THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2004 vaily 9er 3 New gadget launched to relieve traffic congestion ‘and can easily be slipped into the Dai ner back pocket of a pair of jeans. Contributing Writer ‘TrafficGauge promises to re duce wasted time and unnecessary After four years,TrafficGauge _ stress on the road. Using data di- Upset ite Ms Fee uses information from Caltrans Web site, TrafficGauge provides and Metro traffic data to provide commuters with over 850 miles of ‘commuters with asimple view of freeway coverage in Los Angeles ‘raflicconditions through asmall_ and Orange c-unties. The device is LED sereen. constantly updated at regular four Ryan Peterson, co-founder of minute intervals. fleeting glance ‘TrafficGauge, and his team from _ gives drivers a fixed, no-serolling Seattle developed the gadget. interface of the most current con It is common commuter ditionofthe freeways:ablank road knowledge, that freeways in Los _forsmooth traffic.a solid line shows Angeles and Orange County have _ slow trafficand lashing segment one of the worst traffiecongestion signals crawling traffic. problems in America. Every great invention always In fact, Southern California's has its drawbacks. The trafficcondition ranked the worst ‘TrafficGauge is not any different. inthe nation for the 18th consecu- ‘The 3-by-5 interface may be con- tive year according to a national siderably hard to read for those study released last Friday. who have trouble reading fine ‘The 3-by-5 inch TrafficGauge print, while a monochromatic devicefitsinthepalmofthehand colorScheme may confuse drivers who are trying to figure out the ‘maze of networking freeways. ‘After briefly looking over the layout of TrafficGauge, Dr. ZS. Demirdjian, a Long Beach profes- sor who has boon teaching nd con- dueting: research for 20, years, firmly believes that ‘TrafficGauge, Inc. should redesign the product. Instead of having a single color shade, Demirdjian said they should use a color scheme con- sisting of red for crawling traflie, yellow for slow moving traffic and ‘steen for traffic at speed limit level. “The color-coded version ofthe product would be better for the simple reason that at a glance it would tell you the traffic condi- tions,” Demirdjian said. “Motor- ists are already conditioned with the colors of the street traffic lights to such a degree that with- out any effort they obey the col- ors signifying traffic situations.” ‘However, Ryan Peterson, co- founder of TrafficGauge, said that ina consumer survey, the use of a ‘multi-color scheme was the least, of their concerns for the product. “A majority of users found ‘TrafficGauge to be extremely. helpful in finding faster routes,” Peterson said. ‘After more than six months working on the display of ‘TrafficGauge, the 31-year-old Peterson was certain that the high resolution, LCD screen ‘would provide drivers with the best, quality possible. The $80 device (plus $7.95 jing and handling) comes ita monty S699 service Tse and runs on two AA batteries. TrafficGauge would be worth the purehase if consumers wish to save time and lower stress levels considerably. Peer ee trying tosell a product to college stu- dents,“ market research should be firstconducted on the product, price, and distribution acceptance. In ‘other words, market demandin the ‘product should be established.” ‘Angelina Altobano, a student ‘TrafficGauge “would help college student commuters because it, would give them alternate routes totake... [However] [wouldnotbuy itbecause moneys an issue for me” “Ata commuter university like CSULB, most students [who com- mute) would love a gadget like that,” Demirdjian said. Ryan Peterson could not agree more. “Tabsolutely think that.college student commuters should pur- chase TrafficGauge,” Ryan said. “Once the school year starts up, there is a vast amount of traffic congestion, Using ‘TrafficGauge, students can save time and even swing into a coffee shop or find parking spaces earlier.”