Could it possibly be bulk data from sensors? I worked on a project in several states for IBM that handled traffic shaping and detection on highways and onramps

Could it possibly be bulk data from sensors? I worked on a project in several states for IBM that handled traffic shaping and detection on highways and onramps. This system was used to identify gridlock and adjust lights at offramps or give people an ETA until theyre downtown. Most adjacent cities were staunchly NIMBY and didnt care to have the state government trenching cable to and fro for traffic control, so the data ended up hopping from town to town on microwave subcontracted from the cellular company that handled the large electric billboards on the highway. the benefit of this was also the ability to route signal control data to large intersections without having to shut them down to dig cable trenches from the IBM network.