MapQuest and INRIX® today announced a collaboration that will allow consumers and businesses to access the full breadth of INRIX traffic information across multiple MapQuest business units including MapQuest.com, MapQuest Wireless, and MapQuest Platform Services.

The deal represents getting 5X more miles of roads and more markets covered than other map portals (Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, etc). As more and more people realize that these services are out there and can really help you, quality of the data and pure coverage is going to drive decision making. Inrix has the capability to house and offer historical average speeds and predictive traffic that will eventually allow the MapQuest user to do some pretty sophisticated planning of trips. I very much look forward to that day.

The capability was live yesterday and I was able to check it out; and like they said in the press release below, better coverage is key. The traffic feature is also available on MapQuest Navigator, a for fee navigation service for mobile phones.