INRIX reacts quickly to I-5 bridge collapse, says traffic delays minimal right now

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One Seattle area tech company jumped into action shortly after a portion of Interstate 5 bridge spanning the Skagit River collapsed Thursday night. Within minutes, Kirkland-based INRIX had received notifications from the Washington Department of Transportation of the collapse and had put an operations team in place to update its traffic navigation apps and services…. Read More…

Microsoft emerges as Waze investor, as Google and Facebook weigh $1B bids

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Bloomberg News says this morning that Google may try to acquire Waze, the traffic and mapping technology company that Facebook is reportedly also interested in buying, and plenty of M&A rumors have circulated around the company for months. The stakes are high, with a reported asking price of more than $1 billion. The piece also… Read More…

INRIX names top 10 worst traffic cities, says increased gridlock indicates stronger economy

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Traffic may be getting worse, but it’s a good indicator of a rebounding economy. That’s the latest from Kirkland-based traffic data company INRIX, which just released its sixth annual Traffic Scorecard Annual Report. The company found that after two years of declining traffic congestion, including a 22 percent decrease in 2012, gridlock is increasing through the first few… Read More…

City of Seattle green lights study for new high-tech traffic signals

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Sick and tired of being stuck in nasty Seattle traffic gridlock? Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn feels your pain, and today he announced that the city’s transportation department has inked a deal with transportation firm Transpo to conduct a study to implement a new adaptive traffic signal system in Seattle. That means traffic signals could intelligently respond to… Read More…

City of Seattle releases mobile site and wants your feedback

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The City of Seattle is making it easier for on-the-go citizens to check snow plow maps and see the latest news from the Mayor with a new mobile website optimized for smartphones.  Here are some of the features of the mobile-optimized site: Crime activity displayed by region Power outage maps Traffic & road conditions information with… Read More…

Tracking traffic made easy: INRIX launches digital reporting suite for media

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As the Kirkland-based company inches closer to an IPO, INRIX just released a turn-key set of applications that can help media members deliver traffic information faster and for less money. The traffic information analytics provider is offering something called the INRIX Digital Media Suite made for T.V. and radio media. The web-based app can be… Read More…

Rumor alert: Is Apple looking to buy mobile traffic app Waze?

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One of the more interesting tech rumors of the new year involves Waze, the heavily-funded Silicon Valley startup that specializes in mobile traffic data and easy-to-use navigation apps. Citing unnamed sources, TechCrunch is reporting that Apple, which experienced its share of mobile mapping missteps last year, is in the market to gobble up Waze (perhaps… Read More…

Olympics traffic jams not as bad as feared, INRIX finds

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Gearing up for the Summer Olympics in London, one of the concerns in London was about the traffic. But it turns out the situation isn’t as bad some feared. That’s the word from INRIX, the Kirkland, Wash.-based traffic information startup. The company ramped up its services for the Olympics to help athletes, fans, journalists, British… Read More…

INRIX names ex-Blue Nile CEO to board, strengthens management team

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INRIX is bolstering its board and management team as the Kirkland provider of traffic data continues to add new customers, and possibly positions for an initial public offering. The spin out of Microsoft Research today named former Blue Nile CEO Diane Irvine  to the board, tapping a proven executive with public company experience. At Blue… Read More…

BMW picks INRIX to help drivers maneuver through traffic gridlock

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Earlier today, we told you about a new partnership that integrates the real-time location sharing information from Glympse into the dashboards of new vehicles from Mercedes-Benz. But Glympse isn’t the only Seattle tech upstart linking arms with a big German car company at the Telematics Detroit conference today. In other news from the show, Kirkland-based… Read More…

INRIX names top 10 worst traffic cities (and tells drivers how to avoid gridlock)

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It’s getting easier to travel on the nation’s roadways, but traffic congestion is still eating up plenty of time for frustrated drivers in major cities like LA, San Francisco, New York and Seattle. A report out today from INRIX found that traffic congestion declined by 30 percent last year, with 70 of the top 100… Read More…

INRIX CEO Bryan Mistele on surviving 70 VC rejections

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Bryan Mistele wants to eliminate one of society’s biggest issues — traffic. How’s he going to do it? Find out in this episode of Nextcast. Growing up, Bryan knew he wanted to run his own tech company. After spending time in high school working with electrical engineers, he wrote down a life goal: start and… Read More…

EcoSpeed: Driving directions plus fuel-efficient speeds along the way

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Lots of online mapping services tell people how to get someplace. A new Google Maps mashup, developed by Seattle-based Clarian Labs, also tells drivers how fast (or slow) they should drive along each leg of the route for maximum fuel efficiency — taking into account factors including traffic lights, speed limits and other local traffic… Read More…

Newsmakers 2011: Bryan Mistele guides Inrix on road to success

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With Bryan Mistele at the wheel, Inrix was on the move in 2011. The Kirkland provider of real-time traffic information raised a $37 million venture round from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, signed a multi-million dollar deal with Google and purchased its biggest European rival. The $60 million buyout of ITIS Holdings added $27 million… Read More…

Inrix to provide traffic data to Google in multi-million dollar deal

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Inrix has been on a serious roll lately. And the Kirkland company just scored yet another big deal, winning a multi-year, multi-million dollar contract to provide real-time traffic data to Google’s navigation and mapping properties. “It is obviously a very big win for Inrix in terms of providing data to the premier search provider on… Read More…

Geek of the Week: Ryan Peterson, traffic data guru

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We’ve been tracking Ryan Peterson for many years, after a traffic jam inspired him to start TrafficGauge, a Seattle startup that marketed a dedicated traffic data device that gave drivers a real-time view of conditions on the road. This was long before smartphones made this type of thing an everyday capability. (TrafficGauge was acquired in… Read More…

Zillow doubles traffic, tops 25 million visitors in August

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Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff has been pretty bullish about the online real estate company’s prospects, telling GeekWire recently that the housing downturn has accelerated the migration of advertising budgets for real estate professional from offline to online. Now, we are getting a closer look at just how well the company is doing, at least in terms… Read More…

Job growth exceeds estimates in Seattle’s booming South Lake Union neighborhood

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On a recent summer afternoon, Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood is buzzing with activity. Amazon. com employees line up at a popular burrito truck to grab a quick bite, and at a nearby coffee shop entrepreneurs chat about their next move. Given the energy, it is a bit hard to imagine that the neighborhood was… Read More…

Inrix speeds ahead with buy of rival ITIS, looks to reduce global traffic congestion

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Inrix, the provider of real-time traffic information, just got a lot bigger. The Kirkland company said that it has completed its acquisition of UK-based ITIS Holdings, which bolsters Inrix’s already fast-growing revenue base by $27 million and brings on board 155 new employees. Inrix announced its $60 million bid for ITIS late last month, just… Read More…

Traffic tech company Inrix bids $60M for European rival

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That didn’t take long. A few days after landing $37 million in venture capital financing, saying it planned to use the money to pursue acquisitions, Kirkland-based traffic data company Inrix today announced a $60 million bid to acquire traffic technology and data company ITIS Holdings, its primary competitor in Europe. Inrix, which specializes in real-time… Read More…