Boston Highway Travel Times

I moved out of the Boston area in July 2004. At that time, I discontinued monitoring Boston traffic. I will, however, keep this page up. If anyone is interested in continuing where I leave off, please contact me.

Being from MIT and a scientist, I started to wonder about trends in traffic and the travel times along the various highways I use. My husband Bill wrote a java program to pull time travel times off of the SmarTraveler website and store them on my computer. I started running the program on July 12, 2002. Currently, it queries the SmarTraveler website every 10 minutes (their approximate update time). It does not run outside of SmarTraveler's operating time (6am - 10pm) or on weekends (although SmarTraveler does operate then).

The data are stored with a "julian date", a time, the route number (like on the SmarTraveler phone menu), and the two travel times (N/S or E/W). The "julian date" starts incrementing with January 1, 1 A.D. as day 1. The time is the number of minutes since midnight. If you are interested in the data for your own uses, just email me: avondale@bu.edu.

I have written a simple C program to analyze the data. I check each time to make sure it's not bogus and shorter than is possible at the speed limit. Then it does a simple summary of the travel times for each route and direction within the morning rush hour (6am - 10am), evening rush hour (3pm - 7pm), and at other times. It also averages the travel times at each 10 minute increment, using a moving 30-min box.

Here are the routes I am monitoring:

• I-93: N/S, code 932. The Southeast Expressway, which is from the southern end of the South Station Tunnel down to the I-93/Rte. 3 split at exit 7.
• I-90: E/W, code 90. The Massachusetts Turnpike. SmarTraveler monitors from the end of the Pike at Logan Airport (as of Jan 20, 2003) out to I-290/I-395 in Auburn.
• Rte. 128: N/S, code 1282 or 953. Also I-95 for part of the way. I am monitoring the southern part, from the interchange with the Mass Pike down to the southern end of the Southeast Expressway, exit 7. Technically the section from exit 12 to exit 7 is not Rte. 128, but SmarTraveler calls it that and so do I.
• Rte. 24: N/S, code 24. From Rte. 128 down to I-495.
• I-95: N/W, code 954. A southern section, from exit 12 on Rte. 128/I-95 down to the Rhode Island border.

Now for some results, from July 12, 2002, through 5pm on June 4, 2004.

The summary: