
511PA 4+
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Designed for iPad
-
- Free
Screenshots
Description
Get the most current and relevant Pennsylvania traffic information on your smart phone without ever taking your eyes off the road or your hands off the wheel with 511PA, brought to you by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT). 511PA provides real-time, hands-free traffic advisories for every PennDOT roadway in Pennsylvania, and for major roadways in neighboring states of NJ and WV, with more to come (visit the 'Settings' tab of the application in order to enable non-PA advisories).
Simply turn on the application before you start your journey. 511PA uses your phone’s built-in GPS and the vast data in the PA, NJ and WV travel information system to determine when you are approaching congestion, an accident scene or some other traffic disruption.
When there is an incident or slowdown nearby, 511PA broadcasts an advisory. Nothing to read, nothing to click, nothing to scroll through. You just leave your phone in the center console or on the seat beside you and focus your attention on the road ahead.
By default, 511PA broadcasts advisories from within a 10-mile radius, but you have the option to reduce or expand the range to as little as one mile or as many as 500 miles. 511PA will automatically repeat advisories every 20 minutes while you remain within range of the incident, but you can change the setting to hear the advisories more or less frequently. You also can elect whether to hear advisories from all directions or just from the direction you’re traveling, and you have the option of filtering out different types of advisories by state or type of roadway.
The application gives you audio player controls for Play, Pause, Stop, Skip, and Replay All. These controls should not be used while operating your vehicle.
If you place or receive a phone call while a travel alert is playing and do not have a plan that allows simultaneous data and voice, the alert will pause, and will resume playing when the call has ended.
You don’t need to register to use the app. 511PA operates anonymously. We don’t receive or record any identifying information about you or your phone. By default, the app reports your device-determined speed and location to our servers. The data generated by collecting that information is useful. It can help improve our ability to provide real-time information about what is happening on our roadways. But if you would rather not participate, you will be able to opt out simply by clicking a radio button on the settings page.
The application is based on Information Logistics’ patent-pending "Open Microphone Platform," which is a queue-driven streaming technology platform used in combination with your phone's built-in GPS.
The application provides real-time advisories via audio, based on your current location. The app subscribes for location updates as soon as the application begins and can be run in the background in order to send you alerts as you travel. The application will continue to check your current radius for the alerts and play them for you. You can run most music and other audio apps in conjunction with our app, which means our application may be in the background running while you utilize other apps.
IMPORTANT – This application is intended to be launched while the user is not operating his or her motor vehicle. User agrees to use the Application responsibly and to avert any interaction with mobile devices while driving a motor vehicle. User understands and acknowledges that the Commonwealth Motor Vehicle Code states that 'No driver shall operate a motor vehicle on a highway or traffic way in this Commonwealth while using an interactive wireless communications device to send, read, or write a text-based communication while the vehicle is in motion.'
IMPORTANT - Please note that continued use of GPS running in the background can dramatically decrease battery life.
IMPORTANT - NON-GPS DEVICES This application will have some limited functionality on these devices.
What’s New
Version 3.00
- New major release!
- New advisory options (see settings) including HAR Push Notifications
- Improved UI
- Bug fixes
Ratings and Reviews
Great App!
I have had this app for a couple years. It is not fancy, but it works. I get the information I am looking for before I leave home. I love that I can put my route and the time stamp of when my roads are taken care of or see where the trucks are if they haven’t.
Works good, just needs tweaking.
Ok, first of all, it needs your current location to give you nearby alerts. Duh.
Secondly, even if, which I doubt is true, they report your speed, if you are obeying the speed limit, who cares? ( Yeah, I forgot, none of you know how to drive, let alone how to obey silly things like speed limits...)
What I feel it does need: send alerts when something, like a road closure, occurs in your vicinity. I had a major road closure just 3 miles away, that I had to look up just to find, after a friend had already told me about it! Kinda pointless if you have to search for things that are important to know about when they are that close.
Real-time weather data. It lags, royally, on current roadway conditions. App showed as clear, but, said road closure above was due to a serious bad weather related accident, bringing down power lines across the roadway. Would not have happens on clear pavement the app said was there.
Fix these two things, you got yourself a five-star, great, well worth your time to get, app.
Useless, runs all the time, drains battery
This app is almost completely useless.
I ran it and allowed it to use my location all the time, yet it kept notifying me of traffic issues in areas no where near where I was or in the wrong direction from where I was traveling. For example I was traveling south on I-95 from Philadelphia and the app kept giving me traffic slowdown announcements for 95 between Aramingo and Girard. I set the app to only inform me of issues in the direction I was driving, but that apparently doesn’t work.
Also the app was notifying me every few minutes. That was annoying because my car has Car Play and every time I got a notification the car switched to playing music from Apple Music instead of the radio. I had to keep switching back.
Finally the app runs continuously in the background, even if the option to give notifications is disabled in the driving screen. I watched the app drain 10% of my phone’s battery over the course of a few hours while I was sitting in my living room.
Considering the alerts the app gives me are mostly not applicable to where I’m driving and the severe battery drain when the app shouldn’t even be doing anything, I strongly recommend against using this app. You’ll get more reliable use from Waze, Google or Apple Maps.
App Privacy
The developer, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy.
Data Not Linked to You
The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:
- Location
- Identifiers
- Usage Data
Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- Executive Office of The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
- Size
- 38.2 MB
- Category
- Travel
- Compatibility
-
- iPhone
- Requires iOS 12.0 or later.
- iPad
- Requires iPadOS 12.0 or later.
- iPod touch
- Requires iOS 12.0 or later.
- Mac
- Requires macOS 11.0 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later.
- Languages
-
English
- Age Rating
- 4+
- Location
- This app may use your location even when it isn’t open, which can decrease battery life.
- Copyright
- © 2023 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
- Price
- Free