• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, June 18, 2014

Out-of-home advertising is getting more precise metrics courtesy of the Traffic Audit Bureau, which unveiled an array of new products promising more detailed information about the visibility of outdoor ads and the number of people who notice them.
 
The new metrics incorporate data on vehicle speeds from INRIX, a traffic information company that provides traffic data used in car navigation systems, mobile navigation apps and traveler information services, as well as eye-tracking studies conducted by Perception Research Services.
 
The data available to TAB includes traffic volumes on over 250,000 miles of roads across the U.S., INRIX speed data from over 100 million “smart” cars or other devices, reported on an hourly and daily basis, and over 50,000 eye-tracking studies by PRS.
 
These data will allow TAB to produce “spot” ratings for ads on digital billboards, which can display multiple messages. The new data on ad exposure should support outdoor advertising companies’ efforts to sell digital ad inventory by day-parts or even smaller time increments.
 
To date, the new service has measured over 32,000 ad spots rotating on over 4,000 digital billboards across the U.S. Overall, TAB measures approximately 375,000 ads on standard roadside ad surfaces nationwide.
 
Separately TAB also announced that it will begin reporting ratings for a number of transit advertising formats, including bus and rail, station interiors and “mobile” billboards. The new transit ad ratings service will measure over 1.5 million ads in dozens of the top DMAs.
 
TAB audience data includes demographic characteristics based on data from 15 million individuals surveyed by the U.S. Census Bureau. The updated ratings offer information on around 250 audience segments broken down by age, sex, income, ethnicity and other characteristics.
 
Back in 2010, the TAB launched “Eyes On” ratings, which reflect the actual likelihood of seeing ads, based partly on visibility and travel surveys conducted with drivers and pedestrians, replacing previous metrics based on “opportunity to see.&rdquo ;