<a href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/phone-data-to-give-a-picture-of-traffic-disaster-in-l-a/?ref=technology">Phone Data to Give a Picture of Traffic Shutdown in L.A. </a>

NY Times: Phone Data to Give a Picture of Traffic Shutdown in L.A.

In what is locally referred to as Carmageddon:

Chaos is expected to descend on Los Angeles on July 16, when a 10-mile stretch of I-405, a major highway running through the center of town that carries an average of 500,000 cars on a summer weekend, shuts down for more than two days.

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But KABC, the local flagship station for ABC, sees the closure as an opportunity to experiment with technology tools as its plans to report on the mess as it unfolds. The station has partnered with Waze, an Israeli technology company that makes a navigation app for smartphones, to give drivers a real-time picture of what is happening on the roads.

Waze’s app tracks the movement of each of its users to get a sense of traffic, and then directs them to quicker routes based on the data it collects. The company says it has 180,000 users in the Los Angeles area.