How to evaluate a traffic management system: a buyer's framework

Three vendor proposals on your desk this week, and all three decks say the same thing: real-time, AI-powered, comprehensive. None of that tells you which one to trust. And whatever you sign here does not stay your problem for long, it becomes the next person's, along with every claim in that deck nobody got around to checking.

This is a framework for right before that signature, not after. Six questions, built to test the product instead of the pitch.

We build TraffiCure, so obviously we have skin in this, and we are not going to pretend we do not. What we can do is keep the six questions honest: run them against every name on your list, ours included, and we will tell you straight where we land on each one, so you can go check it yourself.

What you are actually deciding, before you evaluate a single vendor

Most evaluations go wrong at step zero: nobody wrote down which problem the system is supposed to solve. "Traffic management system" covers at least three different jobs, and they call for different tools.

• Enforcement. Reading number plates, catching red-light violations, issuing challans. This needs cameras and ANPR. Nothing else does this job.
• Signal actuation. Telling one junction's signal when a vehicle is waiting. This needs a point sensor, a loop or a radar, sitting at that junction.
• Network-wide monitoring and planning. Knowing which of your 900-plus roads are slow right now, and why. This is a coverage problem, not a point-sensor problem, and it is the job most cities do not have a system for at all.

A vendor that is excellent at job one will look unimpressive on job three, and the reverse. Before you score anyone, write down which job you are buying for. Most of the criteria below assume you have already answered that, or that you are buying for more than one job and need to know which vendor covers which.

If you have not got that far yet, the five questions worth answering before the next camera tender works through it from the city's own side: what you can already see, and what you cannot.

Which category of alternative are you actually comparing?

Once you know the job, most proposals fall into one of a handful of categories, and that alone tells you a lot before you have scored a single criterion.

If your shortlist includes any of these names, we have already done the full head-to-head: TraffiCure vs INRIX, vs TomTom Move, vs HERE Technologies, vs Kapsch TrafficCom, and vs traditional camera ITMS. Worth reading the specific one before you score that vendor on the framework below, since several of the red flags in each criterion are exactly where each of these categories tends to be weakest.

The six criteria that actually separate vendors

1. Coverage: a point, or the network?

Ask this: "What percentage of our road network, in kilometres, will this monitor on day one?" Not junctions. Kilometres.

Red flag: An answer in junction counts. "200 junctions" sounds like a lot until you learn the city has 15,000-plus segments, that is 2 to 3% coverage, and the vendor knows it. Why 97% of a city's roads are invisible has the arithmetic.

Why it matters: Every other capability, alerts, analytics, reports, only covers what the system can see.

How TraffiCure answers this: 100% of the road network, via Google Maps RMI probe data, not point sensors.

2. Data source and refresh rate

Ask this: Where does the data actually come from, hardware or an existing feed, and how often does it refresh?

Red flag: A refresh rate with no caveat. Camera and loop systems typically refresh every 5 to 15 minutes and degrade in fog or monsoon; probe data can thin out on quiet roads overnight. Every source has a limit.

Why it matters: Refresh rate caps how early you can act. Signal control needs sub-second response; incident alerts are fine on a 2 to 5 minute cadence.

How TraffiCure answers this: Google Maps RMI, every 2 minutes. Honest limit: not built for signal control, and quiet segments can thin out overnight.

3. Deployment timeline and cost structure

Ask this: Signature-to-dashboard time, and the full cost, capex, AMC, hardware replacement, not just year one.

Red flag: A quote covering installation only. Camera-based ITMS commonly runs 2 to 3 years, and 30 to 40% of cameras fail within two years, an unbudgeted repair bill.

Why it matters: A multi-year rollout outlasts the official who signed the contract.

How TraffiCure answers this: 2 to 4 weeks, subscription pricing, zero capex, no AMC or hardware to replace.

4. Integration with what you already have

Ask this: Does this replace our existing ATCS and VMS, or sit alongside them? What is the actual integration path?

Red flag: "Full replacement" pitched as a feature. Most cities do not need to rip out infrastructure that is already working.

Why it matters: Cameras still do enforcement best; the realistic end state for most cities is hybrid.

How TraffiCure answers this: Sits alongside an existing ITMS via API. Cities keep cameras for enforcement and add us for the roads cameras were never pointed at.

5. Proof of impact, not projected impact

Ask this: Can you show a live city's before-and-after, measured by that city itself?

Red flag: Every number is a lab estimate or a pilot the vendor ran internally. That is not evidence.

How TraffiCure answers this: Pune City Traffic Police measured it themselves, and said so publicly:

"Over the last two months of using the application, we have observed that the average vehicular speed has increased to 26.8 kmph from 20 kmph."
Additional Commissioner of Police Manoj Patil, Pune City Traffic Police

20 to 26.8 km/h is a 34% gain, across 964 roads. The full case study has the before-and-after methodology.

6. Track record you can actually call

Ask this: Which cities run this in production today, and can we speak directly with the team?

Red flag: References that are all pilots, or all mediated through the vendor.

Why it matters: A pilot proves a system worked once. A live reference proves what happens after the sales team leaves.

How TraffiCure answers this: Pune City Traffic Police, named and contactable directly, with seven city deployments to date across India and the Middle East.

Questions worth putting directly into the RFP

A handful of specific questions tend to separate a serious proposal from a polished one before you are deep into evaluation.

• What is the total road-network length in our city, and what percentage will your solution monitor from day one versus after further installation?
• What is the data refresh rate during peak hours specifically, not the advertised average?
• What is the full 5-year cost, itemised by capex, subscription or AMC fees, and hardware replacement?
• Name three agencies running this in production today. May we contact them directly, without your team present on the call?
• What happens to functionality during a data outage, hardware failure, or connectivity loss?
• What proof do you have of measured, before-and-after impact, reported by the agency, not modelled by you?
• If you are a global probe-data reseller or a hardware ITS integrator, what is your coverage density specifically on Indian residential and arterial roads, not highways? This is the number that category of vendor is least likely to volunteer.

What this means for your shortlist

None of the six criteria above are specific to any one vendor, they are the questions any serious proposal should survive. Run them against every name on your list, including us, and check the "How TraffiCure answers this" line under each one against the actual answers a vendor gives you, not against this article.

If you are still working out which monitoring method fits which job, how cities monitor traffic compares the five in use today. For the head-to-head on hardware, see the full TraffiCure vs traditional ITMS breakdown →