, quality and coverage of traffic information and provides businesses, government agencies and consumers with the information they need to avoid gridlock, and save time and money. It works by combining anonymous, real-time GPS probe data from more than 500,000 commercial fleet, delivery and taxi vehicles across the U.S. with other real-time traffic flow information and hundreds of market-specific criteria that affect traffic – such as construction and road closures, real-time incidents, sporting events, weather forecasts and school schedules, greatly expanding traffic coverage and improving accuracy well beyond any other traffic service on the market today.
Inrix is the first company to successfully transform a large volume of anonymous real-time GPS vehicle probe data into nationwide traffic information. Only Inrix’s proprietary Traffic Fusion Engine incorporates the power of advanced Bayesian analytics to combine GPS probe data with hundreds of other market-specific data sources enabling the most accurate real-time and predictive traffic information and broadest coverage available.
“Until now, the biggest obstacle to delivering useful and relevant traffic flow information to the market has been the extremely limited coverage of road sensor networks,” said Inrix President and CEO Bryan Mistele. “The Inrix Dust Network overcomes these challenges with a revolutionary new approach, making expensive, environmentally obtrusive and often unreliable road sensor networks obsolete.”
Inrix currently provides businesses and regional departments of transportation (DOTs) agencies with real-time traffic incident information for 138 metropolitan markets and with this announcement now provides real-time traffic speed and flow information for more than 30 markets across the country, making Inrix the clear leader in traffic flow coverage. Inrix will continue rolling out its Dust Network in the U.S. and will provide real-time flow information for more than 50 markets by the end of the year. This represents more than 35,000 miles of coverage on freeways, highways, arterials and side streets – more than seven times the coverage of existing road sensor networks.
While some traffic solutions only offer highway-level coverage and are dependent upon extremely expensive and often unreliable road sensor networks for information, the Inrix Dust Network provides high-quality real-time and predictive traffic information in markets where accurate traffic data was not previously available such as Miami, Las Vegas, New York, Tampa, San Antonio and Providence. Extensive recent ground-truth testing of the Inrix Dust Network has shown an 8–15% accuracy advantage over traditional embedded road sensor systems.
In April 2005, Inrix was the first company to spin-out technology as part of Microsoft’s IP Ventures Program, exclusively licensing real-time and predictive traffic technology initially developed by leading scientists and researchers at Microsoft Research.
In a little over a year, Inrix has significantly enhanced this technology and produced the leading real-time and predictive traffic solutions on the market; signed strategic partnerships with mapping and traffic information companies such as Tele Atlas, Clear Channel and Telcontar; and started providing traffic information to more than 20 leading companies in the Web, wireless, portable navigation, broadcast and public sectors.
“Inrix continues making improvements to technology they first licensed from Microsoft Research,” said Marshall Phelps, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Intellectual Property & Licensing. “We are thrilled to partner with emerging companies like Inrix who can bring research projects like this to consumers, especially given this technology’s ability to help all those who try to navigate congested roadways.”
Inrix separately announced today the completion of an oversubscribed $10 million round of Series B funding, led by Bain Capital Ventures with participation from existing investors Venrock Associates and August Capital.
