A method, an apparatus, and a computer program product may be provided for requesting traffic data. The apparatus may determine at least one map area comprising road segments, said map area having at least one map area identifier, determine road segment identifiers for the road segments of the at least one map area, send to a data service, a request for traffic data, said request identifying the map area, and receive from the data service, a subtree data structure set, the subtree data structure set comprising a plurality of subtree data structures, said subtree data structures in the set corresponding to traffic ranges. The apparatus may associate a road segment in a corresponding traffic range based on the road segment identifier satisfying one subtree data structure of the traffic range and provide the traffic range as traffic data for the road segment to a navigation application.