Microsoft has just made its Bing Maps a lot more useful with the worldwide launch of Clearflow traffic estimation. Clearflow can predict the traffic on the road even if it does not have live traffic data, which means that it is now able to tell you the time it takes to travel from one place to another based on the traffic conditions on the road.
Now, when you ask for directions on Bing Maps, it can provide you with a more accurate travel time based on the traffic. Giving the “view route based on traffic” link will readjust your directions so other routes that are less congested.
Microsoft’s traffic data is calculated based on live traffic data and extrapolated traffic data for roads that does not have live traffic report. For example, Bing Maps can extrapolate traffic on the ramps on a highway by considering live traffic data for the highway itself and traffic on the surround surface street. This technology is called Clearflow, which was previously only available exclusively for folks in the United States.
Will his new feature make you pick Bing Maps over other popular mapping services like Waze and Google Maps?
(Source: Bing Blogs via: Engadget)
