From Traffic Jams to Green Lights: Faster, Smarter Messaging with Twilio’s Traffic Optimization Engine

Remember the last time you were stuck in traffic and every lane crawled at the same speed, no matter how big a rush you were in? That same jam could happen to your messages too.

Until now, during peak times like Black Friday or Cyber Monday, every alert, confirmation, and friendly reminder joined one giant line. If a carrier slowed down, your whole queue slowed too. Even if some messages needed to sprint ahead. That changes October 31, 2025.

Message volume is growing fast. In fact, last Black Friday alone, Twilio customers sent around 709 million messages, a 36% increase over the previous year. That kind of scale demands smarter traffic management; not just more lanes, but intelligent routing that makes sure the right messages get through at the right time.

Meet the Traffic Optimization Engine (TOE)

Starting October 31, 2025, all U.S. Short Code (SC) and Toll-Free (TF) traffic will move from our legacy Account-Based Rate Limits to the new Traffic Optimization Engine (TOE). Think of it as a smart traffic controller that watches the road in real time and guides each message onto the clearest, fastest route.

Traffic Optimization Engine’s Market Throughput feature keeps traffic separated by carrier, so if one U.S. network slows down, the rest of your messages continue without interruption. During busy seasons, TOE can boost throughput by up to 50%, keeping queues clear and customers happy. 

And to help you stay ahead of the game, you can use the Deliverability Score in Messaging Insights to see how your latency stacks up against industry benchmarks. This means you can monitor your performance and understand how it impacts your traffic health, so you can spot and fix potential issues before they trigger an alert.

How it stacks up

Here’s a quick snapshot of the difference between ABRL and TOE:

Built for today, ready for tomorrow

TOE is more than just an upgrade, it’s the foundation for a future where messaging is continuously optimized in real time, at global scale. From Black Friday surges to everyday customer touchpoints, your most important messages get where they need to go, when they need to get there.

In other words, no more traffic jams, just green lights ahead.