Keeping track of traffic problems via the web

There are a number of different free and paid for sites on the web that allow you to keep track of current traffic problems that might affect you motorway journey in the uk. Two of the best are Realtime Traffic Info and Traffic England both from the Highways Agency. I have recently discovered Traffic Map which seems to be even better. It looks like an improved version of the “Realtime Traffic Info” page without the speed issues that this page can sometimes display. Not only does it display current speed and the text on the large matrix signs it is also able to display the speed matrix signs for the variable speed limit section of the M25 near Heathrow. Very useful.

Site updates

I was musing the other day about how my archives page would look much nicer if the category and date based archives were presented as heat maps. This sounded to me like a good idea for a plugin and I was all set to start coding when I thought I’d better check someone hadn’t thought of my revolutionary idea before! A quick google later and I came upon the “WordPress Heat Map plugin” which provides both heat maps for me. A few minutes later and it was integrated within the site and some CSS added to make it look pretty and all was done.