Skip to main content

Traffic alert app from Pennsylvania company launches in UK

Motorists using major highways in England can now access real-time, personalised traffic and roadway travel information on their smartphones by downloading a free app developed by Philadelphia-based Information Logistics. The Hands-Free Traffic Talker England (HFT England) app audibly broadcasts information about a motorist's specific travel route, freeing the user from the distractions of touching the phone, reading messages, or listening to irrelevant traffic alerts.
August 6, 2012 Read time: 2 mins

Motorists using major highways in England can now access real-time, personalised traffic and roadway travel information on their smartphones by downloading a free app developed by Philadelphia-based Information Logistics. The Hands-Free Traffic Talker England (HFT England) app audibly broadcasts information about a motorist's specific travel route, freeing the user from the distractions of touching the phone, reading messages, or listening to irrelevant traffic alerts.

England's 503 Highways Agency is providing traffic information and timely advisories about all of its roadways to Information Logistics. Advisories concern lane closures, active road works, accidents, traffic congestion, and other conditions affecting travel. The Highways Agency, an Executive Agency of the United Kingdom's 1837 Department for Transport, is responsible for operating, maintaining, and improving the strategic road network of England, outside London.

"We want to allow road users to access live and targeted traffic information in a safe manner when they need it. The availability of smartphones provides a way to do just that, and the introduction of this hands-free app is really exciting, it being both iPhone and 1812 Android compatible," said Highways Agency director for traffic management Simon Sheldon-Wilson.

"Our collaboration with Information Logistics is a good example of the public and private sectors working together to provide motorists with real-time traffic news and constant updates about incidents on the network," Sheldon-Wilson added.

Information Logistics President Mary Farrell said this is the company's first overseas launch of the traffic app. "We're just very delighted that the Highways Agency saw the value that our app can deliver to motorists," Farrell said. "We like to tell people that our app moves with them, and now we can say it's moved to England. This launch represents an important breakthrough for our team here." The app is currently used in the US by the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission to provide location specific traffic advisories to motorists using its toll-road system.

Related Content

  • November 13, 2012
    Launch of first US smartphone commuter rail ticketing system
    Customers in Massachusetts Bay on the US east coast can now purchase and then display rail tickets and passes using the MBTA mTicket app for iPhone and Android. Blackberry devices will also be supported soon. Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) and Masabi US, the transit mobile ticketing provider, jointly announced the launch of the US’ first full smartphone commuter rail ticketing system. The tickets are displayed on the phone’s screen as an encrypted barcode and as a human readable ticket.
  • December 11, 2014
    Sorting sensible from shiny in tolling technology
    Instead of always striving for the latest shiny toys Kevin Hoeflich of HNTB advises a 10-steps method for selecting the most appropriate technology. Amid the hype and razzmatazz surrounding the launch of Apple’s iPhone 6, the company also announced its new mobile payment system, Apple Pay. Built into the new iPhone 6, Apple Pay works at 220,000 merchants across America and is supported by major US banks and the big three credit card companies.
  • January 11, 2016
    Edinburgh launches live transport updates in Google Maps
    Passengers of Lothian Buses and Edinburgh Trams will be the first in Scotland to access real-time service information on Google Maps thanks to a partnership between Transport for Edinburgh and Google. Google Maps on desktop and mobile now uses real-time predictions to deliver more accurate directions between any two places in Edinburgh, taking into account delays and diversions, with live updates from every bus and tram in the fleet. Google Maps has an overview of where all buses and trams are on the
  • October 7, 2016
    Good news for road agencies from Gewi
    Gewi’s message at the ITS World Congress Melbourne is good news for road agencies: today’s vehicles generate data that can be collected by the company’s TIC Software, which can then automatically create an incident response to be processed by a road agency.