TrafficMap is a GoogleMaps™ Mash-Up which processes traffic information and then presents it with the help of Google Maps. What’s new about TrafficMap is the multitude of the available presentation options which in this form is unmatched in the Internet so far. The system facilitates the incorporation and realisation of co-ordinated data as well as the integration of such media as camera or video images.

Congestion and road works messages, travel times or the contents of variable message signs and variable text displays, which are available in a coded form, are processed for visualisation, e.g. the representation on icons and/or the conversion into text messages in the target language of the user.

All that is required for an access on the side of the end user is an Internet browser. When using TrafficMap the data provider does not have to worry about the complex and costly acquisition and maintenance of a digital map, as the maps which are constantly up-dated by Google are employed. TrafficMap uses this optically very appealingly designed map simply as a screen to present upon it the current dynamic traffic data.

Google’s enormous server farm makes it possible for the system to be reliable and scalable without the user having to bear the related cost. Apart from that, the platform offers an abundance of further interesting features which the user itself would be unable to finance, as, for instance, the overlapping with satellite images. As an interface for the data provider TrafficMap supports – among others - international standards such as DATEX II.

On the basis of TrafficMap Heusch/Boesefeldt, in co-operation with the AixTRA e.V., has developed the traffic information service EuregioTraffic for the Aachen region. Here, traffic messages are complied via online connections to the traffic centres of the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany and are then represented graphically as well as in form of lists.