A few years ago, I created a publicly available traffic app for monitoring traffic incidents in major US cities configured by user. Since then, the provider of the feed has cut down on the number of cities they monitor and no longer provide incident counts per intersection. Nevertheless, they still provide a Jam Factor. A Jam Factor is a subjective number provided for a roadway that indicates how busy (or jammed) the roadway is.
For my reference implementation, I used this Jam factor field to visually allow you to to see your city’s (assuming the provider covers it) current Jam Factor for major highways. This updated traffic app that you can download has new dashboards that you can use to get a current read of traffic conditions. For illustration purposes, I used a Jam factor of 0 to 1 as minor, 2-4 as moderate, and anything greater as severe. The searches use the rangemap command to create the range field and you can change them to match what you think should be minor, moderate, and severe. Here’s the initial dashboard covering Jam Factor using a red/yellow/green chart and an xyseries search.
Jam Factor
Next, I wanted to show a timechart and a Splunk map for where these Jams are happening in this included dashboard.
Traffic Map
Finally, I retained Ron Naken’s Donut Chart to give you an idea of the distribution of Jam Factors within each city and overall for the cities you are monitoring.
Jam Factor Distribution
Of course, the familiar 3rd party Frogger game is referenced in the app for entertainment purposes. Enjoy the updated app.