Purpose

The mission of TomTom is helping our customers arrive at their destinations faster, more safely and more reliably, regardless of their locations. We developed TomTom Intermediate Traffic to deliver detailed, real-time traffic content to business customers who integrate it into their own applications. Target customers for TomTom Intermediate Traffic include automotive OEMs, web and application developers, and governments. We deliver bulk traffic flow information that provides a comprehensive view of the entire road network.

TomTom delivered our first live traffic product in 2007 and our experience has taught us how to continue delivering the best traffic products in the market. Our real-time traffic products are created by merging multiple data sources, including anonymized measurement data from over 650 million GPS-enabled devices. Using highly granular data, gathered on nearly every stretch of road, we can calculate travel times and speeds for virtually any day or time. We focus on our travel information so our customers can focus on their own business objectives.

What is TomTom's Intermediate Traffic API?

The TomTom Intermediate Traffic API enables business customers to download real-time TomTom traffic data for their server-based systems.

The data provided is:

• suitable for processing on the receiving end for online applications
• for delivery to client devices
• for analysis and display

Since customers are provided with direct access to the traffic data, they have control of more variables, such as the frequency rate at which the data is pulled from the server.

Product features & benefits

A detailed overview of the product features can be found on the data format specific documentation pages for each product. In the following we list a few highlights and their benefits.

TomTom Traffic Incidents

The TomTom Traffic Incidents service provides information on the current observed congestion and incidents on roads in all countries where we offer this service. Traffic 'incidents' in this context includes information like closed roads, lane closures, construction zones, and accidents.

Here is a selection of typical features and characteristics of the data:

• Updates every minute: This ensures access to the most up-to-date and accurate information.
• Global coverage: Provides access to real-time traffic information in many countries worldwide. See the Market Coverage complete list.
• TMC or OpenLR Location Referencing: Delivers flexibility and seamless coverage.
• Prediction: Improves route-planning for long trips; improves the estimated time of arrival.
• HOV Jams: Delivers speed information that can inform road authorities about how HOV lanes are used at different times of the day and days of the week.
• Turn-Dependent Jams: Provides more accurate information for routing.
• Weather Messages: Provides warnings about weather that will cause traffic delays.
• Jam Tail Warnings: Helps drivers avoid potentially dangerous traffic situations.

Figure 1: Rendering of TomTom Intermediate Traffic Incidents

TomTom Traffic Flow / Flow Detailed / Flow Detailed Legacy

Our flow services provide information on speed and travel times by road segment. There are three different flavors that differ in road coverage and road segmentation:

• TomTom Traffic Flow: Covers the TMC road network and a similar network in countries where TMC is not available (also see Market Coverage for countries with TMC).
• TomTom Traffic Flow Detailed: This service offers a higher road coverage compared to TomTom Intermediate Traffic Flow.
• TomTom Intermediate Traffic Flow Detailed Legacy: The road coverage of this service is higher than TomTom Intermediate Traffic Flow and similar to TomTom Intermediate Traffic Flow Detailed. Since the road segments are shorter in the feeds of this service, the map-matching effort is higher than for TomTom Intermediate Traffic Flow Detailed.

Here is a selection of typical features and characteristics of the data:

• Updates every minute: This ensures access to the most up-to-date and accurate information.
• Global coverage: Provides access to real-time traffic information in many countries worldwide. See the Market Coverage complete list.
• TMC or OpenLR Location Referencing: Delivers flexibility and seamless coverage.
• Prediction: Improves route-planning for long trips; improves the estimated time of arrival.
• HOV Flow: Delivers speed information that can inform road authorities about how HOV lanes are used at different times of the day and days of the week.

For a complete list of individual features and their support by flavor and data format, see the FAQ.

Figure 2: Rendering of TomTom Intermediate Traffic Flow

TomTom Live Speed Restrictions

Provides the latest real-time information about speed limits on electronic signs and speed limits in roadwork locations. This data is intended to be used in conjunction with static speed limit information provided by a TomTom map.

Available feeds and formats

Our traffic and speed limit information is provided in different data formats:

• DATEX II is an industry standard for information exchange between service providers, application developers, and traffic management centers. The data format is XML based. More information is at http://www.datex2.eu.
• Protobuf is a method for encoding structured data in an efficient yet extendable format. Protobuf is highly recommended for TomTom Traffic Flow since it is more efficient for the transmission of data than XML based formats. See http://code.google.com/p/protobuf for more information.

Not every service supports all data formats. In the following table we explain which service can be used with which formats, and we link to the corresponding documentation pages.

Use cases

TomTom Intermediate Traffic has the following common use cases:

• Navigation and mobile applications: current and predicted speed, and delay information enables better route calculations and more accurate ETAs. These help drivers save time, fuel, and money.
• Navigation and mobility applications: real-time content enables the creation of a visual layer of live traffic congestion and events that can be displayed on a map or navigation application.
• Fleet, Logistics and On-Demand services: routing drivers around traffic incidents enables more accurate ETAs and improves customer service.
• Traffic management: real-time traffic insights enable road authorities, highway agencies, and traffic management centers to monitor traffic with an accurate, detailed view of average speeds and incidents across the entire road network.

A secure connection

TomTom Intermediate Traffic is a secure service that uses an API Key in combination with a client certificate. The process to request a certificate for your API Key is described in the Authentication page.

Alternatively, customers accessing the service can also connect from a (set of) fixed IP address(es) that were previously assigned to the API Key. The recommended way, however, is access via client certificate, since there is no restriction to a specific IP address when using a certificate.

Coverage

TomTom is continually expanding the geographic coverage of our real-time traffic. For the most recent information, contact your TomTom account manager. We offer real-time traffic information via the TomTom Intermediate Traffic API in the countries shown in the following map image:

Figure 3: Global coverage of TomTom Intermediate Traffic

For a complete list of countries supported by the TomTom Intermediate Traffic Service product, see the Market Coverage page.