Traffic.com installed its own sensors along major roads in dozens of American cities to find out where the jams were. It combined that data with other sources and sent live traffic reports to radio and TV stations, websites, phones and in-car navigation. Its reports reached millions of listeners each day. In early 2006 GPS devices were spreading fast. Live traffic was the feature drivers wanted next.

One Dataset, Many Buyers

Traffic.com began in 1998 with a bet that accurate, real-time traffic data would be valuable to many outlets at once. Its own sensor network gave it data rivals did not have. It earned money from licensing that data. It also sold advertising in the traffic reports it produced for broadcasters. Selling the same data many times over was the core of its plan.

Into Navteq's Maps

Traffic.com priced its IPO at $12 a share in January 2006 on the Nasdaq. The company struggled to turn its costly sensor network into a profit. Within a year Navteq, the digital map maker, agreed to buy it. The deal closed in 2007 at about $179 million. Navteq, later bought by Nokia, folded the traffic data into the maps used by car navigation systems.

Cover: The Place du Havre, Paris, Camille Pissarro. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a busy Paris square (traffic).