Using Cellular Traffic to Monitor Traffic Jams

An Anonymous Coward writes "The BBC has this story about Scots company Applied Generics and their plan to use cellphone location data to determine where there are traffic jams and (presumably) generate (and sell?) evasive routing tactics for drivers. They are using both passive cellular traffic (what you get when the phone is switched on) and active (drivers phoning up to say they'll be late - in standing traffic, I hope) to look for clusters of immobile cellphones along major routes. The whole idea has a sort of "why didn't I think of that?" neatness. Personally I wouldn't mind my own traffic being used wholesale (aggregated with thousands of other users), but how do other /.ers feel about a company profiting from data emitted by the cellphone that they paid for?"

Comments

Have roads, will fill them

[pieterh]

The general rule is: add road capacity, and more people will drive. Inevitably a technology like this will feed back into mobile guidance systems based on GPS, with the final result that every road, major to minor, will be congested equally heavily. Building new roads or using smarter routing techniques will not cut traffic congestion. Living closer to work and using a bike or walking will.

Re:Have roads, will fill them

[Wobbit]

What you say is true, but as long as we have these roads, we should use them to their full potential. I agree we should look for alternative ways of transportation, or encourage people to go and live closer to their work, but that dosn't mean we can't optimize road usage.

Re:Have roads, will fill them

[pieterh]

As far as I can see, and this is confirmed by my own experience of two decades of commuting, people drive because they do not seriously try to find alternatives. Make an effort, look for places to live in the inner cities, find ways to work from home... all these will add to one's quality of life, save hours of wasted time, and cut the amount of waste caused by pushing a ton of metal around the countryside.

So, anything that makes driving less pleasant must be a 'good thing' in this respect, and anything that delays the inevitable must be a bad thing.

Typically people stick to highways, and these will get blocked while smaller roads will stay free. I can't see that 'load balancing' cars onto smaller roads is a good thing. It won't cut anyone's travel time. It won't reduce the total number of cars. It will simply create more accessible road space.

As for the 'potential' of roads: the capacity of a road decreases once you get past a certain car density. The only way I can see of optimizing road usage is to charge for it and raise the price until usage drops to this density.

Re:Have roads, will fill them

[CaptainAlbert]

> The general rule is: add road capacity, and
> more people will drive.

At best, this applies only up to a point. At worst, it's a myth - and a dangerous one. Roads aren't just for car drivers! They're also for cyclists, motobikes and buses. The congestion problem in London (UK) is particularly acute to the extent that the administration is trying to introduce tolls for entering the city centre.

How can they persuade more people to ditch their cars and use public transport? By providing reliable bus and underground services. No-one uses London buses in rush hour, because they're too slow. Why? Because there's so much traffic on the roads, caused by the people who won't take the bus... the only way to break the cycle is to reduce congestion. This means reducing the density of traffic, either by (a) removing cars from the roads, or (b) making the roads bigger, or (c) both of the above.

In London at least, roads don't "cause traffic" as you suggest. No-one in their right mind would try driving in/through London if they didn't absolutely have to.

The issue with cyclists is the same. Nobody want to cycle in central London because it's so dangerous. Why? Because of all the traffic... and so on. Why don't more people walk, instead of driving half a mile down the road? Because the roads are lethal for pedestrians and the pelicon crossings take forever to change. Why? because of all the tra.... :)

Of course, any move to impose congestion charging / extra taxation / higher petrol prices or whatever are met with huge resistance from motoring groups. But by continuing to overuse their cars, they only make the situation worse for themselves.

OK, time to stop my off-topic ranting. I just get irate about these things. :) BTW I don't own a car and neither does my wife; we take the train to work because it's cheaper and safer.

Re:Have roads, will fill them

[Cato]

You are exaggerating - I live in London too, and the trains and tubes are not that bad (at least from where I live). Calling the trains 'a death trap' is ironic when you consider that railway transport is one of the safest ways to travel - far more people die every year on the roads, but this is virtually invisible since it happens in many small accidents, compared to the large and well publicised rail accidents.

The real solution is time shifting and working from home - I commute into work at 9 to 9.30 am and the tubes are nearly empty.

How long before....

[MadKeithV]

They use this to determine if you've been speeding?

"Jim, this guy only took 5 minutes between node 1 and node 2, he must have been travelling over the speed limit!"

Oh well, I guess they've secured funding for this project that way :)

This would be good if..

[yebb]

they also indicated, for how long trafic had been stopped/slow. The article makes mention that this technology isn't that functional because it doesn't give any indication about the reason for the slowdown, but if there is a time period associated with the trafic jam, driver could make assumptions about what the problem was, and wether or not to find alternate routes.

Pf

[zmooc]

...but how do other /.ers feel about a company profiting from data emitted by the cellphone that they paid for?"

This company isn't profiting from data emitted by the specific cellphone you paid for, they're profiting from the collective data emitted by all cellphones around. What's wrong with that? Why would it be wrong for anyone to listen to a certain (group of) frequenc[y|ies] and produce statistical information from the data they receive?! I personally think this is a great idea and if you are having problems with someone receiving the data you send out on a certain frequency then don't send it where everyone can receive it.

only works for the good areas of town?

[tedtimmons]

Hmm. So most cities don't have an even dispersion of cell phones among various neighborhoods. I'm betting that lower-class people are less likely to have a cell phone, and less likely to talk on it while driving.

So would a system like this under-report the traffic in lower-class neighborhoods? Would that cause more money to be poured into traffic mitigation in higher-class neighborhoods, simply because there are more doctors and lawyers talking on their cell phones?

-ted

Why haven't they?

[wbav]

My question is, why haven't they done this with like the onstar system. Or have they? It would seem to me, that if you wanted to make the most money, you'd offer these units for cheap, use their data to find where problem areas were, and charge a monthly fee (of let's say 10 dollars) for traffic data.

If the onstar unit was cheap enough (less than 100) and it offered data that would allow most people to get to work on time, I can't see why people wouldn't find them a invaluable.