Traffic reports

I was in the car recently, and heard a traffic report.  The message was, avoid Mountain Hwy, Bayswater, the railways booms are still stuck down.   And where was I?  Yes, indeed, in Mountain Hwy in Bayswater, and I had just crossed the railway line without hindrance!   Just why I was there is another story, but the so-called "traffic update" was obviously past its use-by time.  And this was on the ABC!

This incident came to mind several times recently when I heard traffic reports on the radio.    I was listening for reports about the major disruptions in William Street.  The water main is being replaced, and for many weeks now, all north-bound traffic has been blocked off, a city block at a time.    While the work was in the city area, for much of the day, there were major delays at the point where the traffic had to divert.   Now I certainly don't spend my days listening to the traffic reports, but on the random selection that I heard, I did not hear a mention of this work.   It didn't seem to rate, perhaps because it was scheduled and presumably drivers were supposed to be aware of it.   Well, not the ones I saw sitting there in frustration (although admittedly there aren't any in the pic below!).  
I see that the suppliers of GPS devices now offer a real-time traffic update service.   I haven't invested in a service of this nature, but if was minded to do so, I would want to be assured that the services was better than those provided for free on the radio.  These seem often to be based on monitoring specific but limited sources and random information derived from callers.