Inrix recently unveiled an AI-based platform for U.S. broadcasters, which turns incident information and connected-vehicle data into traffic scripts or AI-voiced audio tracks.
The company says AI Traffic Reporter uses 20 years of its own data, aided by generative AI, to automate radio traffic reporting. The Mission Control application, as seen below, displays the incidents and congestion data from which the AI-generated bulletins are created.
“Essentially, AI Traffic Reporter digests all of this information — even for a very busy area like New York City — and extracts the most impactful issues on the road, places them in a script and produces a natural sounding audio clip that can be sent right to air,” Inrix SVP of Enterprise Mike Cottle said.
Its ability to produce context for each incident, Cottle believes, separates the platform from tools such as Apple Maps or Google Maps.
He cited examples such as how long construction might last or the severity of a highway collision.
The company’s traffic services are used by approximately 640 radio stations in the U.K., where all commercial radio stations, as well as the BBC, use Inrix’s travel and traffic alerts, according to Cottle.
Inrix has also previously partnered up with Total Traffic Network.
The tool can be used to automate all of a traffic department’s typical duties, straight to on-air delivery. AI Traffic Reporter’s synthetic voice be trained with local voices or the specific voice of an on-air host or reporter. The company offers a demo with AI voice, shown in the video below.
About 295 of the stations who use Inrix’s services in the U.K. are using AI-generated audio bulletins that are played out over the air, Cottle said. Another 197 use AI-generated scripts, without audio, which are then read out by human reporters.
“Our radio station customers have benefited from the ability to decrease their production costs but still maintain the advertising and sponsorship revenue associated with traffic alerts,” Cottle said.
The remainder of those stations use Inrix’s incident browser to create their own scripts manually and then read them over the air.
Inrix was founded in 2004 and offers what it describes as “intelligent mobility solutions” that stem from big data produced by connected devices and vehicles.
