[BC] Traffic reports

[Brian Urban]

In Dallas/fort Worth, one station has at least two aircraft and a person in
the studio monitoring scanners.  They cover Dallas, Tarrant, and Denton
counties (Dallas and Tarrant by air, Denton by radio/telephone).  They do a
pretty good job, but still don't get all the latest backups.  Listeners help
a lot.  During Texas/OU weekend, they used to expand coverage by air all the
way to the Red River.


On 8/31/06 2:58 PM, "Thomas G. Osenkowsky" <tosenkowsky at prodigy.net> wrote:

>> Now you have stomped on another pet peeve of your usually mild-mannered
> Editor.
> 
> I have the same opinion.....however....it's a matter of practicality.
> Here in the Danbury, CT area we have people who commute to
> NYC from the Waterbury, CT area. Easily a 2 hour each way
> run with no impediments. Add any accidents, lane closures, etc.
> and it escalates from there.
> 
> We have I-84, I-684, Saw Mill River Parkway and many two
> lane major secondary roads. Even with aircraft, it is nearly
> impossible to adequately cover all these roads with accuracy.
> For the Greater Danbury area this would be a 20 mile radius
> from the center of Danbury.
> 
> One would need multiple sources of coverage from 0530 to
> 0900. When I worked in Mt. Kisco, NY we used a CB radio
> and that gave us a wealth of information about I-684 and the
> Saw Mill. But someone had to man the radio fulltime. Tapping
> into regular commuters is one resource, however, an incident
> can occur two minutes after they have passed.
> 
> Getting accurate, timely traffic info is a difficult task, requiring
> major resources. Even the NYC stations have to cover NJ,
> Long Island, upstate....a tough job even for a helicopter. Not
> even the State and local police can be on top of every incident.
> Many times we tell them what is going on. We get calls from
> listeners in a traffic jam asking us what's going on.
> 
> Tom Osenkowsky, CPBE
> 
> _______________________________________________
> 
> The BROADCAST [BC] list is sponsored by SystemsStore On-Line Sales
> Cable-Connectors-Blocks-Racks-Wire Management-Test Gear-Tools and More!
> www.SystemsStore.com       Tel: 407-656-3719    Sales at SystemsStore.com

-- 
Brian Urban
Chief Operator
KUT Radio
The University of Texas at Austin
TEL 512-471-1085
CELL 512-940-4757