Tracking Your Cell Phone for Traffic Reports

BostonBTS writes "IntelliOne Technologies has just launched a real-world test of Need4Speed, a real-time traffic-monitoring system that tracks drivers' cell phones. From their website: 'Unlike any other solution available today, the IntelliOne Roadway Speed Measurement System produces live roadway speeds for all highways and surface streets where mobile phone coverage exists, accurate to within three miles per hour.' Of course, any compulsory phone-tracking system raises privacy concerns. According to an article on LiveScience, 'the personal identification data of users will be stripped from cell phone signals before they are processed by IntelliOne's software.' The cell phone companies have this data, but IntelliOne says they won't be keeping their copy."

Comments

Now all they need

[CrazyJim1]

They need maping software and route planning software that will give you a nifty detour around the latest car wreck. This has been discussed in other Slashdot conversations anyway.

Re:Now all they need

[garcia]

Route planning software doesn't need to have maps. In fact, using my Garmin GPSMap 76CS I routinely leave it on the text directions rather than the map screen because I like to know a couple steps ahead of what the map shows me (especially for city driving).

If they were going to re-route people they could send a couple of SMSs (or the entire message if you have a decent cell phone that merges "large" SMSs into one) with the text directions of where they need to go.

That way it might be worth the privacy implications to some. For me? I'll stick to my autorouting handheld GPS.

Oh yeah, like it's going to be anonymous

[MikeRT]

Who needs Soviet-style internal passports when they can not only GPS-track your cell phone, but can also track how fast you are moving. Here comes version 2.0: it automatically calls the police and tells them approximately where they will need to be to catch you based on your current speed and direction!

Re:Oh yeah, like it's going to be anonymous

[Kesch]

Most cellphones have a few back doors, being OFF isn't always good enough. To truly make sure that your cell phone is inert, you have to remove the battery. (And I do have to do this now and then to conform with security policies involving cell phones and secure areas at my worksite.)

Wanna build something similar with open source?

[BrewerDude]

There's an interesting project called Place Lab that is building a database of, among other things, cell tower ID to physical location mappings. Their goal is to allow you to "[provide] low-cost, easy-to-use device positioning for location-enhanced computing applications."

Now, they don't have all the data that these guys have, since they just sample the tower that your phone currently happens to be talking to, so you may not be able to get accurate short-term speed readings, but I bet a lot of you could think of fun things to do with it!

Disclaimer: I'm not in any way associated with Place Lab, but I'm considering using it for some LBS experiments and would love to see as many people contributing to their database as possible. :)

Tickets for all

[Jthon]

If this is really accurate to 3mph I can imagine police in the future just mailing tickets to people based on cellphone data. It's annoying enough as some places are installing cameras/radar sensors to just mail you speeding tickets.

Can you imagine if anytime you happen to go above the speedlimit in cell range you get a ticket? Everyone will be driving 5 miles under the speed limit all the time to "protect" themselves. I can also see this being used by insurance companies to increase rates on people who tend to speed.

On the plus side there might be some advantage to driving with the cell off with this technology. It might become the only way to get away with speeding. At least some people will get off the phone and pay attention while driving.

Re:Tickets for all

[antagonizt]

Not going to happen... I, for example, carpool and would fight a ticket issued because my carpool leader was speeding. There is no way to distinguish between driver and passenger.

This is not GPS

[RingDev]

Hell, this isn't even about YOUR cell phone. It's about tower traffic. Could it be used by police to locate you? Sure, but it already is! They don't need stripped down traffic information to find out some child molester is heading north bound on hwy 78.

Is it possible for this system to be abused? Sure. Is it likely? Not really. The amount of data the company will be dealing with would make extended storage retarded. Most likely they'll be purging data as soon as the can convert it to summarized information for use in reporting and traffic trend spotting. A small amount of oversight would go a long way. Heck, they could even open source the code, in this case, the code is worthless with out the contracts with the cell providers, but at least the tech sector could take a look and feel more comfy knowing their driving habits are not being recorded.

The other huge boon to this is for the state. Imagine if you could see traffic trends by the minute covering trends over months. You could quickly identify dangerous traffic areas, distractions, traffic quirks, and all sorts of oddities that could be engineered around to reduce injuries, fatalities, and expenses.

-Rick

Re:Warning Calls

[caluml]

I have access to my own phone's location data, and I (apart from doing all sort of other funky stuff with it) set up a system to measure my speed.
It didn't work well.
First, I could only poll it every 15 minutes. Secondly, cells overlap. Thirdly, it just gives you a triangulation based on which towers you can see.
So basically, on a drive to London along the M4, I stuck at exactly 70mph for the test, and it showed me doing everything from 59 to about 84, with one sector at 97. It's not accurate enough. Until the 3G phones come along.
And you can see where I am (or rather where my work phone is (which is on the desk next to me)) now on my homepage....