XM Beefs Up Traffic, Weather Channels

XM Satellite Radio is launching five more traffic and weather channels in major metropolitan areas on Aug. 2.
XM will add traffic and weather channels devoted to Atlanta, Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, Minneapolis-St. Paul, San Diego, and Seattle for a total of 21 traffic and weather channels for XM subscribers nationwide.
XM Instant Traffic & Weather is provided by XM in cooperation with Traffic-data gathering company and programming partner The Weather Channel. Mobility’s Digital Traffic Pulse collects traffic information from local markets nationwide, including drive times, vehicle speeds and volume, and roadway density and transmits the data over a wireless network every 60 seconds to a data center. There, data is warehoused, mined in a proprietary process and aggregated for transmission to XM’s Washington headquarters.
Earlier this year, XM launched 16 traffic and weather channels in: New York City, Los Angeles, Washington, Boston, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Chicago, Houston, Detroit, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Francisco, Tampa-St. Petersburg, Orlando, Baltimore, Pittsburgh and St. Louis.